Pregnant Woman Arrested for "Stealing" Sandwich

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Rags, I'm not the one calling it involuntary theft, it is theft. Intent can be devided into an involuntary action and a voluntary action, the voluntary action happened the instant she picked up a product from the shelf and ate it, from that moment on she has to pay for it if she doesnt she has stolen it, due to her deliberate and reckless action she made the theft of this item possible. so intent is already established. her involuntary action (forgetting to pay for it) doesnt deminish intent - you do not have to be actively aware of the crime at the moment it happens you merely have to have put in motion the series of events which lead to the crime, which she did.

really? what happens if you dont (or forget to) pay the ticket?

really? and if they fail to contact you they take you to court, if you fail to appear (or forget to appear) a warrant is placed for your arrest.

 

I'm pretty sure that being in possession of unpurchased property outside of the store where the property is sold is considered prima facie evidence of theft. So it actually is correct to say they stole the sandwiches, though a determination could still be made to the contrary at trial.

The very fact that the sandwich lady was arrested means that there was sufficient evidence to believe she committed a crime by the letter of the law, unless you want to claim more corruption on the part of the cops or incompetence or something like that. (And if it was "false arrest," she'll have a field day in civil court with the police department.)

 

I'm pretty sure we've given more thought to this than all the parties involved.

 

Actually prima facie is sufficient evidence of proof of a crime unless it can be shown otherwise. Probably the most commonly understood form of this (at least in the US) is rear-ending someone in a traffic accident. The very fact that you rear-ended them is considered prima facie, which means you are automatically considered at fault, unless you can show otherwise.

If you want to split hairs, of course sandwich lady is not guilty until proven guilty, nor is Jerry Sandusky guilty until proven guilty, nor Al Capone, etc., etc. But I don't think playing the "alleged" game is what anyone was really talking about here. What's being contested is the apparent notion that there was no larceny at the Safeway, nor by extension any reason to think there was larceny, which is patently ridiculous. Sandwich lady was outside the store in possession of property (in her stomach, lol) that she did not purchase. That is at least reason to suspect larceny to anyone with any common sense, and unless I'm greatly mistaken, it's also prima facie evidence - there need not be anything further to show her guilt. It's up to her to show otherwise.

What if she had taken her entire cart out of the store without paying for anything, and yet maintained that she nonetheless meant to pay? Still evil Safeway? The principal would seem to remain the same.

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Note: disappointingly, Hawaii doesn't seem to have a searchable database on its legislature's website. But here's an illustrative example from Mississipi law that shows what I'm talking about:

* Conversion pretty much means "convert from yours to mine," or "all your base are belong to us." e.g. the common law term "larceny by conversion."

 

I did say this earlier, and we agree BTA. I stated that

just because she's been arrested doesnt mean the courts will decide there is sufficient evidence to bring charges. The police have to arrest anyone who has been accused of an offence, if I bump my head on a door and rush up to a police officer and say that you punched me, he will have to arrest you to allow my allegations to be investigated - most alleged offences arent bogus and there is some reason for the allegation, the police have to investigate everything, an officer doesnt have the power to decide on the spot if there is enough evidence for arrest.

To me this thread is about a simple tool used by people today 'liberal public outrage' "I'll try to get away with what I've done, maybe even get an apology from the effected party by stirring up as much idiot... sorry, 'public' outrage as I can"... the McCanns did the same, they made a fortune out of it.

 

Shosh,
I witness in you what I call professional formation or deformation. Your job experiences are colouring your views i.e. cloud your judgement - they're all guilty until proven innocent.

And I have been calling that concept of yours "involuntary theft" because it was crying out for that - ever since you made that misguided analogy to involuntary manslaughter, apparently on the mistaken idea that negligence suffices to establish a criminal act in theft, too. It doesn't.

 

Gaear- But in the law you brought it up it says she must willfully leave the store without paying for the merchandise. Isn't that what is being debated?

 

damedog, I have not heard of any report where she was forced from the store. By all accounts she left of her own free will, i.e., willingly. That should not be debated. I think "conceals the unpurchased merchandise" would be key here. As I said in one of my first posts -- if she ate the sandwich and left the wrapper in the cart to be rung up later it is reasonable to assume she simply forgot. If instead, she set the wrapper on a shelf somewhere or in her pockets or purse, it is reasonable to assume she concealed the evidence.

In many parts of the US you do not need to take an item from the store to be arrested (and subsequently convicted) of shoplifting. Hiding an item on your person or in a bag you carry is enough. If you are picking up a few items and decide to hold one in your pocket (even if you mean to pay for it) the store can have you arrested for shoplifting by the simple act of placing the item in your pocket.

I have also seen stores where signs indicate a person must pay for an item before consuming it.

 

^ What T2 said.

 

Willfully leaving the store is not the same as willfully leaving the store with the intent to not pay for the sandwich. Not keeping the wrapper with them is certainly cause for suspicion, but coupled with the fact that they paid 50$ for everything else is cause for at least a little doubt. She claimed she was feeling faint and was 8 months pregnant, so i'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the wrapper situation.

 

we are talking about a couple here, they left the wrapper in the trolley and put everything else on the conveyor, if you look in trolleys you quite often see rubbish left in the bottom, maybe they were hoping it would be written off as such. the simple fact is that the instant she consumed something which wasn't hers she had willfully stolen it, the store security were watching her from the moment she ate it- think of it like rugby, if a team makes an error and the other team can take advantage without stopping play, if the team fails to take advantage then the ref penalises the original error - hows that for a description? the store saw her steal the sandwich, they played advantage to see if she would pay for it, she didnt so they did her for the original offence.

 

Maybe is the key word here, from what I read in the article it could have very well been an honest mistake. I simply don't think there is enough evidence of intent, nor a severe enough "crime", to call the police on a pregnant woman with her young child in tow. The side effects of pregnancy due to all the hormone changes and such include difficulty concentrating and fatigue according to Stanford U's website (http://womensneuroscience.stanford.edu/wellness_clinic/Pregnancy.html), not to mention the cravings. It's not too far fetched to chalk it up to mere accident. Simply paying what she owed, like she offered to, should have been the end of it. You have to balance justice with mercy, when you lose either one they both become meaningless.

 

so what of the husbund, her accomplice who was of sound mind and body? look, this isnt difficult here, its not hard to see something left in a trolley, he also knew that she had eaten the sandwich and should have taken steps to make sure she paid for it (there's your negligence Rags)..

so what if she hadnt been caught? the store would have lost out to this theft.

 

Sound mind and body doesn't mean infallible. There could be all kinds of circumstances that could have distracted him from what was a relatively minor issue, like his wife feeling faint and worrying about her, etc. That being said, i'm not making excuses for their actions as I don't know all the details of what transpired, but like I said before the evidence I do know makes me lean towards a simple slip of the mind. You can't say you have never made a mistake, even with no circumstances that would distract you. I have almost forgot to pay for things myself, with no intent of thievery.

 

no, and I expect to pay for my mistakes

I will also say that his mind should have been on the task at hand, once again factors in negligence, when Im monitoring 32 CCTV cameras my mind doesnt stray away from the task at hand, even if people talk to me or someone is talking over the radios.

 

Whether there was negligence on his part or not doesn't really matter in this case, because like Ragusa said there is no such thing as "unintentional theft". To have a crime you must prove that they willfully attempted to steal the object in question.

 

Whoa ... when did the "child in tow" come into this. All accounts I've read the child was not with the couple.

Absolutely not true. If you absentmindedly place an item in your pocket and walk out with it there is no requirement for the store to prove you intended to steal it. You hid it, you didn't pay for it, and you left the store (and leaving the store is not even a requirement in many places -- once you hide an object by placing it in your pocket you've committed a crime). The store simply need to prove you committed an act which would be perceived as a crime by a reasonable person.

 

Really? The article made it sound like the child was with them, but admittedly I only skimmed through it.

Anyways, a quick google search of the legal definition of shoplifting in U.S law will tell you that you need to have intent.

"Shoplifting is generally defined as taking an item without paying for it or intentionally paying less than the retail price. Shoplifting involves carrying, concealing, or otherwise manipulating any merchandise out of the store with the intent of stealing it. Shoplifting laws also consider it illegal to modify price tags, commit refund fraud, remove a shopping cart or any other commercial property from a store location, or intentionally using an illegal form of payment. Individuals can be prosecuted for acting with intent to shoplift even if the shoplifting was never fully carried out."

Placing an item in your pocket would qualify as "concealment" and is pretty good evidence for intent.

 

Things like intent and motive cannot be proved but are simply shown to be reasonable inferences drawn from actions (hence "beyond reasonable doubt"). To paraphrase what you stated, concealing an item implies intent beyond reasonable doubt.

Wouldn't eating the evidence be similar to concealment?

IMO what the couple did easily meets the strictest definition of shoplifting. But there is gray area there as well -- the store had the option of having the customers pay for the "inadvertant" mistake. The police had the option of issuing a citation and sending the couple on their way. For some reason we don't know, both the store and the police chose to play hardball over ~$5 which is completely ridiculous (although usually this kind of escalation happens when the perpetrators are being jerks, granted this is not always the case). Fortunately, Safeway corporate offices looked at the entire thing a bit more reasonably.