Mark Levison, The Levison Group
Laws are funny things. It wasn’t that long ago that three strikes and you’re out laws were infamously sending people to jail for a very long time — for selling very small amounts of marijuana. Now, in such odd places as Georgia, Missouri, Florida, and the Carolinas, legislatures are, all of a sudden, considering the legalization of medical marijuana, and many states seem to be in a big rush to authorize gay marriages. It is a little surprising.
My recent depositions in Las Vegas ended early so I went out to the pool before catching the flight back home. On the row of lounge chairs in front of me laid an inebriated group of sunning twenty-something girls. Their swimming suits would have gotten them arrested for indecent exposure at an earlier time in a different place, but here one of the girls was loudly and publicly proclaiming that she had just hired a hooker. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that men were getting arrested for “solicitation” after falling into police sting operations for such activities.
Shortly after leaving Las Vegas, I flew to East Africa. There, western inspired law is still fledgling, and uncomfortably co-existing with the “law of the jungle.” The natural laws in Africa quite clearly take precedence over the newer and more transient human laws. On the savannah there are no motion dockets or civil trial weeks; there are rainy seasons and dry seasons. The animals respond accordingly as they have, seemingly forever. The great migration on the Serengeti Plains predictably happens every year. It is not dependent on the legislature or convocations of the Pan African Congress. I’ve been to East Africa during droughts where antelopes were skin and bones, perishing from causes other than the lions. Of course, certain species of animals eat others, and some species provide the source of nutrition for the carnivores — it’s the law of the jungle. Herbivores often meet their end at water holes or rivers which they need to visit to survive — that’s the way it is. Mothers of virtually all species protect their babies and pass lessons on to them. That is the natural law — pretty much everywhere.
From East Africa I headed to Russia. Although they have elections in Russia (Vladimir Putin “won” the presidency once again in 2012), Russian laws don’t seem to have the same sanctity as natural laws in Africa or the man-made laws in America. Whatever the reasons, the Russian people, who have an historic and proud culture, don’t place the same emphasis on the statutory law that we do in America. They’ve had a long history of authoritarian rule from the Rurik and Romanov dynasties through the Communist party regime and to the present.
June in St. Petersburg — near the Arctic Circle — is light almost all of the time. Although cold by American standards, “White Nights” is a time for sunbathing and festivities in the former Russian capital. Moscow, unlike in the days of the Bolsheviks, is a thriving capitalist city filled with billionaires and Lamborghinis. However, the rising capitalist tide has not significantly altered the long tradition of authoritarian government and lack of civil rights.
It’s interesting to reflect on the different type of laws, or lack thereof, that seem to dominate the countries I recently visited. Well, ok, I admit it. Newspaper deadlines being what they are, I had to write this column before I left for abroad, so I had to imagine what it is like in East Africa and Putinville. At the time you are reading this column, I am likely viewing lions in Ngorongoro Crater, an ancient volcanic caldera (aka, a very large hole in the ground caused by the collapse of a volcano long before the time Cro-Magnon man hunted saber tooth tigers). Or perhaps I am staring at the snowy top of Kilimanjaro, rising over 19,000 feet into the African air, and imagining I am Ernest Hemingway. Anyway, I’ll be back soon and let you know how it really was.
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Under Analysis is a nationally syndicated column. Mark Levison is a member of the law firm Lashly & Baer. You can reach the Levison Group in care of this paper or by e-mail at comments@levisongroup.com.
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