It'll be interesting to see what the court does with this. I wonder what statute he's being charged under?
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.
Nobody has pointed out that this guy didn't just randomly go up to the school. His kid was at soccer practice there. Presumably the school has reasonable accommodations to be made for the people who are using it. This person certainly pays taxes that support the school.
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?
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.
"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.
I assume we're supposed to be outraged, but it seems completely reasonable to me. I'd be pretty annoyed if somebody just plugged their equipment into one of my exterior outlets and started using my electricity. The "electric car" part doesn't even matter, really.
15 hours in jail for half a kWh is a bit outrageous. Some kind of non-employment-affecting citation would make a lot more sense. Edit: better yet, a stern talking to from a school maintenance official, saving the time and money of getting the police involved.
Do you pay taxes? Does the near-zero cost of the electricity vs the thousands of dollars the town will waste dealing with the matter seem like an odd tradeoff to you?
If you steal a $60 video game from a store, and as a result the store goes out of business or people become afraid of thieves, the county will lose a hefty chunk of property taxes. Society also loses the opportunity to turn a miscreant into a contributor.
If you plug your car into a school for half an hour, you ... what, exactly?
If everyone makes a habit of driving to the school to plug in their cars, I totally see it being a problem. If it is limited to everyone with a legitimate reason to be there in the first place, less so, but I could see it still being an issue.
But would you be annoyed if you had a bunch of people over for dinner and one of them charged their car there? What if you met together at a commonly owned cabin?
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.
I'd be moderately annoyed if one of my guests plugged in their car during dinner without ever asking or telling me about it. I'd be super pissed if some stranger did so, which seems like the more apt comparison here.
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.
The police shouldn't have wasted all this time and money on what isn't really a crime.
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.
So if I run out of gas it's ok for me to siphon some off another persons car? Does the amount of gas siphoned matter, or is it the act that primarily punished?
Would they arrest someone who was charging their phone without permission? Seems like there could be a lot of arrests worldwide if that was the case.
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.
I'd guess someone charging a single phone would not be arrested, but how about someone charging 100 phones, or 600 phones?
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.
If you're going to add any value to these numbers, don't leave out the estimated damages. In USD that number apparantly is 0.05.
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.
Cheaper to put a sign or lock on every outlet, than invoke the legal system once? I'm not sure about that (especially if this doesn't go to trial. It may still be preferable, but I'm skeptical about cheaper.
I doubt this is going to the only case. Electric cars are going to become more and more common, and the hunt for an outlet at a parking lot is going to start mirroring how it looks at airports with smartphones.
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.
They don't arrest you for plugging in your smartphone in an airport. This is precisely an attempt to prevent it from becoming common. If everyone knows that is not something you do, then you don't need to put up signs.
Seems excessive. A verbal warning or, at most, a trespass notice or injunction would suffice.
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?
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.