What is the Beer–Lambert law?

What statutory definitions most increase the occurrence of "color of law" abuses?

• Sometimes, a coercive authority will "bully" people into following a law in a way that benefits the authority, but isn't justified by the law itself.  This specific "color of law" abuse can happen especially when a law can be easily misinterpreted (and therefore "mis-"enforced).  Statutory definitions (definitions in the law) can contribute to this. A good answer will provide a link to a definition in a statute that has allowed authorities, by using the common definition instead of the statutory definition, to enforce a law which, without that statutory definition, would be unconstitutional or otherwise void. For example, a legislature can defeat a lack of constitutionality by redefining a term.  For a silly example, let's consider the constitutional prohibition regarding religion in the first amendment, that no law may be made "respecting an establishment of religion."  If a legislature wishes to keep Sikhs out of its territory, it can provide a definition of "trespass" that means "to perform illegal actions."  Armed with this definition, it can now pass any law it wants prohibiting anyone from "trespassing" anywhere, including a law that prohibits Sikhs from trespassing in its territory.  When a Sikh challenges this in court, the court will use the custom-defined "trespass" and validate the law as perfectly constitutional.  Because Sikhs (and, indeed, the cops who police this territory) don't know that "trespass" requires illegal behavior, they feel that they can't be there, and the cops back up that feeling, citing the deceptive statute. I'm sure this happens, and I'm looking for examples, because the legislators involved should be held to account, or,  at the very least, the police enforcing these confusing laws should be made aware of the difference between what they think the law means and what it actually means.

• Answer:

  It's hard to address a hypothetical law with hypothetical legislators.  But if I had to guess, I'd say substantive due process gets a lot of abuse.   Followed by procedural due process.   What makes your question so difficult is that "color of law" itself is such a nebulous area, subject to interpretation and applied in different states.   Let's take the 14th Amendment guarantee of due process.  Under the Constitution, the government -- a person acting under color of law -- cannot deprive anyone of property, liberty, or life without due process.   That's already complicated.  When is someone acting under color of law?  Sometimes it's obvious.  A lot of times, it's not.  Judges rule in favor of one side, they are overruled on appeal, then the appeal is appealed -- this is all because each of the courts interpret "color of law" differently.  And that's just color of law.   A police officer who stops a motorist for speeding is acting under color of law when he writes the ticket.   But how about a county hospital employee?  When that person decides not to treat a prisoner, they're acting under color of law, too.  Is that a policy decision that they've made?  What if the prisoner dies?   Suppose this was a person who was arrested for drunk driving, who was locked up to dry out, and he dies from complications of alcohol withdrawal?  That's a deprivation of life, without due process, under color of law.  That's unconstitutional...   A public school district maintains a policy of no tolerance for under-age consumption of alcohol.  Any high school kid who is caught drinking alcohol will be expelled.   Now a high school club throws a Halloween party at the school and one of the kids brings in spiked punch.  Several of the partiers drink the punch and get drunk.  Along comes the principal.  He asks each of the kids to come down to his office and one by one they tell him how drunk they are and how this happened.  They are immediately expelled.  They're drunk.  They broke the no-exceptions rule for underage drinking.    This is a substantive due process violation.  Yes, there's a rule, but this rule was not applied rationally and it was not a fair rule that allowed for this situation.    Complicating matters further is that although a deprivation of "liberty" is defined by federal court, "property" differs by state.   Due process.   A cherished American right.  Easily abused.