4 ms·

The reaction is interesting and seems semi-valid but only because it is a car. If someone charged a phone I doubt anyone would care.

• ensignavenger 13y ago
  I'm not familiar with Georgia law, but wouldn't this be a misdemeanor and easily handled by a simple citation? (Personally, I think a warning would have been sufficient). The cost of arresting him and holding him in jail for 15 hours, plus prosecution, etc, would be far more expensive than the 5 cents worth of electricity. A simple warning would probably have been more than enough to prevent him from doing it without permission again.
  • greenyoda 13y ago
    "A simple warning would probably have been more than enough to prevent him from doing it without permission again." 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.