I keep on wondering about how it is that legislators seem to be completely oblivious to obvious counterexamples. Take the definition of a riot in Texas law:
For the purpose of this section, “riot” means the assemblage of seven or more persons resulting in conduct which: (1) creates an immediate danger of damage to property or injury to persons; (2) substantially obstructs law enforcement or other governmental functions or services; or (3) by force, threat of force, or physical action deprives any person of a legal right or disturbs any person in the enjoyment of a legal right.
Note some curious things. First, there is no restriction in (1) to unauthorized damage to property. Thus, a team of seven demolishing an old building or a party of seven friends eating up a pizza constitute a riot, no matter how sedately they go about their business.
Second, neither is there a restriction to reasonably expected danger to property or persons. Thus, it counts as a riot when seven people walk on an unsound bridge, even when they do not know the bridge to be unsound. Fortunately, in this case, although the definition of a riot is satisfied, such participation in a riot is not an offense, since according to the what comes later, it’s only an offense when one “knowingly participates in a riot”.
There are counterexamples to (2) as well. Thus, consider a team of seven building inspectors who inform a local government office that the office walls are full of black mold. As a result, the office closes for a week while relocating to a temporary location. The conduct of the building inspectors substantially obstructed “governmental functions or services”.
Maybe governments should have bug trackers for laws, aimed solely at cases where the law’s wording does not match the intent.
Or maybe this is just an argument for originalism over textualism in legislative interpretation. One assumes that the Texas legislature did not wish to criminalize the consumption of a meal by seven or more people, even if the plain sense of the words classifies such consumption as a riot. (Though there is a potentially tricky interpretive question in the “knowingly participates in a riot”. Is it enough to know that one’s conduct satisfies conditions (1), (2) or (3), or does one have to know explicitly that it satisfies the definition of a “riot”. A typical group of seven people eating a meal do know that the food they eat is property that is being destroyed, but unless they are lawyers or law geeks, they don’t know that the law classifies such destruction as a riot. Perhaps the legislature wished to outlaw meals had by seven or more lawyers or law geeks?)
