oh, well, i wouldn't want that. so maybe not ignore the law, but what about just writing in the intent anyway, wouldn't that help with leniency?

Laws are supposed to be written in such a way as to communicate their intent. It's already there, it's just in terse, technical language. The problem with spelling out intent is it creates a huge attack surface to get a law thrown out or circumvented. It is sort of like trying to program using natural language. People understand better but it functions worse.

The way we fight this in programming is comments and documentation. Perhaps we need something similar for laws? I see the Federalist Papers mentioned quite often in constitutional law; are there other bodies of debate and paper that provide similar justification around other laws? There might also be room for "non-binding" clauses when writing the law.

Depending on the governing body, there is a process of comment and redaction before a law is adopted which is recorded and can be used to make a case. It serves such a purpose.