Justice and Legal Codes

Somehow the enforcement of the law is defined as justice in a dictionary I read a while back. It shocked me so much I still remember it. My Webster's New World Compact Desk Dictionary and Style Guide gives a vague but better definition. The seven definitions include "fairness, rightfulness, reward or penalty as deserved" (Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2002). This is how I always felt was Justice served. Of course, a case by case assessment for a specific penalty is required as no two violations are often the same (except repeat offenders), so to get the penalty deserved each case needs customization of the suggested penalties for a penalty to fit the particular crime.
The Ten Commandments are a wonderful guide to law and order and are certainly the guide to being a good neighbor. Of course being harmless and blameless are excellent guidance as well from the New Testament of The Bible. I was thrilled to find in the book of James in the Bible New Testament Texts the law to be as one was to be judged by was translated liberty or freedom, and such depending on the translation being read.
In my own personal view, there are those who obey the law because it is the law and so they avoid legal hassles (the blameless). There are those that break the law to run outlawed harmless businesses providing goods or services the lawmakers forbid in their state of law (the harmless). There are those as well that commit such annoying crimes that everywhere the peace of the people is protected by law the crimes these fellows commit are what I consider "criminal". These include homicide, rape, robbery, assault, kidnapping, and hostage-taking alike as well as inappropriate false communications such as perjury or shouting fire in a building when there is no fire. These I feel sufficiently disliked in common among good people as to be most likely outlawed where the people are protected by law.
Legal codes that do not grant all under their jurisdiction full right to anything harmless they know to be harmless (no semantic arguments please) violate the greater liberty known to them harmless to indulge in. They are tolerable but surely states of law that practice a form of "prohibition" that outlaws can thrive in often providing the outlawed goods and services to those willing to take the risk and pay the price. Even our American founding fathers could have been hung for treason if they had failed to win the Revolution...