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"Not Illegal" Justification
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Generally speaking, just because something is legal doesn't mean it's considered moral; while every society has its share of taboos, not every given taboo is explicitly illegal. While some understand and hold this idea, others have no qualms about performing even the most reprehensible actions under the reasoning that so long as there is no written law forbidding it, it's perfectly okay. The mentality of people who follow this trope can vary; a law-abiding villain pleading for mercy might use the law in order to avoid retaliation by a hero and/or one of their victims. Some people may cite the law as a way of smugly taunting people who call them out or try to have them arrested. Others might say this out of bewilderment, earnestly believing what they're doing is perfectly fine because they equate the law with morality. Still, others might say this as a way of soothing their own conscience, telling themselves that their actions aren't wrong because they broke no laws. There are a number of acts that this trope can apply to; an Indirect Serial Killer who drives people to suicide might claim they're not murderers because their victims killed themselves. In a society that frowns on but legally allows adults marrying children, a pedophile might use that fact to defend themselves from their detractors. A parent who kicks out their child as soon as they reach the age of majority might justify themselves by claiming that they have no legal obligation to take care of their child. While these types of characters don't usually suffer any sort of legal consequences, they will often suffer from some sort of karma regardless. Some common types include being ostracized, beaten, or murdered. In religious works, these types of characters will often receive punishment by being sent to hell or some other divine punishment. Some stories might have a character's primary evils be perfectly legal, while their secondary acts of evil are actually illegal, which will be used to catch someone who otherwise would have escaped the law. While similar to Legalized Evil, there are a number of differences; first, Legalized Evil has the laws themselves being evil, while with this trope the laws aren't necessarily evil, just flawed. Secondly, Legalized Evil has leaders legalizing formerly illegal acts, while this trope simply has evil people taking advantage of laws that already exist. Third, Legalized Evil involves people getting away with things that used to be illegal but are now legal, while this trope has people getting away with evil acts that were never necessarily illegal, just taboo. Fourth, with Legalized Evil, the primary threat is the people who make the laws, while with this trope the threat consists of people exploiting existing laws. Sister Trope to Culture Justifies Anything. Lawful Evil villains often have this attitude, and Lawful Stupid characters will often side with them. These types of characters might end up creating a To Be Lawful or Good scenario. There Should Be a Law may be an in-universe reaction to an act a character finds disgusting, but is not yet illegal. Unless a villain is punished for something illegal that they did, they could potentially end up Off on a Technicality. An Amoral Attorney might use this when defending their clients. See also Loophole Abuse, Read the Fine Print, Bothering by the Book Just Following Orders, Exact Words and Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught. Opposite to Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!. Compare Borrowed Without Permission, when a character insists that they're "borrowing" rather than stealing. Overlaps with Inhumanable Alien Rights when acts that would be illegal towards humans are legal towards non-humans on the grounds of them having no legal rights. Contrast Screw the Rules, I Make Them! for when someone with power flat-out breaks the rules they created. If the villain can't be punished for these actions due to their legality, the authorities might be able to still be able to bring them in via Justice by Other Legal Means. The Jailbait Wait can be one way where this is invoked (usually to disgusted reactions). See also Animal Athlete Loophole, or "It's not illegal for a dog to play basketball". No Real Life Examples, Please!, as what's considered right and wrong can vary from person to person, plus we don't want to attack real-life people by calling them "evil." |
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Shetland: In "Raven Black", it's revealed that Alan Isbister (who appears to be in his 30s) has been sleeping with Sally Henry, a teenage girl. When the police interrupt them, Alan protests that as Sally consented and is 16 (the legal age of consent in Scotland) he hasn't done anything wrong; while he hasn't broken the law, he's still treated with distaste for having sex with an obviously vulnerable girl young enough to be his daughter. It then turns out he's had sexual contact with girls even younger than Sally, which is definitely illegal. | |
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Chase from LEGO City Undercover arrests Bucky Butler for trying to join Chan Chuang's gang so he can take his place. Bucky points out that joining Chan's gang in itself isn't against the law. Unfortunately for him, he ends up pointing out something he can be arrested for. | |
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CSI: NY: Discussed in "Prey". Hawkes laments the fact that a stalker's escalating activity, which resulted in one of his victims killing him, had not been considered illegal because "there's nothing wrong with taking pictures and making phone calls." In "Forbidden Fruit," Stella takes it upon herself to have a criminal moved from an upstate prison to a closer one in order to get the man's brother, an ex-con himself, to aid a case of hers by making forgeries of some ancient Greek coins. The Chief of Police calls Mac about why the prisoner is being moved, blindsiding him. Mac confronts Stella, telling her that her actions could potentially harm the investigation. She emphatically tells him that nothing she's doing is illegal, but he responds that she IS in violation of Lab policy and tells her to stop immediately. She says, "Fine!" then storms out and continues with her investigation anyway. |
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Grimm: "Island of Dreams" introduces Rosalee when her brother Freddie is murdered in his shop, which she inherits. Nick is trying to find out what is in the shop that a Wesen would kill for and finds a drug called Jay, derived from a mould called Jacine. He points it out to Rosalee, who's not used to being on speaking terms with a Grimm and protests that it's not illegal. She's right, as Jay is lethal to regular humans and not known to the authorities as a drug, but it is what her brother was killed for. | |
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In The Simpsons episode The Trouble with Trillions, Homer forgets to do the taxes. With only minutes to spare, he begins fraudulently writing details in an effort to complete an entire tax audit, but when Marge tries to say something about his obviously false information, he covers his ears to create plausible deniability. | |
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The Saga of Tanya the Evil: Before launching a bombardment on an enemy munitions plant, Tanya is required, as per the rules of engagement, to warn the plant's workers of the impending attack. The rules of engagement never say how Tanya should give this warning, so she issues the warning in the cutest, most innocent-sounding voice she can muster, making the workers think they are being pranked and ignoring it. Tanya even goes on to write a thesis on how to interpret wartime law to justify the shelling of cities and the killing of civilians. Her philosophies would be put to use in the Battle of Arene, where she warns the people in the city to evacuate: according to her thesis, anyone who chooses to stay could be considered "unlawful combatants", and soldiers could engage them as such. |
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In the For the People episode "Flippity-Flop", Jill demands that Roger press charges against the DEA after they hold a raid that arrests the man Brian Torres. Torres is subsequently locked in a solitary holding cell and forgotten for four days, and when he's finally found he's severely malnourished and has begun hallucinating and trying to break out with his bare hands. Roger points out that the DEA technically did nothing wrong, so legally he can't press any charges against them. He changes his tune after he sees the security footage from the cell, but when he tries to charge the agent responsible with police brutality, the agent demands a public defender and Jill is forced to use Roger's same initial argument against him. | |
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Castle (2009): "Ghosts" has true-crime author Lee Wax interviewing a woman who was a wanted eco-terrorist. Cynthia Dern, Wax knew, was lying about the events of the night that an oil tanker was blown up. So Lee Wax made sure to let it slip to the family and friends of those involved in the incident that Cynthia was still alive and the subject of interviews so that one of them would arrange for Cynthia to be arrested and Lee Wax could then tear up her contract with Cynthia and write the story she wanted to write. Unfortunately, the end result was Cynthia Dern ending up dead. Castle calls her out on it. She points out that nothing she did was illegal, and that she'd even cleared it all with her lawyer. Castle agrees that it wasn't illegal, but it was slimy, so he kicks her out of the precinct, and just to add insult to injury, he tells her she's going in one of his books as an antagonist. | |
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During the "Funeral for a Friend" portion of The Death of Superman, Director Westfield of Project Cadmus is told by the President of the United States himself that he cannot claim Superman's body for study. However, after he steals Superman's body and the Guardian catches him, he tells him that his orders were to let Metropolis have their funeral, interpreting that once it was over, his body was his to study. However, once Lois Lane finds proof of Cadmus' doing and finds Superman's body, the mere thought of an expose scares Westfield into returning Superman's body, but not before they get the DNA needed to later create the clone Superboy. | |
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Shaman's Tears: Joshua Brand is unable to arrest the Corrupt Corporate Executive for various crimes because the victims (genetically engineered lifeforms) are not technically human. So he instead arrests him for violating the Endangered Species Act after he realizes one of the genetically engineered constructs was created using the DNA of a black-footed ferret. | |
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Freefall: A man attempts to commit genocide just so that he could claim the victim's assets and he can't be charged with it because the victims, who were sapient robots, were not legally recognized as people at the time of the crime. He instead is convicted of attempting to enrich himself at his company's expense and the judge strips him of his money and forces him to get a bottom-level restaurant job. And that judge was being restrained. The other possible judge wanted to sentence him to a job working with extremely dangerous chemicals. | |
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Mickey Mouse (2013): Subverted and Played for Laughs. In "Swimmin' Hole," Pete digs the Swimming Hole (a pond where Mickey and friends like to swim) out of the ground and tries to take it away. When Mickey tells Pete he can't do that, Pete claims there's no law that forbids stealing. Mickey reminds him that there actually is. | |
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Penny Arcade: Played for Laughs when Tycho assumes that his stash of highly questionable giraffe videos has been exposed and jumps straight to a Suspiciously Specific Denial: | |
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Green Lantern: In the story that launched the famous Hard-Travelling Heroes Saga in The '70s, Green Lantern and Green Arrow face a viciously cruel landlord that makes life for his tenants hell, for profit. The man points out that, according to the law, he can do whatever he wants with his property. This causes the otherwise "by the book" Green Lantern to help Green Arrow find a way to provoke the shady landlord into committing actual crimes so they can send him to prison. The event shakes the Lantern's mentors, the Guardians of the Universe, out of their Lawful Stupid mentalities enough so that they agree to send one of their own number to spend time living among humanity for a while. | |
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Supreme Power: A General Ripper justifies the way the government and military have treated Superman Substitute Hyperion (brainwashing and trying to control his life since he was a toddler, attempting to turn him into a military asset), by pointing out that since Hyperion isn't human, he has no "human" rights that they are legally bound to respect. | |
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In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim if The Dragonborn uses The Thu'um in the city, they may be confronted by a guard asking them to stop. If asked if using the Thu'um is against the law, the guard will admit that it isn't but asks them to stop because it makes the citizens nervous. | |
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Jessica Jones (2015): As Jessica's mother is legally dead, the IGN can engage in unrestricted experimentation on her legally. | |
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Vorkosigan Saga: The POW camp in the short story "The Borders of Infinity" applies this trope in a rather nasty manner. So many square meters per inmate? An opaque, luminous force shield encloses that much open ground and field latrines. No periods of darkness for over twelve hours? No darkness at all, ever. Water? Everyone gets a cup along with their clothes and a bedroll (the taps by the latrines work most of the time). Access to medical personnel? Plenty of medics are mixed in with the general population, but they mentioned nothing about equipment. Food? A pile of ICRC-equivalent compliant ration bars (one per inmate) appear at a random location on the camp perimeter twice per day. No solitary confinement for more than 24 hours? No beatings or rapes by guards? No guards... | |
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xkcd: The Alt Text of "Free Speech" remarks that citing freedom of expression to defend a statement is the ultimate concession: you're basically admitting that the most compelling thing you have to say in its favor is that it isn't literally illegal to make it. | |
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In the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Magnificat", a woman kills three of her four children in a failed mass suicide attempt, and the detectives begin to suspect that she was driven to it by her emotionally abusive husband (who they initially suspected of planting the bomb used by his wife). However, despite the husband being a Control Freak and a world-class Jerkass with a Never My Fault attitude towards his wife's actions, ADA Carver points out that none of his actions amount to a chargeable offense. | |
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Gyakuten Kenji 2: The "mastermind behind it all" justifies himself in that he did not kill anyone, nor tell anyone to murder. He only wrote letters letting people know of issues such as others knowing of past murders. | |
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In Zootopia, Judy is frustrated to find that Nick's "pawpsicle hustle" stays within the letter of the law since he has a vendor's license and a cross-district commerce permit, and he said the used sticks were "red wood", with a space. However, when she later needs his help on a case, she finds he didn't report any income on his tax forms and is able to record him bragging about the income he makes from his hustles. This enables her to use a charge of tax evasion to pressure him into helping her. | |
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In Law & Order episode "Kid Pro Quo", a Chain of Deals included a multimillionaire arranging for a reduction of the price of concrete for a construction company, which would give an apartment to the headmaster of a school, in order that the multimillionaire's son would get in. The head of the construction company, on the witness stand in a murder trial, says "Maybe it's not right, maybe it's not fair, but there's nothing illegal about it". | |
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In the Naruto and Ranma ½ fanfiction A Fox Helps a Wild Horse, Genma tries to justify leaving Ranma to pay off his debts by the fact that they're Ranma's under Japanese law, much to the disgust of Naruto and Nadoka. | |
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The Three Investigators: In Screaming Clock Hugenay the Classy Cat-Burglar has one of his men dress up as a police officer. When the cops show up and try to use that as a charge, he points out that the fake cop is in fact wearing a New York Police uniform (the series is set in California), and as such cannot be accused of impersonating the local police. | |
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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: When Harry and Ron find that they have missed the Hogwarts Express, they decide to fly his father's Flying Car to Hogwarts, and Ron clumsily tries to justify this as an exception to the rule that underage wizards aren't allowed to use magic around Muggles. This gets them into terrible trouble, albeit largely because they did it badly and were seen by several Muggles (Professor McGonagall also says they should have just sent a message that they missed the train). | |
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In A Song of Ice and Fire, the laws of hospitality are sacred in Westeros. Not so much any other laws; when the legendary Rat Cook served a king his own sons in pies, there was no problem with the murder and cannibalism parts; he was condemned (and cursed) only because they were his guests. As such, when Lord Wyman Manderly desired to take Revenge with a capital R on the Freys and Boltons and decided to emulate the Rat Cook, he carefully waited until his Frey guests were leaving, gave them gifts which formally marked their departure, and then had them murdered, made into pies, transported to a feast hosted by the Freys and Boltons, and served up. He ate several slices himself, with relish. | |
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In the pro-life Bleach fanfic, Cold Hard Reality, an abortion doctor tries to justify her actions to Hitsugaya and Rangiku by the fact that abortion is perfectly legal. Hitsugaya replies by telling her that just because something is legal doesn't make it right, before sending her soul to Hell. | |
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Revenge of the Sith novelization: When Mace Windu tries to arrest Chancellor Palpatine on suspicion of being the Sith Lord masterminding the Clone Wars, Palpatine replies in part that being a Sith Lord is not illegal.note This was later contradicted by Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, which stated that the Republic had in fact outlawed the Sith circa Knights of the Old Republic. This is an additional element of his trap for the Jedi: the line is a rhetorical red herring since the primary charge would actually be high treason rather than being a member of the wrong religion, but Palpatine is recording the whole confrontation to bolster his cover story for The Purge that the Jedi had attempted a coup, and does some Manipulative Editing on it later to help sell it to the Senate. | |
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Trailer Park Boys: In Season 2's The Bible Pimp, Mr. Lahey and Randy find Bubbles living in J-Roc's van, having moved there to get away from Ricky and Julian's weed-growing. When Lahey threatens to evict Bubbles from Sunnyvale for "illegally" living in a van, J-Roc defends Bubbles like this: | |
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Transformers: Age of Extinction: It's revealed that Shane keeps a laminated copy of Texas's "Romeo and Juliet law"note a law permitting sexual relationships between a legal minor and a legal adult as long as they're within 3 years of age, e.g., a 16 and 18-year-old in his wallet in the event that anyone confronts him about the ethics of dating 17-year-old Tessa. | |
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Spider-Man: One of Spider-Man's foes in The '90s was Cardiac, a Knight Templar that specialized in targeting this kind of evil. You could see Spider-Man (and the writers) had a hard time coming up with reasons to oppose Cardiac, as Spidey is too much of a free spirit hero to be Lawful Stupid for too long. Most times, Spider-Man opposed Cardiac in a half-hearted way, stopping him from killing anyone as collateral damage, but kinda allowing Cardiac to otherwise wreck the operations of the companies that practiced this kind of evil. | |
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Leverage: One of the challenges the Leverage team frequently faces is that the things the villains of the week are guilty of are often not even crimes under the law, something Nate often lampshades in an episode's course. "The Beantown Bailout Job" has Nate specifically state that the local mob taking out bad loans, then defaulting on them, with the bank getting a big bailout check from the government isn't even illegal. "The Gold Job" has a Brother–Sister Team of gold buyers who tell people to send them their gold and they'll send them a check. Except that they lowball the value of the gold and send them paltry checks. For most people, this means they have no choice but to take the check because by the time they get it, the item they sent in has already been melted down, and so they can't get a return on the money. Nate even notes to the client that it's all technically legal. |
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Transformers: Animated: After Optimus defeats the Headmaster and Sentinel gets his head back, Captain Fanzone tries to arrest Headmaster for the crimes of property damage and assault. Just then, Powell (who took over Sumdac Systems and hired Headmaster) shows up and uses this excuse, saying that a) alien robots aren't covered by the Constitution, so Optimus and Sentinel don't have rights in America note the wording of the Constitution says that it applies to "people" rather than "US citizens" or even "humans," so Captain Fanzone would have actually had grounds to make an arrest and force Powell and Headmaster to prove that the Autobots didn't count as people in court, and (b) there was no property damage because Headmaster was destroying property owned by Sumdac Systems, and there's no law against destroying your own property.note He also tries to claim that the incident happened in international waters between the U.S. and Canada, but that one doesn't work because there aren't international waters between the countries, just a borderline. Fanzone is forced to let Headmaster go as a result. | |
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One of the original Sherlock Holmes mysteries has a young lady contact the detective about her disappeared suitor. She was being courted by a mysterious man who disappeared on the way to the church for their wedding, after first making her promise to remain loyal to him if he should mysteriously vanish. Holmes deduced that the man was actually her stepfather, who had posed as a suitor and then "disappeared" in order to prevent her from getting married at all and transferring her inheritance to the new man. When he was confronted the man claimed "It is not actionable!" since there is no law that forbids his shenanigans.note In point of fact, Breach of Promise of Marriage was an actual crime during the time this story takes place, although its punishment was usually in the form of monetary damages instead of criminal charges. Holmes still threatens to club the varlet, which makes him flee. | |
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One Judge Dredd story has Dredd facing off against a criminal gang of uplifted zoo animals led by the chimpanzee Don Uggie Apelino. The chimp taunts Dredd that nothing he's done is actually illegal, because the laws that bind humans have never been updated to recognize his kind as people. Dredd responds by having him impounded as a dangerous wild animal. | |
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Braveheart: After Longshanks grants the right of ius prima noctis to the English lords, Lord Bottoms uses his right to kidnap and rape Morrison's wife. When Morrison finds Bottoms during William Wallace's attack on the English garrison, Bottoms uses the excuse that it was his right to plead for mercy. Morrison's response? | |
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In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Peter Ludlow uses this to justify him and his team of poachers travelling to Isla Sorna to steal some of the dinosaurs living there and bring them back to the mainland to put them in a theme park of his own, despite knowing how well that worked for his uncle with the last park: these creatures are extinct animals brought back to life by his company, and therefore are his personal property to do with as he pleases. | |
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Leverage: Redemption almost has this as a Central Theme; in the time since the original series ended, the rich and powerful have twisted the legal system into a shield to protect themselves from any meaningful consequences, and as such, several of the cons the team runs now focus on ruining their marks financially or destroying their reputations, with the idea of them facing legal consequences now a secondary concern. | |
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South Park: In "Franchise Prequel", Butters as Professor Chaos launches a new evil scheme to spread chaos by using Facebook to spread misinformation about Coon & Friends and destroy their reputations. Coon & Friends struggle to find a way to stop him since what he's doing technically isn't illegal and beating him up for it is. | |
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In Season 2 of Veronica Mars, Veronica finds pictures of Lamb and Madison Sinclair hooking up. She mocks him for the technical precision but squickiness of this sentiment. | |
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A downplayed example in The Legend of Korra. A Mass Super-Empowering Event suddenly gives random people all over the world airbending abilities. In the Earth Kingdom, the Earth Queen intends to forcibly enlist any airbenders found in the city-state of Ba Sing Se into her army. While Korra and her companions are discussing how wrong this all is, Bumi points out that legally speaking as the sovereign ruler of her nation, the Queen does have the right to conscript her citizens. (Not that this stops Bumi from participating in rescuing the airbenders from the Queen.) Presumably the Queen herself would also use this justification, but she never bothers to justify herself or her motives to anyone. | |
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Dragon Ball Z: In a filler episode, Gohan successfully rescues a baby dinosaur from an evil circus owner who had abducted and was abusing it. As he flies away, the circus owner points out that he knows where the dinosaur's nest is: there's nothing stopping him from going back and stealing the dino again. The police further admit that capturing a baby animal for use in the circus is entirely legal...but the circus owner had, during the fight, taken a police officer's gun in an attempt to shoot the dino's angry parents. And taking an officer's handgun is a criminal offense. | |
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The Lorax (2012): When the Lorax confronts him, The Once-ler rationalizes that the environmental atrocities he's committed are fine, under the logic nothing he is doing is illegal. | |
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The Founder: Ray Kroc's maneuvers to take control of the McDonald's franchise from its founding brothers rely on careful exploitations of the law. As their subordinate, Ray can't make the changes to their menu that he claims would cut costs but the brothers claim would cut quality. But he can if he first buys the land that the restaurant is built on and then giving orders as its new landlord. When buying the company from them, Kroc is required to pay them for the purchase, but not if he disguises it as a handshake agreement of which there's no proof the brothers can point to as having occurred. The brothers even point out that it would've been simpler for Kroc to just do the scummy thing and rip off their restaurant with his own imitation. But Kroc defends his actions, saying that there was no substitute for the all-American name "McDonalds" and he had to own it for record-breaking success. | |
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In the first volume of Spy Classroom, the army of the Din Republic runs a biowarfare lab under the excuse that the latest WMD proliferation only prohibits using bioweapons, not making them. Which backfires when an enemy nation manages to steal a sample. | |
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Key & Peele: In one skit, a man has a Potty Emergency, but the seatbelt sign is still on. A flight attendant tells him it's against the rules to get up to use the bathroom while the sign is still on, but the man insists that if it's not illegal, he can do whatever he wants. He ends up being thrown around when the plane runs into some turbulence.note Actually, it is illegal for a passenger to disobey flight crew instructions. | |
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Babylon 5: Used by none other than The Captain in the episode "In the Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum". Captain Sheridan recognizes Morden, who is acting as a human Mouth of Sauron for the Higher-Tech Species known as "The Shadows", as having been part of the crew on the same ship that his wife was on when it was mysteriously lost and everyone on it, including Sheridan's wife, was presumed dead. Sheridan orders Morden detained without any charges and pushes Morden for answers. As it goes on Sheridan goes further and further in violating the spirit of the law and ideals of human rights to continue detaining and questioning Morden, including snapping at one point that since Morden is legally dead, he has no rights to due process under the law. That move leads the station's Security Officer to Resign in Protest. As President Clark and his minions seize more and more authoritarian power and control on Earth, they use this reasoning frequently to justify things like expanded spying, crackdowns on human colonies with independence movements, takeover of the biggest human news network, etc. Eventually the increasingly fascistic government becomes openly despotic enough that a portion of the military and some of the previously mentioned colonies rebel against the government. |
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SSSS.DYNɅZENON: In one of the Voice Dramas, one of the Kaiju Eugenicists, Juuga, tries to introduce Koyomi to a way to make money via network marketing and self-advertising. It initially sounds very enticing to him — considering Koyomi is a NEET — and he's almost convinced to join, until Koyomi's cousin, Chise, exposes Juuga for trying to get him involved in what is essentially a pyramid scheme, to which the latter tries justifying himself by saying it's technically not illegalnote Which he isn't entirely wrong. While network marketing is a legitimate approach to making money and involves selling legitimate products/services, they do share characteristics with pyramid schemes, which are very much illegal. | |
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