There are numerous "intent" laws, where it is a crime to possess a physical object "with intent to" commit a certain crime, or if that physical object is "intended for" something that is a certain type of crime. Obviously the law can't look inside the mind of the suspect to know if he was planning to commit a future crime, so what this ends up meaning is that certain physical objects can end up being interpreted as being a crime if other physical objects are also found. Do you see the problem with these type of laws? The law basically hands the interpretation over to law enforcement and the courts to determine whether it is a crime. You could have something, which is perfectly legal, but if police find other things (which are also legal) then that first thing can become illegal. A combination of things which are legal can become illegal. Well, I suppose from a certain perspective that's not really all that unusual. Law enforcement is always looking for forensic evidence, any type of thing that constitutes evidence, including physical things they might find. The difference though is that in that case they already have proof or a witness testimony that a crime was committed. What we are talking about here is law enforcement taking this evidence to perceive that a crime has been committed when there is no proof or witness testimony. That would be kind of like if police pieced together forensic evidence to conclude that a certain individual had committed murder, when the police had never found a dead body or had any reason to believe there had been a killing in the first place. One has only to look to criminal statutes concerning drug and weapon crimes to find countless examples of these intent laws. In some instances the physical object itself is illegal already, but if the separate intent law applies it becomes a far more serious crime with more punishment. In a certain sense, these type of laws are very vague. The law never specifies the exact type of evidence requirements to prove that there was "intent". There is a certain type of fundamental unfairness to these laws. I'm sure the majority of you will think "Who cares?" or "They would never use these laws that way unless they had really good reason to think the person was guilty of that." Well, I will share a very personal story with you. This happened to me. For the sake of personal privacy reasons I will have to be very vague here, but I am including all the fundamental relevant details. I'm sorry if this is frustratingly vague as to be useless to you, but that's the way it is. Law enforcement went into home A and found something electronic (C). Someone claimed that that electronic thing appeared like it could do a certain type of thing. (This claim was made because they wanted to get a warrant to search home B) They also found a collection of items (A), which were all legal to own, in home A. Other people were storing things in home A, and in fact that collection of items did not belong to me. The owner of home A had a connection to me. Based on this, the law enforcement was granted a warrant to search home B, which was legally connected to my name. There they found a collection of items (B), which was not illegal by itself. In fact some rather ordinary things. However, based on the law, that collection of items (B) was (if the wording of the law was interpreted literally) a crime to possess, especially together with thing C. Maybe this is not relevant but let me add I had been far away from home A and home B for over a month, and at the time those places were searched I was more than a thousand kilometers away. Theoretically, if the law was interpreted literally, what thing C was claimed to appear to be would be illegal. However, within the context of the situation, it would have been ridiculous for anyone to interpret the law that way without some type of other evidence. Collection of items B became illegal under the law once "intent" was shown by thing C, as well as collection of items A, in a more indirect sense. In other words, things A, B, and C. All of which were not illegal. B was a collection of ordinary things. Someone just grabbed thing C, which was just electronic, and claimed it appeared like it could do something. That made it illegal, and then was apparently enough to prove that B was illegal. There was nothing else that should have been able to constitute evidence other than things A, B, and C. The crime was, in a way, basically "intent". That covers the evidence. I can't go into all the details of exactly what happened after that for privacy reasons, but I was sent to prison. The bail was set at an exorbitant amount, more than the cost of a house in many places. Numerous restrictions in place. Maybe this is a way I can describe it without having to go into detail: If someone was arrested for drunk driving and it was their second time they had been arrested for drunk driving, and they punched the officer who was arresting them in the face without hurting them too bad, what they would have to go through might still not be as bad as what I was put through. I think that's a way to get the message across to you. The law technically allowed all that to be done. Keep in mind none of these things were shown to have a direct connection to me. They were just found inside home A and home B, which had a connection to me. Now, if anyone had actually seen thing C, that was grabbed, it would probably have been evident that it did not obviously appear to be what was claimed. It didn't matter, one law enforcement person could just claim that they found something that looked like something else, make a report and that was enough. I wasn't even informed of thing C for several months while all this was going on. Throughout this entire thing there seemed to be vague insinuations that I might be likely to commit a serious crime, but no solid evidence for it. Sorry, I can't go into further detail because of specific privacy reasons. But I think this basic outline of the story (even if it's lacking in context) is enough to demonstrate how these type of laws can be used, or misused. The wording of the law in this case is such that, even if evidence was shown that thing C was obviously not what it was claimed to appear to be, that law enforcement person could still probably claim some remotely plausible deniability, and would never be held responsible for everything, because it would be claimed there were too many other surrounding circumstantial factors. Maybe stating it another way, the way the law is worded allowed something very tiny to turn something else that was legal into something illegal, and the thing was tiny enough that it's more complicated than just a simple case of a law enforcement person casually claiming something false about the evidence. The law itself, and how the law was interpreted, are also equally to blame. In some ways this idealized concept of "rule of law" is a little bit of an illusion. There are a huge number of laws that could be interpreted in all sorts of ways, and what the required evidence needs to be. What that means is ridiculous things that should not be illegal can technically be illegal, and even if the evidence does not indicate that what you did was illegal, the law can easily allow your freedom to be taken away. Some more cynical might view these "intent" laws as "thought crimes". People being arrested because the evidence points towards them probably thinking something. Wouldn't that be a literal interpretation of what "intent" is? You don't think a jury applies that definition when they are reading and deliberating on the law? We are talking about looking for crimes where no crime may have been committed. Trying to predict future crimes and arresting people now. Sure, that might be very convenient for law enforcement, but I believe there is something fundamentally and intrinsically unfair about that. Simple laws can end up having very complex implications no one would have foreseen unless they gave it a lot of thought and started thinking about imaginary possible scenarios.
