Electric car owner charged with stealing 5 cents’ worth of electricity [video]
11alive.com
11alive.com
From the Georgia Code:
> A person commits the offense of theft by taking when he unlawfully takes or, being in lawful possession thereof, unlawfully appropriates any property of another with the intention of depriving him of the property, regardless of the manner in which the property is taken or appropriated.
If he's being charged with theft, it will be interesting to see whether energy is "property of another" in this case. What he took from the school was electrical potential energy. Is that property? If there's a waterfall on public property and I temporarily place a water wheel under it, is that also theft? What about holding a solar cell over top of a solar cell on public property?
> A person commits the offense of theft of services when by deception and with the intent to avoid payment he knowingly obtains services, accommodations, entertainment, or the use of personal property which is available only for compensation.
This seems to be a poor fit; it's not obvious that electrical charging at a school is a service "available only for compensation", especially if the school permits other people to charge things gratis. The mens rea bit also seems to be a bit of a stretch.
Most of the case law seems to be about people bypassing mechanisms the power company uses to bill for the provision of electricity, which fits nicely into the theft of services statute.
Either way, should make for interesting case law.
If he went up to the water fountain outside the restroom and filled a water bottle from it, should he be charged with theft for that?
If the outlet was obviously obfuscated or inaccessible, this argument is lessened.
(My other posts I remark that he also has precedence because several government entities - parks and rest areas - offer free electric car charging)
It sounds like they were using him to set an example for others. If they just gave him a warning, hardly anyone would have heard about it. Arrest him and haul him off to jail, and everyone in the town knows about it (and apparently, now, everyone in the world).
I'm guessing that keeping him in jail for 15 hours costs the city hardly anything, since the jail has to be staffed 24 hours a day. Maybe they had to give him a couple of meals. The prosecution will probably cost nothing, since the charges will probably be dropped (or plea-bargained down to a small fine). Any prosecutor who wasted time and resources to prosecute a 5-cent theft would probably face a lot of well-deserved criticism, especially now that the story has been distributed this widely.
Say it's not a car, and the driver recharged his phone, because it was dead. By the same logic, he should be arrested, but it would seem a bit silly to do so.
What about filling up a water bottle with an outside water faucet?
It's pretty reasonable to not want people to charge their devices using your external outlets, but I don't think it's a crime.
As plug-in vehicles become more prevalent, buildings will start to figure out the right way to handle this.
And the amount isn't really the issue, theft is theft.
The question, is charging your car like:
1) Running an extension cord to neighbors to power your house (theft)
2) Plugging in your phone into the wall-outlet at the airport (probably not theft)
It's probably both, so lawfully, why arrest the guy?
Also, asking a police office if he made a mistake in arresting someone, or giving them a ticket, would they do it again, etc. does not usually result in enlightening journalism.
Charging the car for 20 minutes uses about as much electricity as fully charging from empty 100 iPhones. It uses it at a rate equivalent to trying to charge something like 500 iPhones simultaneously.
I understand that they don't want to risk a very high electricity bill, but if the damages are about a nickel, then keeping the man in jail for 15 hours is extremely and inexcusably excessive, in my opinion. I understand that they want to send a signal not to randomly plug your electric vehicle in sockets, I sympathize with that, too, but not the resulting action taken by the police. Not over a nickel.
That said, I bet there's more to the case in the OP than we're seeing. Probably they've told this man to stop before and he keeps doing it.
I'm also surprised that the police can prosecute this without a complaint from the school. Is this specific to Georgia or is it the same in other states?
I should note, that I don't think this was a crime.
It should be a factor in deciding what is and is not a crime, however. If the cure is worse than the disease...
If I steal a $60 video game from a store, it's going to cost tax payers and the company more than $60 to prosecute me.
Should shoplifting > $1,000 no longer be a crime?
If you plug your car into a school for half an hour, you ... what, exactly?
Fifteen hours in the county jail seems reasonable for the theft of a nickel? I hope you're not making our laws.
The questions really need to be:
* How obvious was the outlet available to service (was it hidden and tough to get to)?
* Was the man charging his car there out of malice or simply convenience?
* Are there other public or private entities where this is the norm? Yes, there are charging stations at malls, state parks, and state rest areas.
Every charging station I've ever seen has been clearly marked as being for public use. They have a distinctive look and there's distinctive signage that says "charging station" or similar.
You can also say that it's different because the public does offer electrical charging for vehicles in some places (state rest areas, state parks)