> What's important is the letter of the law, the relevant preceding decisions, and the judge's reason and conscience (which is checked by appeals). The context the law was originally written in is just fluff.

The "relevant preceding decisions" include decisions specifying what canons of construction are used to interpret the meaning of law, and those decisions do hold out that legislative intent is a factor to consider when resolving the correct interpretation of words that can reasonably interpreted in different ways before considering that intent.