strain the law

Still, you have been put upon your trial according to the law, and as a just judge I will not strain the law against you.

"And both the location and timing and the prospective candidate in this case strain the laws of chance."

"I suppose you wouldn't send me the readings-we're about on a Galactic level, so it wouldn't strain the law too much."

Colman's letters in which he urged Louis to press Charles II for a dissolution of Parliament, showed a grave lack of political judgement, but it was straining the law to call them treasonable.