Laws are not the answer, California Attorney General Jerry Brown told a crowd in Modesto last week.
"Be skeptical of freedom through more laws," Brown said, according to the Modesto Bee.
Brown was speaking at a Gallo Center for the Arts celebration for Law Day.
According to the Bee, the state's top law enforcement officer bemoaned California's sprawling and packed prison system, where lawsuits over inmate conditions have produced 15 different consent decrees.
He said third graders now spend as much time taking standardized tests as law school graduates do on the bar exam.
There will be no laws in heaven, he said, according to the Bee, and nothing but due process in hell.
"It's not the rule of law," the Modesto Bee quoted Brown saying, "so much as the rule of laws."