Ethical and legal question

[s|k]

Is stealing a single dollar as terrible a crime as stealing a thousand dollars?

What if the dollar belonged to a homeless person, and it was all he had, and the thousand dollars belong to a billionaire?

What if the dollar belonged to the billionaire?
What if the dollar was from your mothers purse?
What if the dollar was a birthday present for your 6 year old sister?
What if it were just a single penny that you stole?

What's worse, stealing a thousand dollars from a Walmart cash register or from your neighbor's bank acount and they were going to use it to pay for their medical bills?

What if you stole a thousand dollars from a criminal who killed someone to get the money?

What if you stole from a rich person to give to the poor?

Are these all equal crimes in the eyes in the law?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by s|k

Are these all equal crimes in the eyes in the law?

Of course not. Try it though. Short-change a billionaire one dollar next time you get the chance and see if that ends up with the same punishment as robbing ten thousand dollars from the Salvation Army.

Stealing one dollar, if it's from someone who can otherwise afford it and doesn't involve anything else (e.g. criminal tresspass, criminal damage to break in, the use of force, certain other types of dishonesty) isn't actually that bad, despite the hoopla you hear from some people.

edited.

[s|k]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Of course not.

Stealing one dollar, if it's from someone who can otherwise deserve it and doesn't involve anything else (e.g. criminal tresspass, criminal damage to break in, the use of force, certain other types of dishonesty) isn't actually that bad, despite the hoopla you hear from some people.

Is there like a dollar or pound limit of what amount constitutes a felony vs a misdemeanor?

[Arachnidman]

What if you were stealing $1000 from a woman who was going to use that money to hire a hitman to kill her husband?
________
XS400

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by s|k

Is there like a dollar or pound limit of what amount constitutes a felony vs a misdemeanor?

I have no idea, but in general on the spirit of your other questions - these are the reasons we have Judges etc to reflect on punishment, mitigating circumstances, etc.

[s|k]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Of course not. Try it though. Short-change a billionaire one dollar next time you get the chance and see if that ends up with the same punishment as robbing ten thousand dollars from the Salvation Army.

It could be worse either way. The billionaire could feel indignant and throw money at his legal team because you've insulted him and the Salvation Army may not have the resources to try and go after you.

But then for you it is a question of the punishment you will receive if caught, not of some intrinsic moral value?

[s|k]

Originally Posted by horn

is the question whether the law is ethical or simply if the law ackowledges the difference ?

I don't know, is there a difference? I think there is maybe. Because the penalty may not be as severe legally for stealing the last dollar from a homeless person as it would be for stealing a thousand dollars from a rich man, but isn't stealing the dollar ethically worse a crime?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by s|k

But then for you it is a question of the punishment you will receive if caught, not of some intrinsic moral value?

You asked what the law thought of stealing, not what I thought of it.

As for my opinion "stealing" is a grey area because :
1. Certain things defined as "stealing" under some legal systems aren't stealing at all.
2. Certain things which certainly are stealing aren't defined as stealing under the existing legal system.
3. Certain people are advantaged simply by merit of their birth. Others are disadvantaged in a similar fashion.
4. I would not condemn stealing out of necessity in some circumstances.

[s|k]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

You asked what the law thought of stealing, not what I thought of it.

As for my opinion "stealing" is a grey area because :
1. Certain things defined as "stealing" under some legal systems aren't stealing at all.
2. Certain things which certainly are stealing aren't defined as stealing under the existing legal system.
3. Certain people are advantaged simply by merit of their birth. Others are disadvantaged in a similar fashion.
4. I would not condemn stealing out of necessity in some circumstances.

Do you have some guiding principle that you can easily summarize that helps you work through the gray area and designate one or the other case as wrong or right?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by s|k

Do you have some guiding principle that you can easily summarize that helps you work through the gray area and designate one or the other case as wrong or right?

On this matter it'd be difficult to summarise in a single paragraph but I'd say the following :

1. I believe that human beings are born free with certain innate rights, which states and laws can merely recognise, support or oppress. Key amongst these right is "agency" where he or she can act in away which is free and unhindred so long as they do not interfere with the rights of others. Part of agency is the interaction, making and possessing of "things" - which others in general cannot interfere with.

2. I believe that it is vital to enjoy life on this planet and as a general aid to our survival that we should consider ourselves at all times as brothers and sisters of our fellow human beings. Relations nurtured under the banner of solidarity will ensure that our lives are our easier, more pleasurable and ultimately sustainable without the need for theft, or murder or anything else. Note - this fraternity is not an obligation which can be "punished" for non-compliance but merely a spirit I would ask others to adopt.

Part of the nature of solidarity would be to limit the divergance in wealth and comfort that we join. If you have excess would you not desire to share it with your friends and family? With your brothers? In this sense, we would hope that eventually we would all be roughly equal. Theft between equals is rarer than where there is large divergance in wealth or comfort.

3. On Property in general I'd agree with much of what Jefferson said (forgive the long quote)

Originally Posted by Thomas Jefferson

It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance.

By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property.

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

Now, I have some minor disagreements with Jefferson's terminology regarding property but from this we can draw :
- An opposition to intellectual property and therefore the notion it is possible to "steal" that at all.
- A notion that permanent fixed ownership of land would be theft from the common collective.

4. Now, while human beings can possess things it is inevitable that some will choose to steal from others to improve their own lot. This is unfortunate, but inevitable. In general, we should consider the reasons why they steal. If it is for necessity then we, as the common collective have failed them for should we not be assisting our brother freely so he does not need to steal?

If he steals from mere greed then this is unfortunate and perhaps we should look at the social causes of such greed. Ultimately, if someone steals from "the homeless" then this is indeed terrible, but is it not terrible that there are homeless people - while literally thousands of homes lie empty in the most advanced nations? Where materials and resources exist to build a million new homes of the highest quality?

Of course, there'll always be arseholes no matter how well things are going, and those people might deserve a slap if they misbehave from time to time.

I hope these comments are illustrative, although they are of course more general rather than specific to your question.

[G.K Zhukov]

Sweet lazy life
Champagne and caviar
I hope you'll come and find me
Cause you know who we are
Those who deserve the best in life
And know what money's worth
And those whose sole misfortune
Was having mountains o' nothing at birth

Taken from a song by Tracy Chapman, called Mountains O' Things.

[s|k]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

On this matter it'd be difficult to summarise in a single paragraph but I'd say the following :

1. I believe that human beings are born free with certain innate rights, which states and laws can merely recognise, support or oppress. Key amongst these right is "agency" where he or she can act in away which is free and unhindred so long as they do not interfere with the rights of others. Part of agency is the interaction, making and possessing of "things" - which others in general cannot interfere with.

2. I believe that it is vital to enjoy life on this planet and as a general aid to our survival that we should consider ourselves at all times as brothers and sisters of our fellow human beings. Relations nurtured under the banner of solidarity will ensure that our lives are our easier, more pleasurable and ultimately sustainable without the need for theft, or murder or anything else. Note - this fraternity is not an obligation which can be "punished" for non-compliance but merely a spirit I would ask others to adopt.

Part of the nature of solidarity would be to limit the divergance in wealth and comfort that we join. If you have excess would you not desire to share it with your friends and family? With your brothers? In this sense, we would hope that eventually we would all be roughly equal. Theft between equals is rarer than where there is large divergance in wealth or comfort.

3. On Property in general I'd agree with much of what Jefferson said (forgive the long quote)


Now, I have some minor disagreements with Jefferson's terminology regarding property but from this we can draw :
- An opposition to intellectual property and therefore the notion it is possible to "steal" that at all.
- A notion that permanent fixed ownership of land would be theft from the common collective.

4. Now, while human beings can possess things it is inevitable that some will choose to steal from others to improve their own lot. This is unfortunate, but inevitable. In general, we should consider the reasons why they steal. If it is for necessity then we, as the common collective have failed them for should we not be assisting our brother freely so he does not need to steal?

If he steals from mere greed then this is unfortunate and perhaps we should look at the social causes of such greed. Ultimately, if someone steals from "the homeless" then this is indeed terrible, but is it not terrible that there are homeless people - while literally thousands of homes lie empty in the most advanced nations? Where materials and resources exist to build a million new homes of the highest quality?

Of course, there'll always be arseholes no matter how well things are going, and those people might deserve a slap if they misbehave from time to time.

I hope these comments are illustrative, although they are of course more general rather than specific to your question.

I have to think about it.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

4. Now, while human beings can possess things it is inevitable that some will choose to steal from others to improve their own lot. This is unfortunate, but inevitable. In general, we should consider the reasons why they steal. If it is for necessity then we, as the common collective have failed them for should we not be assisting our brother freely so he does not need to steal?

If he steals from mere greed then this is unfortunate and perhaps we should look at the social causes of such greed. Ultimately, if someone steals from "the homeless" then this is indeed terrible, but is it not terrible that there are homeless people - while literally thousands of homes lie empty in the most advanced nations? Where materials and resources exist to build a million new homes of the highest quality?

Of course, there'll always be arseholes no matter how well things are going, and those people might deserve a slap if they misbehave from time to time.

I hope these comments are illustrative, although they are of course more general rather than specific to your question.

i'd wager that he probably needs to steal because he blew his girlfriend's life savings at the track the other day on a 'sure thing.'

so in general i wouldn't see stealing as inherently morally wrong, and i definitely wouldn't claim that there is a direct correlation between amount of money and amount of wrong; by that standard the true moral path lies somewhere where the average income lies in the $10s of dollars per year (because it is virtually impossible to commit a significant wrong in such a place).

more to the point, i don't see any moral wrong with someone stealing to feed their family, but in such an instance i do see a wrong committed by that individual through his spending the last six months in topless bars only to discover "Oh crap, outta money, now I NEED to steal." To me in this instance, all of the moral wrong is done and past before the stealing commences.

And so we have the stealing not as an injustice, but as a flag that there is injustice, or has been injustice, be it with the society or the individual. I've been up for 36 hours.

The end.

[Nadval]

Stealing in itself indeed exposes a fault in the way society functions as a whole, with the emphasis on competition and the encouragement of independance and 'self-help' perhaps being two aspects which perpetuate this dysfunction; failure of many to take advantage of and grasp hold of the product surplus in society, that is to say relative to others, can detach themselves from moral conscience and can justify this detachment by the independance and thus lack of support forced upon them. It is easy to judge from a position of privelage and in retrospect of a 'good' - or socially rewarding - upbringing, that those in an unfamiliar positions are thus so due to their own actions or discredit. However since moral conscience is in itself very much socially compelled, I would be very much cynical of anyone who attempts, from any position within the particular society, to judge those people without bringing into question the foundations of their society and how it has lead to the situation in question arising.

Is stealing x amount from person A worse than stealing y amount from person B? The answer: it's wrong that stealing should exist within the framework of possible actions to undertake, and thus the causes of this should be judged, not the individual actions in themselves.

(I'm not educated in how the law deals with this issue, but that to me is irrelevent to ethical judgement, since the law, certainly in the UK, does not represent what I would call morality. Although I suppose that was implied by the seperation of the two in the title of this thread.)

[I am Idler]

This is exactly why vigilantes is a awesome idea

[Yahwe]

Originally Posted by s|k

Is there like a dollar or pound limit of what amount constitutes a felony vs a misdemeanor?

we don't have a felony misdemeanor distinction

they're all just crimes.

what we do have is an administrative distinction.

theft over £5000 can go to a 'bigger court' the bigger court has more powers over sentencing and will use a jury. the little court just has a quasi jury of 3 people who sit as 'judge and jury' but aren't lawyers so they have a legally trained clerk who gives advice on the law to the quasi jury. they must follow this advice.

we define theft as (1) appropriating (2) property belonging to another (3) dishonestly (4) with the intention to permanently deprive.

so finding money in the street is not theft. (because of (3))
borrowing without permission is not theft. (because of (4))
picking wild flowers is not theft. (because of (2))
but dishonestly keeping money accidentally put in your bank account is theft. (because of (1))

we have no 'minimum sentence' for theft. so if a chap steals a loaf of bread to feed his family he will be punished with an 'absolute discharge' (ie. nothing happens to him.)

this is the punishment part though, he will still have committed a crime and it will be recorded. we don't do this because we're heartless we do it because to make such a man (stealing to feed a family) 'not guilty' of theft would mean changing the definition. if it was changed to protect so called 'robin hoods' it would let off more morally reprehensible criminals.

so again justice takes notes of practicalities - the british police would not prosecute a 'robin hood' and if they went mad and did then the court would likely throw out the case on some 'technicality'

the law is just one part of justice. the law is integral to maintaining a constancy to justice, but it is not in and of itself justice. all british lawyers are trained to understand this.

this is why we don't have a word for 'lawyer' as a professional. we all have our sepparate roles in the job of justice. solicitors, policemen, barristers, judges, juries and jurists (legal scholars). In england all these parts form the web that is justice. that is why there is no 'big book of THE LAW'.

we see justice as an eternally subjective objective.

[Yahwe]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

- A notion that permanent fixed ownership of land would be theft from the common collective.

curiously there is no permanent ownership of land in britain

[Yahwe]

Originally Posted by horn

that seems far more flexible than my assumptions led me too believe. The whole blame culture thing, what with sueing for god knows what suggested to me that the law was applied by the letter.

you did no research

after doing no research you held opinions

are you really surprised that your opinions were wrong?

[Yahwe]

Originally Posted by horn

no, that's why i called them assumptions

yes yes yes

you score +1 on the witty comebacks level.

but must we play games?

stop being defensive. i don't even have any rep.

you did call them assumptions. but what i want to know is why you put them in type? if you knew that these assumptions were all quite quite wrong (as you must have) then why tell them to us?
i mean why write them to us?

am i 'bad'. am i 'evil', because i pointed out that yourassumptions were wrong and silly? If you knew they were why did you tell us?

i'm not clever enough to understand you.

EDIT: i mean look what i asked. all i asked was "are you surprised". well??? are you?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by s|k

Is stealing a single dollar as terrible a crime as stealing a thousand dollars?

Not unless we've changed the way we count.

What if the dollar belonged to a homeless person, and it was all he had, and the thousand dollars belong to a billionaire?

What you don't know can't hurt you.

What if the dollar belonged to the billionaire?

Why not just ask him for it?

What if the dollar was from your mothers purse?

I think she might have given you it anyways.

What if the dollar was a birthday present for your 6 year old sister?

I'd be more concerned about the staggering poverty implicit in a birthday present of one dollar.

What if it were just a single penny that you stole?

"Need a penny or have one to spare? Take one or leave one, that's why they're there."

What's worse, stealing a thousand dollars from a Walmart cash register or from your neighbor's bank acount and they were going to use it to pay for their medical bills?

Probably the second one without any other information. Nobody likes faceless corporations. However maybe walmart were going to give that thousand dollars to charity or pay up on their insurance but now they're like "fuk u povs". I guess in general I don't have much of a problem with stealing when it's to reach some sort of subsistence level that I've made up in my head.

What if you stole a thousand dollars from a criminal who killed someone to get the money?

Hold on a second. You've stolen a thousand dollars from someone who has already killed at least one person to get that money? What are you insane?

What if you stole from a rich person to give to the poor?

What if they deserved it?

Are these all equal crimes in the eyes in the law?

Apparently not.

[s|k]

That made me laugh. I'd post some better response but it's 1:52 in the morning and I'm dead tired.

[lokken]

depends on the circumstances

that is all.

[All Systems Go]

Originally Posted by horn

jesus christ yahwe.
my first post was worded specifically so that i wouldn't appear argumentative towards you.
I was trying to make sure i got accross that i held assumptions that appeared to be wrong, i was also hoping you would maybe say a little more on the subjects i raised (the copyright etc), that's the reason i posted it.
It wasn't a witty comeback, i was just trying to say i wasn't starting an argument, i didn't consider my previous assumptions to be the truth.

Like a shark Yahwe can sense blood from a mile away.

He went for the kill.

ths time overdramatic arguments are his weapon of choice.

You have no choice, if you want to live you must flee!

[Yahwe]

Originally Posted by All Systems Go

Like a shark Yahwe can sense blood from a mile away.

He went for the kill.

ths time overdramatic arguments are his weapon of choice.

You have no choice, if you want to live you must flee!

i'll bet you good money that he doesn't

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by horn

if you were to suggest that human life (or any life for that matter) was indispensable (i can't think of the word, basically paramount) then you face a conflict with autonomy, or agency as you call it.

I don't really understand what you mean. Yes, life is a precondition of liberty/agency. But people can choose not to live (either by suicide or smoking or eating red meat every day or what-not). I'm not really sure how that's a conflict.

Maybe our primal instincts are only to protect those within our family for protection of the genes etc... (that sort of argument which takes too long to type out)

This might be true - and I think that we probably do have some sort of hard-coding in our brain which means by default we feel more spontaneous generosity to those we consider "one of us" compared to how we feel to outsiders. However, what this outsider / gap seems very flexible. It can be defined by family, language, religion, race, hobby, weight, etc. I feel strong association with my friends, despite the fact we share no common genes that I am aware of.

But even given all of that - we seem to have the ability for the most part to make decisions contrary to our "primal instincts". So by default you might only "want" to share your goods with your family but it's pretty easy to over-ride that.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by horn

sorry, what i meant was that if you hold as an ethical truism that human life is (still can't think of the word) of absalute value i.e. it should not be traded in for anything, then this belief can conflict with the ideal of lebrty/agency being an innate right that people have.

Well, I wouldn't trade other people's lives for anything but my own life is entirely different. If you mean some sort of contrived situation where it's either someone's life vs someone's liberty - well, we'll handle those situations as they arise (and there's already precedent for sending people to prison/secure mental hospitals if they're a danger to other people for instance). Again, I'm not sure I understand what you mean though, so perhaps you could use an example of a situation which might illustrate your point?

Although doesn't this unity come about in the face of adversity ?

Sometimes, but not always. You can choose to help the old woman with her bags get off the train for instance - there's no need for "adversity", it's a choice.

And adversity is very flexible anyway. Despite the tales of looting and rapes in New Orleans after Katrina there were also stories of people working together to try and secure supplies for other people - of people trying to rescue as many as they could. Of people trying to get supplies to vulnerable people where they knew of them - that sort of thing. The common enemy does not have to be other people - it could be "nature", or poverty, or whatever really*.

I would say that it's dangerous to assume that in the face of adversity people will automatically come together - that often isn't the case. When people face starvation they often (though not always) turn on each other. It's only when the basics are secured for themselves that people can begin to think of other (again, sometimes). What adversity can sometimes do is simply fracture fault-lines between people, rather than bring them together - it all depends.

* = If you're interested in an interesting (but highly flawed) discussion of this sort of thing I'd recommend reading Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid.

[Nadval]

Originally Posted by horn

Although doesn't this unity come about in the face of adversity ? i.e. a common enemy etc etc.
However maybe that is just a catalyst and not infact a necessity for untiy. I like the point oyu make that we can rationalize our supposed genetic responses, maybe in the same way we can rationalize the way we percieve the situations in the first place.

In some of the earliest societies people worked together through necessity - In order for food to be gathered, grazed, harvested and stored, communities had to work together so that such work could be distributed and maintained. There are numerous examples of where the land in a community would be periodically redistributed with each receiving an equal share - if there was ever a surplus of food for one family then they would hold feasts for the community until the surplus was depleted. Such was their natural way of live; mutual aid. 'Stealing' was perhaps a term they didn't even understand, or have langage for.

It is generally accepted that through the introduction of agriculture and irrigation came the ability to maintain a considerable surplus and allow expansion of villages and communities. Thus civilisation was born, together with the concepts of heirarchy and inequality.

[JonnyBGood]

But like what if the government tied your right hand to this machine and told you if you ever moved it you'd kill your parents. What then?!?!??!?!?!?!?

[JonnyBGood]

Yeah, anyways the point is people can't be blamed for when they're put in horrible situations by other people (or organisations or god or small platypuses named bill).

[JonnyBGood]

Yeah I'd be okay with that. It's not their fault. Maybe if someone offered them an easy way to save both lives I'd be like "hay dude that was pretty shitty of you" but I don't really blame people for things that aren't their fault. Causality is a tricky concept. When we ask, for example, who was at fault for the traffic accident we don't assign equal blame to both parties because it takes two to tango, rather we assign blame to the drunken mess. Just because you can draw a causal link between action A and result X doesn't mean that moral responsibility for result X lies with the perpetrator of action A. It seems irrational when you look at it like that but you just have to take the time to imagine a few real world scenarios which see how true it rings.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by horn

The whole blame culture thing, what with sueing for god knows what suggested to me that the law was applied by the letter.

I could sue you for making this post. Would that be indicative of the "blame culture", or merely be a demonstration that it's possible to sue for anything?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by horn

If he disconnects the tubes, the horn player will certainly die.
But he does not want to stay attached, he wants to continue playing hockey.

so his liberty/autonomy is in conflict with considering human life as a paramount value (not using it as a means to an ends)

I see what you mean, but that's not really a situation that would occur very often and I'm not even sure how the law would handle it now. It's exactly why we have trials, judges, etc as yahwe has said this in this thread rather than a big lookup table ascribing punishment for certain types of behaviour.

I think people have some sort of duty to others, but I'm not sure about legal enforcement of this duty (I tend to say no). I think a slightly more down-to-earth case would be if you found a baby abandoned on your doorstep. I'd say that you had a moral obligation to bring the baby inside, try to contact the authorities and assign to some sort of more appropriate care-giver. So while you were waiting for social services to turn up (or whatever) I'd say you have an obligation to look after the kid (feed it, change it, etc). However, this is entirely different to saying that you should raise the kid yourself, spend lots of your money and change the very course of your life. It's about (as usual) reasonableness. Koen in your example isn't obliged to live the rest of his life (presumably in pain / inconvenience) with the guy attached to him, but if he just tore the guys arteries out without first getting a doctor involved he'd be acting pretty poorly (not to mention stupidly).

In strict liberty terms, I don't think someone who notices an abandoned baby but fails to do anything about it has done anything "criminal" (again, I'm not talking about the law now - I suspect you could be in trouble under the current legal system) but has certainly done something wrong. But it's important to realise that the formal / state law isn't the only way the codes of behaviour are reinforced. Personally, if I knew someone who found an abandoned baby but let it starve I would never ever associate with that person again and I'd imagine a lot of people would feel the same. If I was their employer, even if I didn't fire them directly, they'd probably never get promoted. People would give them the cold shoulder. Their life, in reality would probably become rather shitty one way or the other. Conversely, someone who helped out a baby would probably get quite a lot of respect / admiration from his peers, and it'd be a great story to tell the birds about what a hero you are. Some sort of "justice" would be done one way or the other.

Now, this sort of "informal" or "social" reinforcement can be dangerous, as it's essentially unregulated - there's no due process and error-checking is difficult and so on. But it definitely exists and has a role to play in "justice" (in the broadest possible sense) everywhere. So no, in your case Koen's liberty does trump the other guys "right to life" I guess, but that's not the end of the story as I've discussed.

[dda]

Originally Posted by s|k

Is there like a dollar or pound limit of what amount constitutes a felony vs a misdemeanor?

If you come to California, under $400 is always a misdemeanor. Above $400 can be charged as a felony but a prosecutor may decide, based on the circumstances, to charge it as petite theft any way.

However, be careful, if you are stealing agricultural produce the limit is $100 of wholesale value. Thus it could be San Andreas-GTA (grand theft avacado).

[s|k]

Originally Posted by dda

If you come to California, under $400 is always a misdemeanor. Above $400 can be charged as a felony but a prosecutor may decide, based on the circumstances, to charge it as petite theft any way.

However, be careful, if you are stealing agricultural produce the limit is $100 of wholesale value. Thus it could be San Andreas-GTA (grand theft avacado).

dda you'd never press charges against me would you? You like me to much, and you know that all I'm *really* trying to do is feed my terrible meth addiction.

[Eylisia]

Ethically stealing from the poor is morally repugnant, while stealing from the rich is less so. Legally, the difference is not acknowledged in the same way, and altho there is a human perspective on it (the judges, and sometimes, the prosecutors) there isn't much they can do to change the borders of punishment they have to keep inside of.

By the way, hey s|k, good to see not all the old schoolers are dead or gone

Personally, if I was rich, I'd hope anyone who thought to steal from the poor would rather steal 1000$ from me. If I'm rich, that will be nothing every day anyway.

Eylisia

[dda]

Originally Posted by s|k

dda you'd never press charges against me would you? You like me to much, and you know that all I'm *really* trying to do is feed my terrible meth addiction.

If some damned Arizona Librarian ever shows up in my county and starts ripping off our prized avacados I will fall upon them with all of the majesty of the law. I will turn them into human guacamole!

[s|k]

Originally Posted by dda

If some damned Arizona Librarian ever shows up in my county and starts ripping off our prized avacados I will fall upon them with all of the majesty of the law. I will turn them into human guacamole!

Avacadoes....yummmm