People can be, and are, tried for crimes they are utterly innocent of. I call your attention to the duke lacrosse team. It is often said a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich and the duke non-rape case attests to that.

But then again a person can be pretty damn guilty and still be acquitted. the OJ case attests to that. and i don’t beat up the criminal jury for acquitting him. i disagree, but i don’t beat them up for it. its all about burden of proof.

So for the criminal case, they needed to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt. in the civil case, typically she would have to show the detention, and then they would have to prove the affirmative defense that they reasonably believed she committed a crime. so they do have a burden to bear but obviously it is considerably less than needed for a crime. they only have to show that it is more likely than not they had this reasonable belief.

Do i think she has an uphill battle? you bet. but at the same time, we don’t know enough facts to say one side or the other is so clearly in the right that this suit is clearly frivolous. now maybe if you were there when it all happened you would know it was ridiculous for her to sue them. or maybe you would know it is ridiculous that they thought she was a theif. and from where we sit i say it is logically impossible to know or even guess with a strong likelihood of success, which one it will turn out to be.

Well, there is a case where my experience colors my analysis. You should see the size of my wife’s purse. Its as large as a typical backpack. So you could easily be rifling through it and not see anything underneath it at all.

But I mean that is just one of those facts we need to know before we have an opinion on the subject. If she had one of those little itty bitty purses, given the likely size of the items purchased, it would strain plausibility to say it was an accident. On the other hand if it was a purse like my wife carries, it remains plausible. But then you expect the grifter to try to maintain a plausible story.

And look, at the same time, I tend to assume that people don’t stop people without a reason. Most of the security guys I have dealt with understand that you have to give people the benefit of the doubt. They know that if they make a mistake they might end up permanently driving away a customer. So needless to say I am pretty leery of her claims, too.

But we still don’t know enough to know the facts. Frankly I would like to know more about her background, and just how many things she was buying, etc. Like if she seems to be stable, have a steady job, maybe a few kids and bought like $300 of items, the idea that she stole $20 worth of goods seems much less plausible.

But then again people do crazy things. Remember that Bush administration official who was caught committing fraud at multiple Target stores. The con went like this. He would buy certain items. Then later he would come back to the store and pick up the same items off the shelf and then go up to customer service and “pretend” he owned that stuff and would then “return” those items. He would make $500 a pop. But bluntly, wouldn’t you expect that he was already making 6 figures in the white house? So stealing so little when he made so much is… borderline crazy.

Hell just a few months ago, someone stole my PSP. I know who did it and she is a grandmother. A grandmother! Whisky Tango Foxtrot?!

Thirty years ago, oh crap age … make that forty years, my father was detained and threatened with arrest at another -Mart store – the K ones. Within the store he had moved from one department to another, say men’s wear to housewares, without paying for the men’s wear items. That there were ‘all goods’ cash registers at the exit didn’t seem to matter.

I was outraged. For better or worse, he was not a ‘wave maker’ and got his wish that the incident be forgotten. (Forgotten but for the minimal satisfaction I have received from a 40 year boycott.)

> Now allow me to thank you for admitting

I did not say she “concealed” them in the sense that she put her purse over it in order to conceal it. Sheesh. Are you too slow to understand the difference between intending an outcome and it being the result, intended or not?

But yes, if you could show she put the purse over the items FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONCEALING THEM, then it is evidence of intent.

> I agree.

And then you go on to skip over the entire step of intent. I mean seriously, you have absolutely no interest in what is actually in a person’s mind when they act—all you look at are results.

So you seem to have worked in security, and if not, let’s suppose you have. Suppose then you detain an old lady. And she finds the whole thing so frightening that she keels over with a heart attack. Does that make you a murderer? I mean you intentionally did something that resulted in her dying. So I guess you are! OMG! /sarcasm

Or we look at your conduct and deduce your intent. You didn’t intend to kill her. At most you negligently did (and probably not even that). So at worst it is negligent homicide.

And there is no such thing as negligent larceny. It is a crime you can only commit intentionally. Which means that saying it is an accident is a complete defense. And you know what? I’m not debating that with you anymore. This is black letter law, meaning that no one with a clue on the law debates that. You have to show intent and knowledge alone is not sufficient.

> thank you for illustrating

Something I twice stated. Yes, people sometimes fail to pay for everything, either by mistake or because they are crooks. And just because sorting it out is tough doesn’t mean you don’t have a duty to do so.

> you say they are wrong.

I say it is implausible.

> [me] Is it okay to arrest her?

> [you] Nope,

Why not? According to you it is always okay to arrest a person who walks out without paying for it.

> Once again, you dismiss any experience other than yours.

I am not going to debate your silly little absolutism. You think that no one who does that does it accidentally. You believe no one ever makes an honest mistake, and no one, upon realizing it, honestly corrects it? Well, we will let anyone who reads that argument figure out how plausible it is and what it says about your dark soul.

> No one ever said WalMart or their security was perfect.

No, you just assume they were right without all the facts. Look up the word prejudice. That is a classic example of it.

By the way, if you EVER are called for jury duty in a trial involving theft, you have a civic duty to show the judge a copy of this thread. And then the judge will tell you immediately that you cannot sit on the jury. The judge probably won’t say why, but the reason will be that you are obviously prejudiced against anyone accused of the crime.

I mean you don’t even bother to dispute the possibility that if the security guard had not intervened, that the woman might have found the unpaid for merchandise, and she might have acted to return it or pay for it. You don’t dispute that because you can’t dispute that. Because you just don’t know.

> What part of [“]WalMart acted reasonably when seeing someone conceal items and walk out without paying for them[”] eludes you?

What part of “you don’t know all the facts” eludes you?

I mean answer two basic questions:

1) do you know all of the facts?

2) could you imagine any set of facts where this woman was right? Any at all?

And in answering #2 feel free to read over the hypotheticals I offered a few posts ago to get your imagination running a little.

I agree with you. Now allow me to thank you for admitting what I was saying – that concealment is evidence of intent. She concealed the items and therefore exhibited intent.

They do have to prove a reasonable belief that a crime occurred. And that is disputed right now.

I agree. Concealing items and walking out without paying for them is more than a reasonable belief as evidence by the prosecution of the woman.

Yes. Rather than accuse them of anything I would say, “hey, let’s open that up.”

Once again, thank you for illustrating that just because someone stops in the check out line does not mean they intended to pay for all the items.

You seem to assume walmart is perfect, I tend to assume it is run by human beings just like you and me.

No, the running disagreement is that you put forth your experiences, challenge anyone to disagree with you, and when they do, you say they are wrong. You value your experiences more than others. In other words, you guard the “perfection” of your experiences being right all the time and don’t allow for others to have different, contrary experiences.

Is it okay to arrest her?

Nope, but not for the reasons you want to attribute to this.

But I get it. The truth is your experience has prejudiced you.

Once again, you dismiss any experience other than yours.

Everyone is guilty in your eyes.

Once again, that is not the case. People who don’t conceal items and don’t walk out the store without paying for them are not guilty. In fact, the person that does may not be convicted of a crime, but the store has every reason and right to detain them and press charges against them.

People never accidentally walk out with things that don’t belong to them. And Walmart’s security is never wrong when using its power.

What part of WalMart acted reasonably when seeing someone conceal items and walk out without paying for them eludes you?

No one ever said WalMart or their security was perfect. In this case, their actions were more than reasonable.

They did nothing wrong.

But some of us don’t believe in perfection.

All evidence to the contrary.

> I have worked in 4 states and DC and I can tell you that unless they changed the law in the last 20 years, your statement is wrong.

Concealment by itself is not a crime. It is just evidence of intent. And I am a lawyer in Washington, D.C., so I know.

That’s why she wasn’t charged with concealment. Duh.

> They don’t have to prove a crime in the store.

They do have to prove a reasonable belief that a crime occurred. And that is disputed right now.

> You yourself wrote if a person buys a large plastic bin, [when you were a cashier you would] make sure it is empty before they leave

Yes. Rather than accuse them of anything I would say, “hey, let’s open that up.” And if they felt accused, I would say, “look I do it to everyone. Like Reagan used to say, trust but verify.” And if I saw a purse sitting in the child’s seat, I would say, “please lift that purse up.” So rather than wait for her to leave the store, why not ask her before she left?

Well, you might say, because they wanted to catch her red handed. Well, except by this woman’s account they didn’t wait until they had caught her red handed, did they? They wouldn’t have had her red-handed until she actually picked up her purse and saw she had goods that weren’t paid for. Then if she puts the items in her car, then you know that even if she left with it accidentally, she was intentionally keeping it. End of objection, end of case.

Now as I repeatedly say, when WM puts forward its case, maybe it will turn out that they were acting reasonably. I am giving both sides the benefit of the doubt right now. But right now, I don’t have enough information to tell you who is right or wrong, thus it is not fair to call it lawsuit abuse. Not yet.

> I will take that to mean that you aren’t willing to accept any experiences other than your own.

I don’t believe in perfection, period. Which seems to be a running disagreement with us. You seem to assume walmart is perfect, I tend to assume it is run by human beings just like you and me.

But let me try this one. Okay you are perfect. All your friends are perfect. But you indicated you worked as security in a store like walmart. Have you ever seen or heard of a case where a person voluntarily said, “hey, I accidentally took this without realizing. Let me make it right.” Well, I am sure you will deny ever in your whole life seeing that either, because gosh, that might be conceding the obvious to me, but I can say I have seen people do that, too. And it seems hard to argue in that case that they were lying, especially if it was spontaneous and all that.

> Once again

Repetition is not refutation.

> You are the one making the big deal out of her statement. All I am saying is that her denial is no proof or even evidence that she made a mistake.

First, it is empirically untrue to say that it is not evidence. Of course it is evidence. Are you crazy? You apparently don’t credit it very much, but if the only evidence of her intent is her word you have to go with that. You don’t get to just assume a person is guilty.

But it is a real window into your thinking that literally nothing she could say even has a bearing on how you evaluate her conduct. Everyone is guilty to you. Intent doesn’t matter.

> because the store did NOTHING WRONG.

You can say that as forcefully as you want, but the fact remains, you don’t know enough to say they did nothing wrong.

> The concealment IS her intent. The walking past the registers IS her intent.

No, it is not. It certainly wasn’t for the jury. Then intent you have to prove is a desire to wrongfully deprive them of their property. If she had no such desire, if her intent was to pay for everything and by mistake she didn’t, then there is no case.

> It is never wrong to detain a person who has concealed items and walked out without paying for them.

Really. So let’s say this happens. A person walks out with several items hidden under her purse. She gets to the car. She picks up her purse and says, “oh, no, I accidentally took that stuff.” Then she picks up the unpaid-for merchandise and goes back to the store, approaches the nearest security guy and says, “I am so sorry, I walked out without paying for this. I don’t feel like going through the check-out lines, so here you go, take it back.”

Is it okay to arrest her?

Because by your own words, she did conceal items and walked out without paying for them. So I guess they would be right to cuff her and stuff her. And if she tried to leave, to tackle her and beat her, right? Maybe even to taze her, bro. Right? Because everyone who walks out of a store with unpaid-for items does it on purpose. There are no accidents.

Of course I am playing a word game, there. I am sure you would say, “okay, obviously that is an exception—I spoke too broadly.” Fair enough. We all say things inartfully from time to time and a blog comment shouldn’t have to be as well crafted as a contract.

But then, here’s the kicker. For all you know, the only difference between the woman in my hypothetical and the plaintiff is time. If the security guard had given her time, inevitably she would see the unpaid-for property and maybe, if given the chance, she would have done the right thing and either paid for it or returned it. But when the security guard stopped her in the parking lot that was no longer an option.

So if that is the only evidence of her “crime” (she put her purse on top of it and left after paying for other items, but not those items), then guess what? There is not enough evidence to believe she did that intentionally. And the reason why is because the security guard chose to stop her before she reached a point where she could no longer plausibly claim to have made a mistake, surely because he felt it was more important to recover the items than to make a perfect case against her. I am not faulting the security guard for stopping her, saying, “hey, you didn’t pay for that.” But then the price he paid, when he chose protecting the property over developing the case, is that he created an ambiguity that could have been avoided. And that means he lost his right to detain her beyond what was necessary to recover the items.

But that is assuming a set of facts that frankly neither one of us know to be the case. And indeed, I would be surprised if that is the full extent of the evidence on either side. In other words maybe there was evidence that made it clear she didn’t do this accidentally. Or maybe there was evidence, as she alleged, that it was “obvious” it was an accident.

But I get it. The truth is your experience has prejudiced you. Everyone is guilty in your eyes. There are no mistakes, there are no accidents. People never accidentally walk out with things that don’t belong to them. And Walmart’s security is never wrong when using its power.

But some of us don’t believe in perfection.

I have worked in 4 states and DC and I can tell you that unless they changed the law in the last 20 years, your statement is wrong. Either way, it doesn’t matter because what the STORE did was perfectly legal. They don’t have to prove a crime in the store. That is for the prosecutor to do.

I told you before that they had someone who concealed items and then walked out without paying for them. They have met their burden for stopping the woman, detaining her, and calling the police.

You know that is deceptive to leave that out. I know it.

The truth is not deceptive. You yourself wrote if a person buys a large plastic bin, and make sure it is empty before they leave. . The mere stopping at a register to pay for one item does not mean that the person is not stealing other items.

Yeah, I believe that. /sarcasm.

Okay. I will take that to mean that you aren’t willing to accept any experiences other than your own.

Which, by her account, was not even done knowingly.

Once again, the woman, by your own account, concealed the items. She then left the store without paying for them. The store met their burden.

So since bad people can lie and say the same things that good people say, lets just assume that any time anyone asserts a valid defense, they are lying.

You are the one making the big deal out of her statement. All I am saying is that her denial is no proof or even evidence that she made a mistake.

Because you apparently have faith in their infalliability.

No, because the store did NOTHING WRONG.

Actually if you are going to detain her beyond what is necessary to retrieve your property, black letter law says you have to have evidence of her intent.

The concealment IS her intent. The walking past the registers IS her intent. I have been through too many of these trials to say otherwise.

No, unless you actually want to say it is never wrong to ever detain a suspected shoplifter who might have taken the items accidentally, then you can only conclude that we really don’t know enough yet to draw any conclusions about the case.

I’ll say this. It is never wrong to detain a person who has concealed items and walked out without paying for them.

We can sit here all day and argue the criminal merits of this, but that doesn’t matter to me at all. WalMart did the right thing is stopping and detaining the woman. They were well within their rights. I am sorry that you disagree with that.

The woman’s suit is an attempt to make her actions and her irresponsibility the fault of WalMart.