Once again, you misunderstand what I have said.

I have not once alluded to historic tradition. What I have said is simply that common law is subordinate to constitutional, regulatory, and statutory law inasmuch as common law can be wiped out by sufficiently-specific constitutional, regulatory, or statutory laws. I will admit to having played fast and loose with the term "civil law" in using it as a shorthand form for "constitutional, regulatory, and statutory law" in an effort to conform to your use of the term "civil law".

In this you are incorrect. Contempt of Court is indeed codified in statutory law. Specifically in Title 18 of the US Code. State codes have similar provisions (e.g. Revised Code of Washington, Title 7, Chapter 21, or Texas Government Code section 21.002). Contempt of court does have its origins in common law, but as practiced today it is absolutely codified in statutory law.

I fully understand that the US legal system is founded upon common law principles. Likewise, I fully understand that, in the absence of sufficiently-specific codified law, a court's decision on unregulated issues is a de-facto "law". That does not change the fact that the courts have no power to act against existing codified law (provided, of course, that existing codified law is not subordinate to other, contradictory, codified law). As I illustrated in my earlier example, no court has the power to determine that the BAC limit "ought" to be 0.05% when codified law states that the BAC limit is 0.08%.

The bottom line is this: I have continuously been in agreement with you that common law is a vital and integral part of the legal tradition in the United States. My point is merely that common law is subordinate to codified law.

Our difficulty here seems to be definitional. You appear to be using a very broad definition of "ought" whereas my use of the term has a much more specific meaning. When I speak of a court determining what a law "ought" to be, I am not speaking about a court deciding whether an existing law applies to a given circumstance, but rather about a court making substantive changes to existing civil laws. For example, drunk driving laws stipulate a 0.08% BAC as the baseline for intoxication. A court cannot decide that this "ought" to be 0.05% and convict someone of a DUI anyway. Surely you can see the difference between my use of "ought" and the much looser definition you have been using.

Once again, we have an issue that is apparently due to an overly-broad definition on your part. "Legal principles" are not synonymous with laws. No new laws were created in either of the cases you mentioned, rather, existing laws were applied to new technological developments and the resulting decisions formed legal precedents that are unlikely to change due to the doctrine of stare decisis. Both decisions are firmly based in the pre-existing civil laws. Moreover, both decisions remain vulnerable to sufficiently-specific civil laws should such civil laws be implemented in the future. That is to say, should the legislative body pass a law specifically stating that any and all recording devices are illegal the court's decision in the Sony case would be superseded by this new civil law. Yes, the court could claim that such a law was unconstitutional, but that decision likewise has its foundation in civil law (i.e. the US Constitution) and would not be a new "law" in any true sense, but rather an application of an existing law (the Constitution) to a new situation (the passage of a new subordinate law).

It is very clear which of us is failing to understand the other.

Are you suggesting that common law can supersede constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law?

Common law certainly interacts with the other forms of law to form a coherent legal climate and the principle of stare decisis is a necessity if one desires anything resembling stability, but neither of those facts can be rationally interpreted as indicating that a court has any true say in what a law "ought" to be. While there does (and should) exist an ability for a court to re-interpret a law in light of new information or developments (as, for example, free speech laws have been re-interpreted with the advent of the internet), a court always needs a compelling rational basis for its decisions within existing civil law.

In Loving v. Virginia the basis for the case was that state laws prohibiting interracial marriage violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and were therefore invalid. The claim was not "X shouldn't be illegal", the claim was "X isn't illegal" because the 14th Amendment supersedes the state law.

I know that it seems as though I'm picking nits by stressing the difference between "shouldn't be" and "isn't", but there's a big difference from a legal standpoint. Whether something "should" be legal or not is irrelevant to the courts, they only care about whether it actually is legal based on the current interpretation of applicable laws. Only the legislative body is concerned with whether or not something should be legal.

Now here's a question for you. Why not drive-by-wire with a steering wheel?

I can think of one very important reason: Fail-safe mode. It's the same reason that brakes are not "brake by wire" yet and still rely on a hydraulic system. Even if all the electronics on a car fail, the brakes and steering still need to work. Yes, you lose power assist, but the brakes and steering, having a mechanical link, are still essentially functional and still work.

If an electronic throttle fails, the car can't accelerate. Inconvenient, but not necessarily dangerous. If an electronic steering system failed, the car would lose directional control. That's dangerous no matter how one looks at it. Having the mechanical link provides a failsafe measure.