Abstract
Mankind has been fashioning laws for millennia. And while the form and substance of laws vary widely across times and places, all laws are unified by a fundamental reality that transcends the particular legal and political institutions of the day. To put it simply: laws only work if someone is prepared to enforce them.
As arbiters of the American legal system, state and federal judges are aware that—in order for a law to have the conduct-influencing effect it was designed to have—it must be supported by some version of an “or else” clause, a punishment or penalty sufficient to dissuade the public from ignoring the law’s content. Because of this reality, judges are necessarily placed in a difficult position when the legislature passes a law that proscribes certain conduct but fails to denote a penalty for violation.
This Note examines the application of statutes without sanctions in cases of evidentiary exclusion. To that end, this Note considers policies of default nonenforcement, causal relation analysis, and a basic purpose inquiry. Because the role of the judiciary is—at its core—to effectuate the will of the people as expressed by their legislative representatives, this Note concludes that applying a causal relation test or a basic purpose test is the best way for judges to navigate the application of statutes without sanctions.
Recommended Citation
Christian Davis, Or Else: Statutes Without Sanctions and the Doctrine of Meaningful Interpretation, 83 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 340 (2026), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr-online/vol83/iss5/2
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