Why Do Laws Have Exceptions Or Degrees?

Prompt: Should laws have exceptions or degrees and why?
Imagine a society in which apple thieves received the same punishment as child thieves and children were punished for not being able to think like adults. A society in which people in car accidents were deemed murderers and punished as such. Does this sound fair? A fair legal system should punish criminals based on how much their actions would hurt the individuals of society, in order to serve as a force of protection. Knowing this, the society described earlier clearly would be unjust because the laws lack exceptions or degrees. A legal system without exceptions or degrees would be unjust because it would ignore criminal intent, appropriate levels of responsibility, and the extent of
Criminal intent, or the latin concept mens rea meaning guilty mind, is a practice present in the United States legal system that is meant to ensure that people who commit criminal acts intended to do so, rather than having done so unknowingly or unintentionally. This makes sure that ‘bad people’, here defined as people who have intent to hurt others, are punished accordingly and that ‘good people’, defined here as those without intent to hurt others, are not punished too severely for something they had no intention of doing. Criminal intent is also important because it helps to ensure that we are removing ‘bad people’ from our society. An example in which criminal intent would play an important role is murder charges. This is because criminal intent would help to distinguish between whether a suspect had intended to kill someone in contrast to whether they had
To begin, if laws didn’t have exceptions or degrees, children could be tried the same as adults for crimes. However, this would be unjust because children do not have the experience and decision-making abilities that mentally-healthy adults are expected to have. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, teenagers have impaired judgment because of changes occurring in their prefrontal cortexes. Yet despite these apparent biological challenges, in a legal system without degrees or exceptions teenagers would be punished for crimes to the same extent as adults, who do not have these challenges. Children as well would be held to the same behavioral expectations as adults. Clearly this is unjust because children would be at a disadvantage and placed in a position in which they are expected to know as much about the world as adults even though they have not been alive for as long. This would be unequal and thus unjust. Similarly, laws without exceptions or degrees would punish those with mental disabilities as if they were the same as those without disabilities. This relates to mens rea because cases occur in which those with mental disabilities are, like teenagers, unable to make good decisions or control themselves, often leading them to do things they don’t understand or have no intention of doing. It is unjust to