Legal Question in Criminal Law in Massachusetts

Re: Legal Terminology

Technically speaking, statutes ARE laws. However, more to what I think you are really asking, there are several sources of law in our legal system.

The highest level of law that we have is constitutional law (i.e., the law established by the language in our federal and state constitutions). All other laws must be consistent with constitutional law.

The next highest level of law is legislation (i.e., statutes) passed by legislatures. As noted above, in the event of conflicting provisions in a constitution and a statute, the constitution trumps the statute, so statutes must be consistent with what is set forth in the constitutions.

The third highest level of law is regulations created by various administrative agencies (for example, the Registry of Motor Vehicles). These administrative agencies create regulations, to implement the statutes passed by the legislatures. As such, they are more detailed than statutes, but they are supposed to simply fill out the framework created by the statutes and not to alter the basic intent of the statute. Agency regulations have to be consistent both with the statutes they seek to implement and with constitutional law.

Lastly, there is what we call "common law," which is not specifically written down anywhere (i.e., not in a constitution, a statute or a regulation), but which is generally understood to be part of our legal framework because of pattern and practice going back hundreds of years. For example, you might not see any constitutional law, statute or regulation saying that you cannot borrow your neighbor's car without permission. Nonetheless, that is generally understood in our society as part of the common law.

Finally, there is what we call "case law." In our legal system, the courts have the responsibility not only of making sure that all laws are enforced, but also that statutes and regulations have not been written in violation of whatever trumps them. Accordingly, for example, the courts can declare a statute unconstitutional; they can declare that a regulation does not accurately represent the intent of a statute. So the courts serve as the watchdog to ensure that the entire structure works as it should.

The entire structure is a little more complicated than I just elaborated. Hopefully, however, this helps give you a little better understanding.

Re: Legal Terminology

A statute begins life as a BILL.

When passed, it becomes an ACT.

If a State codifies its statutes, it then enters the State code. Some States do not codify their statutes, they simply give a chapter and/or section number(s) in a book of STATUTORY laws.

Other laws are in the constitutions. These are called CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.

Still other laws arise from opinions of courts. These are called COMMON LAW.

So the word LAW has broader meaning than STATUTE.