Even lawbreakers rely on legal certainty to gauge how far they can go

Evidence

According to Oliver Wendell Holmes, a famous justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, this applies to bad people as well as good ones. Even bad people crave certainty about the law, so that they know how far they can go without running afoul of governmental authorities. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 187

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Holmes’s ‘bad man’ theory of law from The Path of the Law, a foundational American legal realist text. — connects to: Most people conform to law and even wrongdoers crave legal certainty — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 182; Laws shape behavior even among those who violate them — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1047; Legal rules intentionally incorporate arbitrary detail to maximize certainty and predictability. — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 534 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Laws shape behavior even among those who violate them #expands (0.95) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1047
• Legal rules intentionally incorporate arbitrary detail to maximize certainty and predictability. #expands (0.78) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 534
• Codified legal codes deter crime through abstract certainty of punishment #qualifies (0.75)
• Potential offenders perceive risk more accurately than law-abiders do #expands (0.72)