Matters of First Impression or “Wow, this is new territory, what should we do now?” 
If a court is dealing with a legal issue for the first time, there is no precedent to follow, and it cannot then 
be bound by stare decisis. The court may look to other states to see if there is any persuasive case authority 
on the matter, but state courts do not have to follow established law from other states. When there is no 
precedent or controlling cases, the case or issue is referred to as a matter of the first impression. In cases 
of the first impression, courts get to decide what the relevant rule should be. In deciding cases of the first 
impression, judges will look to relevant statutes, legislative history, and cases involving similar situations 
“The situation may be a new one. … Yet the judges do not throw up their hands and say the case may 
not be decided; they decide it. Maybe they can use some settled law in an analogous situation. … Even 
if there is no available analogy, or if there are competing analogies, the judge will make (some prefer to 
say discover) the law to apply to the new situation. The new law will be decided according to the judges’ 
ideas (ideas they acquire as members of society) of what is moral, right, just; of what will further sound 
public policy, in light of customs and traditions of the people of which the judges are members.” LaFave, 
W. Criminal Law, 69(3d. ed., 2000). ” 
It is not necessarily easy, to interpret the law and apply it to the facts of a case. Facts can be “messy”, the 
law can be less than clear, and not everyone will agree on the appropriate meaning of the law’s mandate. 
Judges, therefore, rely on several tools or approaches when interpreting the language of a statute. LaFave 
has identified various approaches used by judges to interpret the law. 
11 First, judges will look at the plain 
meaning of the statute and rely on dictionary-like tools to discover the meaning of the words. According to 
the Court in Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470 (1917), “Where the language is plain and admits of no 
more than one meaning, the duty of interpretation does not arise.” Even under this strict constructionist 
approach, judges can still disagree whether the language of the statute is plain. Also, there is a danger with 
this plain meaning approach, and courts will not follow a statute though apparently plain language when 
strict application results in injustice, oppression or even an absurd consequence. 
Second, judges will look to the drafter’s intent revealed in the legislative history, or records of legislative 
hearings and floor debates, when it exists. LeFave notes that sometimes it is easier to figure out the framer’s 
intent than other times. Moreover, different lawmakers may have had different intents when they cast their 
votes enacting the law. Additionally, sometimes legislators never considered the specific factual scenario 
facing the court. 
“It should be noted also that not all judges are enamored of the use of legislative history in interpreting 
ambiguous statutes. And in any event, the legislative history is less likely to be controlling in construing 
criminal statutes than civil statutes. If one purpose of a criminal statute is to warn the public of what 
conduct will get them into criminal trouble, that is, if prospective criminals are entitled to a fair 
11. LaFave, W. R. (2000). Criminal law (3rd ed., pp. 86-89). St. Paul, Minn: West Group. 
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