''Lambert v. California'', 355 U.S. 225 (1957), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

case regarding the defense of

ignorance of the law In law, (Latin for 'ignorance of the law excuses not'),''Black's Law Dictionary'', 5th Edition, p. 672 or ('ignorance of law excuses no one'),''Black's Law Dictionary'', 5th Edition, p. 673 is a legal principle holding that a person who is unaw ...

when there is no legal

notice Notice is the legal concept describing a requirement that a party be aware of legal process affecting their rights, obligations or duties. There are several types of notice: public notice (or legal notice), actual notice, constructive notice. ...

.Criminal Law, 7th edition, 2012; John Kaplan,

Robert Weisberg Robert I. Weisberg is an American lawyer. He is the Edwin E. Huddleson Jr. Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. Weisberg is an authority on criminal law and criminal procedure, as well as a scholar in the law and literature movement. Educa ...

Guyora Binder Guyora Binder (born 7 November 1956) is a legal scholar and writer. Binder has been faculty at University at Buffalo Law School and Boston University School of Law, and has been published in the Boston University Law Review. In 2012, he wrote ' ...

The court held that when one is required to register one's presence, failure to register may be punished only when there is a probability that the accused party had knowledge of the law before committing the crime of failing to register.

Background

Lambert had previously been convicted of

forgery Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally consists of the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific mens rea, intent to wikt:defraud#English, defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be fo ...

, a felony in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. She was unaware that a

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

city ordinance A local ordinance is a law issued by a local government such as a municipality, county, parish, prefecture, or the like. Hong Kong In Hong Kong, all laws enacted by the territory's Legislative Council remain to be known as ''Ordinances'' () ...

required that she, being a felon, register if she remained in the city for more than five days. The ordinance stipulated that she, as a convicted criminal, could be fined $500 and sentenced to up to six months in jail for every day that she remained in the city after the five-day limit. When she was arrested on suspicion of committing another offense, she was convicted for failure to register. As Lambert was not allowed to use her lack of knowledge as a defense, she was convicted, fined $250, and sentenced to three years probation. Lambert appealed her case, arguing that she had no knowledge that she had to register her name and that convicting her would deprive her of

due process Due process of law is application by the state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to a case so all legal rights that are owed to a person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual p ...

under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Decision

The Supreme Court reversed Lambert's conviction by holding that knowledge or probability of knowledge of a statute is required to convict someone of a notice offense. Justice William Douglas, who delivered the majority opinion for the Court, wrote: However, the Court did not overturn the right of states and municipalities to force occupants to register for a given purpose. The Court held that because the ordinance that forced convicted felons to register was not accompanied by any action, and there were no circumstances that would lead felons to be aware of their duty to register, the ordinance was unconstitutional. The Justice continued:

Significance

This case is an exception to the legal principle '' ignorantia legis non excusat'' ("the ignorance of the law is not a suitable excuse for breaking it") because this case deals with the absence of "actual knowledge" (Lambert v. California, Page 355 U. S. 229) of a law that came about from a "wholly passive" (Lambert v. California, Page 355 U. S. 228) conduct, whereby there was "no proof of the probability of such knowledge" because the absence of "actual knowledge" of the law came about from a "wholly passive" conduct.

References

External links

* {{caselaw source , case = ''Lambert v. California'', {{ussc, 355, 225, 1957, el=no , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/355/225/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep355/usrep355225/usrep355225.pdf , oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/1956/47 United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court United States due process case law 1957 in United States case law 1957 in California Legal history of California History of Los Angeles Ignorance

Background

Decision

Significance

See also

References

Further reading

External links