At 07:37 PM 5/2/97 +1000, Caroline Seawright wrote:

Maybe if you go to another place, and break a custom that you didn't
know about, then it's your fault? And that you should be forced to
do the punishment for breaking that custom, even though you didn't
know about it?

I mean, really.

  It happens all the time, whenever a custom also happens to be a local
law.  What if the Amazon village had been a legally autonomous region where
these customs were law?  It is a standard principle of law around the world
that ignorance of a law is no excuse, but serves only to lessen the penalty
at the discretion of the court.  



  Spam: I may be interviewing Richard Posner, U.S. federal judge and a top
legal theorist (who also happens to be an adjunct law prof. here at
Chicago) for one of the school newspapers.  Perhaps I should ask him about
the above point.  It would be interesting to hear his views. 

Kun-chan, you may be interested to know that he wrote a book entitled "Sex
and Reason." 

                                                                    dml