Necessary Roughness

HT: Drudge

The Detroit Free Press reports that in certain situations, adultery can be a first-degree sexual assault charge, according to the reading of a statute by the Michigan Court of Appeals. First-degree sexual assault carries a life sentence.

After the article covers how the situation unfolded, the most interesting tidbit actually is:

In many other states, judges may reject a literal interpretation of the law if they believe it would lead to an absurd result. But Michigan’s Supreme Court majority has held that it is for the Legislature, not the courts, to decide when the absurdity threshold has been breached.

Whitbeck noted that Murphy’s opinion questions whether state lawmakers really meant to authorize the prosecution of adulterers for consensual relationships.

“We encourage the Legislature to take a second look at the statutory language if they are troubled by our ruling,” he wrote.

Much credit needs to be given to the Michigan Supreme Court. This is legislative accountability at work. Absurd results are the domain of the legislature; leaving them in the hands of a single judge makes him a tyrant. Jury nullification can make for an oligarchy.

The fact that no adultery charge has been convicted in Michigan in 1971 means that the state’s attorneys general have been slacking. If a law isn’t meant to be enforced, it should be off the books. If the AG doesn’t like it, he still has a job to do, and he should be prosecuting it to show how absurd it is, even if he’s guilty of it himself as in this case.