Posted on 09/13/2005 5:41:03 PM PDT by quietolong
Legal Tug of War Over Shoplifting Costing Village Thousands
The theft of some elastic hair ties worth less than three dollars has the Village of Plover snarled in a nearly three-year legal battle.
The case has cost the village nearly 15-thousand dollars and threatens to change the way police deal with evidence in simple shoplifting cases.
The village attorney characterizes the fight as important to Wisconsin law enforcement agencies that investigate retail theft.
The woman accused of the shoplifting was found guilty of stealing from her employer by a jury. Then a judge threw out the case, but the village appealed.
Authorities didn't keep the hair ties and instead took a photo of them. The legal issue is whether the photo sufficiently protected Dorothea Binagi's right to defend the shoplifting charge.
Why would a small Village be trying this in the first place?
There must be more to this story that what’s here. Or she not in the “in” click. ( people in small villages can get very spiteful)
BUSH HATES SMALL VILLAGES
You are quick Sam Adams, I gotta give you that much. And you make a fine beer also.
So, if someone pleads Not Guilty to shoplifting, you'd just drop it?
damnable lawyers! The only people they think are guilty are the ones that are worse than themselves.
Only problem being, there is NOBODY worse than a lawyer - except for maybe their MASTERS.
Not being able to understand the English language makes them ignorant also. Nobody else has all this trouble trying to understand the simple words "Congress shall make NO LAW..." and the rest of the Constitution - I learned it in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL and it was clear to me.
Or perhaps she's a thief.
No But Should be at the County level not the village court.
WTF?
First they needed to wait tell she left the store.
This Should have been taken care of long ago by the village with a plead bargain.
More from here: http://www.beloitdailynews.com/articles/2005/09/12/wisconsin/wis01.txt
Legal battle over shoplifting costing village thousands
Posted: Monday, Sep 12, 2005 - 11:40:17 am CDT
PLOVER, Wis. (AP) - The theft of 18 elastic hair ties worth $2.45 from a grocery store has the village snarled in a nearly three-year legal battle that has cost it nearly $15,000 and threatens to change the way police deal with evidence in simple shoplifting cases.
The attorney representing the alleged shoplifter calls the ordeal "government run amok" over a crime with a punishment of no more than a $250 fine. It's an example of government's unwillingness to use common sense, he says.
The village attorney characterizes the fight - Can police take pictures of stolen goods and use the photos as evidence? - as important to every Wisconsin law enforcement agency that investigates retail theft. Crime is crime and it must be prosecuted, he says.
The woman accused of the shoplifting, a pharmacist who was found guilty of stealing from her employer by a jury before a judge threw out the case, declines to comment and now lives in southern Wisconsin.
All sides are waiting for the 4th District Court of Appeals in Madison to make the next ruling.
However, the village's spending has stopped. The attorney under contract with the village has donated his time for the appeal.
Are taxpayers upset? Nope, according to Dan Schlutter, village board president.
"There is nobody saying anything, one way or another," he said. "The press makes a bigger thing out of it."
Bonnie Krueger of rural Plover said she's not heard much talk about the dispute.
"It seems kind of silly to spend that much money to prosecute, but I don't know," she said.
The legal issue is whether a Polaroid picture that police took of the hair ties instead of keeping them as physical evidence sufficiently protected 57-year-old Dorothea Binagi's right to vigorously defend the shoplifting charge.
What remains more of a mystery is why a seemingly minor ticket given in December 2003 became so contested that it couldn't be resolved without a two-day jury trial and then a judge's dismissal of the citation on technical, legal grounds.
Village Administrator Dan Mahoney says only that the woman's employer, Copps Food Store, didn't want the ticket dropped and her attorney, Scott Roberts, once was the village's legal counsel.
"It's a shame that the legal system allows a defense attorney to request a jury trial for shoplifting a $2 item. That is a waste of taxpayer money," Mahoney said.
Said Roberts, "Who is really making out on this? Who is the winner on this? It's the (village) attorney making this money. If we are upheld, it is going to be a sweet, sweet day for me, I'll tell you that much."
Portage County Circuit Judge Frederic Fleishauer ruled the failure to keep the evidence violated Binagi's constitutional right to due process and dismissed the charge several weeks after a six-person jury found her guilty.
The picture was useless, especially when Binagi fought the charge with a defense suggesting the hair ties had been planted in her purse by a security officer at Copps, the judge said.
Fleishauer said the village's policy of taking pictures of shoplifted items to save the expense of storing them and to get them quickly back to the merchants failed to take into account the importance or usefulness of some evidence.
It was a "deliberate destruction of evidence in bad faith," he said.
In appealing and seeking to have Binagi's conviction restored, the village argues that state law allows a picture to be used as evidence in the prosecution of minor retail theft. It's not a criminal case so all the protections for defendants do not apply, the village says.
"If this were upheld, that would change the policies of numerous police departments," village attorney Rich Fuller said.
The president of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association, Ed Krondracki, the police chief in La Crosse, said he was unaware of the Plover dispute. "Clearly, if this results in an adverse impact, you can expect the law enforcement community to respond," he said.
The case seemed routine when it started, Fuller said. A security officer witnessed Binagi take the hair ties from a store shelf and go into a bathroom. When she was confronted, the ties were found in her purse and she signed a police statement: "I know this is wrong and theft. Will not happen again."
Binagi got an attorney and said she was badgered by police into signing that statement. The fight was on.
The village never considered dropping the citation and could not settle it as occurs with most minor crimes, Fuller said.
"Simply because somebody hires a defense attorney doesn't mean we are going to drop it because we are scared of running up costs," Fuller said. "We got bigger principles involved. That is how we defend it."
Roberts, Binagi's attorney and himself a former city attorney in Plover, said it's hard to justify what the village is spending, especially when considering the hair ties would take up no more space than a picture and the grocery store threw the ties away after police photographed them.
Instead of using the circumstances to teach the village police to use "appropriate discretion" in maintenance of evidence, the village is spending thousands of dollars in a protracted legal fight against a woman who came to the United States from Kenya and had no previous criminal record, he said.
"It's an amazing insight into government run amok," he said. "Bizarre is the right word for this one."
As for Binagi, another shoplifting case against her took much less time to resolve. She was accused of misdemeanor theft in shoplifting $606 in men's clothing from another Plover store some two weeks after the hair-tie incident.
In a settlement with the district attorney's office, she agreed to pay $335 in restitution and work 60 hours of community service.
AT A GLANCE
By The Associated Press
THE CASE: A jury found a pharmacist guilty of shoplifting hair ties worth $2.45. A judge threw out the case, ruling the failure to keep the hair ties violated the defendant's right to due process.
THE APPEAL: The city of Plover appealed the decision, arguing state law allows a picture to be used as evidence in the prosecution of minor retail theft.
NEXT STEP: Both sides are waiting for the 4th District Court of Appeals in Madison to make the next ruling.
BTW and FYI, it's spelled "clique".
"The attorney representing the alleged shoplifter calls the ordeal "government run amok" over a crime with a punishment of no more than a $250 fine. It's an example of government's unwillingness to use common sense, he says"
Government run amok? why did the perp ask for trial by jury? Sounds like a well heeled kleptomaniac making the village spend money.
Thanque you.
"The picture was useless, especially when Binagi fought the charge with a defense suggesting the hair ties had been planted in her purse by a security officer at Copps, the judge said."
The implication then, is that the defense can't have the package tested to see if the security officer's fingerprints are on it which, if they are, might support the defense's theory.
Thanks for the early morning chuckle....
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