Legalized Evil

"Wait, but if they're legal now, can you still call them crimes?"

"Once something has been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral!"

— Reverend Lovejoy, The Simpsons

In most societies, there are rules and laws to enforce and maintain proper behaviors. There are ethics and codes of conduct that are considered acceptable and those that are not. Murder isn't just morally wrong, it's against the law, and any just society's legal system will come after you if you try it.

However, what happens when something contemptible is considered legal by a society's ruling authority? What happens when evil people have the law on their side, or at least, their immoral deeds aren't unlawful? What happens when acts of immorality have legal backing and legitimacy? What if the legislative body decrees that arson is permitted on second Tuesdays, people named Bob are given two free passes for murder, and no cop is allowed to write tickets for jaywalking?

Legalized Evil is a situation where an evil or moral wrong is actively overlooked and permitted by the law of the land of a setting. Values Dissonance may be in play, but the trope requires that the characters in a setting acknowledge the acts that are legalized are morally wrong or improper even by their own standards. Often this trope occurs in authoritarian settings where a form of Anarcho-Tyranny is in place, or societies where Dystopia Justifies the Means or Despotism Justifies the Means under a corrupt authority. In a Crapsack World where this trope is seen as a "good thing", expect it to be the Lesser of Two Evils in comparison to some form of complete societal collapse.

Often the purpose of the trope is To Create a Playground for Evil, which is similar but does not require a ruler, as well as Outlaw Town and Totalitarian Gangsterism, which are often side-effects of this trope coming into place when immoral figures become the ruling authority over otherwise morally superior masses. Also a possible factor in Vice City and Wretched Hive, where the majority in the setting are evil and happy to get away with it. Aristocrats Are Evil may be in play if the setting is a monarchy, or Corrupt Corporate Executive in a capitalist setting. There will be extra trouble if the laws can be written by someone who says Screw the Rules, I Make Them!!

Anyone who is Lawful Evil will be able to use this to their great advantage, maybe with the help of an Amoral Attorney. Someone who believes in Honor Before Reason will follow the laws and do evil, though maybe Just Following Orders. More morally aligned people may have Curious Qualms of Conscience, debate whether To Be Lawful or Good, and hopefully decide to say Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!. Someone who disapproves of a lawful action may observe, "There Should Be a Law!" The things even evil lawmakers make illegal fall under Even Evil Has Standards.

The story often ends in the good guys achieving Justice by Other Legal Means, finding an alternate way the villains can be busted within the legal system itself.

May overlap with Loony Laws.

If the majority in the setting doesn't see the actions in question as evil, that's Values Dissonance or Blue-and-Orange Morality. If an evil deed is legal only on a technicality, rather than specifically permitted, that's just regular Loophole Abuse.

Compare and Contrast:

• The Bad Guys Are Cops: The laws might not be evil, but law enforcement is.
• Inherent in the System: Evil isn't the goal of the system, but is still necessary for it to function.
• "Not Illegal" Justification: The laws neglected to account for a particular taboo act.
• Off on a Technicality: The evil deed is illegal, but the perpetrator is able to exploit a fluke in the legal system to get away with it.

Due to the obvious risk of Flame Bait and Edit Wars, No Real Life Examples, Please! We'll just observe that people do sometimes consider this Truth in Television and leave it at that.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Dragon Ball: Demon King Piccolo escapes from his prison and proceeds to Take Over the World after regaining his youth and sending his minions out to murder every fighter who might be able to oppose him. As his first act as ruler, he decides to abolish all laws preventing conventional wrongdoings and encourages people to fight and kill each other while he remains in charge, enjoying the chaos he has unleashed.
• In Durarara!!, this is the argument Kasane Kujiragi uses to justify her trafficking Celty. She explains to Shizuo that a dullahan is not legally considered a person or a protected species, so she's doing nothing wrong in the eyes of the law by capturing and selling off his friend to Seitarou.
• In Ranma ½, the titular heroine must square off against Kodachi Kuno in a girls' rhythmic gymnastics match. Combatants are not allowed to attack each other directly; the object is to use "tools" to vanquish an opponent. Tools include small clubs, a ball, a hoop, and a ribbon on a stick. Kodachi's tools are modified with sharp edges and other nasty hazards for lethal effect, which the referee actually allows. Even a kettle of hot water (as long as it was snagged with the ribbon) and someone fished from the audience qualifies tools.
  Akane: Is that even legal?
  Referee: It's okay, as long as she uses the tools.

Comic Books

• In Buck Godot, there's only one Law on New Hong Kong: "There is no Law on New Hong Kong." As such, absolutely anything goes when it comes to committing crimes, and there will never be any legal reprisal because there's no police, prison system, or criminal court. However, there's also no law against vigilante justice (including of the preemptive variety), carrying heavy weapons at all times, and doing anything you like to that guy who just looked at you funny. And since every citizen of the planet is fully aware of all of this, what could have been anarchy has very nearly become the model example of "A universally-armed society is a polite society." Or rather, the citizens have adjusted. Tourists are advised to step very, very carefully - just because there are no laws, that does not mean there are no rules.
• The DCU has more than a few:
  • The antimatter universe of Qward in Green Lantern lives by this trope, though it's less "crime" and more "evil" that's legal (though one of Telle-Teg's friends said their group was persecuted as criminals for refusing to steal).
  • The Kryptonian island of Bokos in World's Finest Comics number 191 not only legalizes crimes, but outlaws honest acts like returning stolen money and refusing to help thieves, which are punishable by jetpack exile, as in the opposite of our way of punishing crimes.
• Pete's township of Villainburgh in the Science Fantasy Disney Mouse and Duck Comics miniseries Donald Quest only punishes you for crimes if you get caught.
  Dewey Duck: We're in hot water for not having stolen the hammer! How crazy is that?

Fan Works

• Played with in This Bites!. The pirate haven of Skelter Bite, the remains of Thriller Bark appropriated and rebuilt by Lola after Moria's defeat has "Pirate Justice" as its reigning rule, which is basically controlled chaos: the crimes are legal, but not without consequence. For example, arson is legal... as long as you're willing to help in the repairs. Murder is legal... as long as the victim is of a more unpleasant sort. Theft is legal... as long as you don't get caught. Brawling is legal... as long as you mitigate the property damage. And in general, the more trouble it causes on a widespread scale, the worse the punishment.

Films — Live-Action

• The Phantom Menace. This is why the Trade Federation are desperately trying to keep the invasion of Naboo a Closed Circle, as it's very much not legalized and would get them thrashed if word got out. Instead, they're trying to force the Queen to sign a document legalizing the invasion, bogging down any retaliation in so much diplomatic red tape.
• In The Purge Universe, a sinister group called the "New Founding Fathers" have taken over the United States and established an annual nationwide event where most crime, up to and including first-degree murder, are legal for a 12-hour period while emergency services are illegal (or enjoying the purge). This began as a way to persecute the homeless and other vulnerable people and to maintain their grip on power by terrorizing everyone else. Naturally, The Founding Fathers and their allies are still protected by the law under the purge and are guarded by armies of security personnel. In the third film, they allow Purgers to kill elected officials and nominees in order to publicly assassinate an opposing presidential candidate. This bites them in the ass when the resistance unleashes their decades-long plans to purge the upper ranks legally. In the fifth film, they succeed at destroying America but are subsequently (and permanently) ruined by the lawless hellhole they created.

Literature

• Discworld:
  • Downplayed when it comes to theft. Though the ruling authorities dislike it, the city of Ankh-Morpork sorta legalized thievery, but only for members of the Thieves' Guild, who have limits on how many robberies, muggings, etc. they can do in a year, and each victim gets a receipt and is entitled to go a certain amount of time until they get robbed again by the Guild. Unlicensed thieves are still illegal, and probably pray that the police catch them instead of the Thieves' Guild, since the Guild is murderously protective of their privilege to commit theft with permission under the law.
  • Unseen University takes a similar attitude to Post-Mortem Communications. It's accepted as inevitable that someone will be practicing necromancy, so the best way of dealing with it is to have it done officially by someone who can keep it at an acceptable level and enforce the monopoly against anyone doing it unofficially. With fireballs, if necessary.
  • The Assassin's Guild is also legal, and they pride themselves on the "service" their members provide. They go so far as to engage in Insistent Terminology, calling what they do "inhuming" instead of "murder". They also pride themselves on certain professional standards, such as not accepting contracts on anyone who can't defend themselves (or at least are rich enough to be able to afford bodyguards, whether they actually employ them or not).
• In Harry Potter, when the Death Eaters gain control of the Ministry of Magic late in the series, they legalize casting dark magic, such as the Unforgivable Curses, for everyone.
• Record of Lodoss War: The Crown of the Covenant: Deconstructed. Marmo prides itself on being a nation of laws above all else, and is the only place on Lodoss where the cult of Falaris, traditionally considered Dark Is Evil, is legal. However, the overweening rule of law has allowed it to maintain harmony despite its diversity: the law applies equally to everybody, meaning that followers of Falaris are allowed to practice their religion but not at the expense of any other citizen.

Live-Action TV

• Andromeda: On Pierpont Drift, Doge Miskich legalized theft, but only for citizens of Pierpont. Which means it's legal for a local to steal from a tourist, but a crime for a tourist to steal their property back. But even for citizens, stealing from the Doge is a capitol offense.
• Egghead pulls this off for a time in the Batman (1966) episode "The Egg Foes in Gotham". After gaining control of the city due to preventing the descendants of the town founders from giving nine raccoon pelts to the Last of the Mohicans, he kicks Batman and Robin out on pain of execution, and declares that any gangster or villain he likes has carte blanche to do whatever they want in Gotham, with Police Are Useless being enshrined in Egghead's law. It ends when Batman declares My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours, having found a loophole that said that anyone of questionable moral character was disqualified from taking advantage of the whole raccoon-pelt business.
• In Gotham, this is the central plot of "Pax Penguina", where Penguin's solution to restoring order to Gotham is to reduce crime by legalizing it. This "Pax Penguina" system dictates that criminals who carried a Licence of Misconduct, were able to commit crimes and be exempt from being investigated or arrested by the GCPD.
• The whole premise of Leverage is about a group of (ex-)thieves going after corrupt, rich and powerful corporations/public figures screwing over their customers/clients within their legal policies and the law. So who better to expose them than a group of people without regards for following the rules?
  "Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys."
• In The Purge (2018), like the film series from which it derives, all crime is legal one night every year, but on the other hand, Felony Misdemeanor applies for the other 364 days to compensate. Many death sentences are thrown around liberally for crimes that would normally not warrant them.
• Star Trek:
  • In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Return of the Archons", the brainwashed inhabitants of the planet Beta III are usually perfectly peaceful and orderly citizens, but they have a regular event called "Festival" authorized by the planetary ruling authority in which the entire population suddenly erupts in a twelve-hour outburst of sex and violence they would not otherwise commit. It's not stated what function this serves their society, although the novelization suggests it may be a temporary outlet for their normally suppressed emotions and drives and/or a form of population control.
  • In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, Cardassians could not only kill Bajorans with impunity under Cardassian military law, but take random Bajoran women as "Comfort Women" and discard them at their leisure.
• The Watch (2021) is inspired by the Discworld novels and specifically the The Watch line with the city of Ankh-Morpork, so the same rules are in effect when it comes to there being various legalized guilds to commit crime. The Watch, rather than being an actual police force, is intended to regulate the various guilds, but the series is about them growing to become more than that.
• In one season of The Wire, senior police officer Major Colvin effectively turns a vacant section of the city into a place where drug-dealers can ply their trade without interference from his officers, effectively confining vice to the area to protect nearby communities. Played with in that this isn't the same as making it legal, and the rest of the police department crack down hard once they learn of Colvin's experiment.

Tabletop Games

• Blue Rose: The only law in Kern is that all citizens need to do their shifts in the Lich King's mines. He doesn't care in the least what they get up to the rest of the time, at long as they don't threaten his rule. There is an informal system of local community leaders trying to maintain some kind of order, but of course their ability to punish wrong-doers is limited.
• Any Dungeons & Dragons setting that contains a largely Lawful Evil society is going to feature this. One of the best-known is the nation of Thay from Forgotten Realms, where slavery and undeath are seen as foundational pillars of society and where even the average Mad Scientist would be seen as "too ethical". Ravenloft also has several Darklands that are like this, though what evil is legalized varies between them.
• Demonstrated in Traveller, Classic Adventure 3 Twilight's Peak. Each year, the planet Rethe has a government holiday called Festival, during which all laws are suspended planetwide for three days. During that period, anyone can commit any crime they wish and not have to worry about being prosecuted after Festival ends.
• Warhammer 40,000: The forces of Chaos have only one rule: wreak fucking havoc in the name of the Chaos Gods. This usually results in an extreme collection of biowarfare, betrayal, mass-rape, and plain rampaging.

Video Games

• Bleeding Sun: After taking over Hitoshima, Ichiro allows bandits to roam the Takenaka lands in order to slow down Yori in case he returns.
• In some civilizations of Dwarf Fortress, ethics settings could allow actions such as murder, theft and cannibalism to not only be lawful but even praised. In the vanilla version, only treason is a crime among Goblins, all other horrid acts being permitted and accepted under Goblin law.
• In The Guild 3, it is possible to get into the government of your region and legalize the same Thieves' Guild jobs that would have previously been risky to partake in. This was mercilessly exploited in a video by The Spiffing Brit.
• Mortal Kombat: Shao Kahn rules the realm of Outworld, being a Blood Knight warlord whose only law punishable if broken is "Obey Shao Kahn'', with everything else being fair game under his reign, whether he morally agrees with it or not. As such, war between various violent native races like the Shokan, Tarkatan and Centaurs is common as they fight for his favor.
• In the territory of the Brotherhood of Cain in The New Order Last Days OF Europe, all kind of depravity are legalized and even encouraged by the Brotherhood leadership.
• A major problem in Project Moon's verse is that most scummy or horrific acts are actually legal and there's no regulations preventing a Wing from torturing people and carrying out gruesome human experiments or a Syndicate from killing hundreds for strange reasons. The only laws deemed punishable are relatively trivial offenses like not paying tax or filming within a certain Wing, which are invariably met with capital punishment.
• In Cirque Faerial of the Tattered World, a remnant where The Fair Folk live, it is not only legal but socially normal and encouraged to commit what would in other remnants be crimes. The bearer of the role of Ringmaster is expected to be assassinated at some point.

Web Animation

• How Hell is run in Hazbin Hotel, as Lucifer is theoretically in charge (because he can do horrible things to anyone who defies him) but the only laws canonically confirmed to exist are a ban on travel to the mortal realm not sanctioned for official business, upholding The Masquerade while in the human world with disguises, and a trademark or copyright on the name of the "Lulu World" amusement park. All other acts typically deemed as immoral in Hell are permitted and not punished under Lucifer's law. Drugs are sold from vending machines, civilian ownership of fully automatic weapons is widespread, sexual deviancy is the norm, genocidal turf wars among the demon lords are an annual thing, and there's nothing anyone can do about fraud and other bad business practices. The upside is that sinners are immortal and can't die from most of the above, but the downside is that the genocidal hit squads from Heaven with immortal-killing weaponry are fully permitted and encouraged to open fire on anyone.

Western Animation

• Ben 10: Alien Force:
  • Vilgax's first plan in Alien Force involved exploiting a Galactic law to legally conquer planets, where he issues a challenge to a planet's champion and upon victory would give him conquest of said planet that avoids a war. Of course after Ben defeats him the first time, he keeps coming back to illegally attack the Earth.
  • Vulkanus uses a tonne of Taydenite to purchase the rights to terraform Earth to resemble his home planet (where according to Kevin, 850 degrees Fahrenheit is cool), complete with a legal document. Of course, the heroes still won't allow him to turn their planet into a molten wasteland.
  • The Vreedle Brothers. As Repo Men, what they do is strictly speaking legal with certified documentation. Ben and Kevin have to actually contest their client in court to make them stand down.
• In the BoJack Horseman episode "Feel-Good Story", it is revealed that billionaires are legally allowed to murder without consequence in America, allowing Corrupt Corporate Executive Jeremiah Whitewhale to murder a worker for taking too many bathroom breaks. Apparently, both major parties agreed on the bill without much issue.
• Demonstrated in the Love, Death & Robots world of the short "Pop Squad". Humanity has achieved immortality, which means the population can only increase, stretching resources thin and straining society as a whole. To this end, breeding has been outlawed by the worldwide governments and legalized hit squads are established to stamp out any occurrences of breeding (legalized homicide). The titular police squad's job is to hunt down those who have broken this law and execute the resulting offspring.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): Demonstrated in the episode "Bought and Scold", where Spoiled Brat Princess Morbucks convinces her dad to buy the entire city and make her mayor, and her only command is to declare that "Crime is Legal" (with a printed document for criminals to show off in the page image). Morbucks plunges the city into chaos purely to spite the Powerpuff Girls, who she threatens to throw in jail if they try and stop any criminals from doing any immoral acts they would otherwise be punished for. This bites Princess in the butt when she gets robbed and, as the girls note when they're summoned, there's nothing they can do since the theft was perfectly legal, thus forcing Princess to re-illegalize crime to get her stuff back. Turns out the girls themselves were the thieves in an effort to force Princess to change the law back and get the old mayor his job back.
• In Samurai Jack, crime seems to be permitted on a planetary scale, considering how Aku, (the demonic king of Earth), runs his evil empire. Instead of a totalitarian regime where everything is strictly monitored and controlled, Aku allows the whole world to be consumed by an endless state of violence and warfare in which all sorts of villains, warlords, criminals, and monsters run rampant and terrorize innocent people as they please with full permission under his authority. Aku even has his minions escort new criminals to parts of Earth that are relatively peaceful to be destroyed once they arrive as government policy. The normal citizens of Aku's empire are either miserable and actively despise the way their society is run or just reached the Despair Event Horizon and don't have any care to change a way of life they acknowledge has been corrupt for millennia.
• Total Drama: All the sadistic challenges Chris puts the contestants through are all technically legal due to them signing a contract. The one time he had a run-in with the law was due to using Wawanakwa as a dumping ground for toxic waste.
• The Guild of Calamitous Intent from The Venture Brothers is essentially this, serving as a Super Registration Act for villains. Other organizations like it exist, such as the Peril Partnership and the original incarnation of SPHINX, but the Guild is by far the largest one.

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