> Yeah if a guy owns a fruit stand he should expect people to come on his land and take his stuff dude.
No, not that owning a fruit stand means he necessarily should invite lame passers-by to take stuff of value. What I meant was, it's not like this was a big fenced-in commercial plant and the hippies were out to rip off The Man's valuables -- rather, they probably thought the guy who ran the place was cool and wouldn't mind if they picked up some discarded fruit.
Hell, I can see myself thinking that, were I in their shoes. I mean -- it was thrown away. Nobody accused them of ripping off something the owner wanted, and as somebody else pointed out earlier in the thread, once you've thrown something in the garbage, your claim to it having any further value to you is tenuous at best.
The issue here is not the value of the discarded food -- everybody agrees that's not the alleged crime. The problem was that the City was sick of hippies, there were thousands of them, and they decided to make an example of these two, and handed them a totally disproportionate sentence. I could see a couple nights in jail being plenty of "example". Six months is completely out of hand. Would the fruit stand owner have supported that sentence, had it been a hungry local boy rather than a transient hippie?
As you've said, the object was to make an "example." Two days in a quiet little jail in a quiet little town have no deterrent value. But 6 months is a major inconvenience and does have deterrent value.
It was still on his property.
So you think that it is ok to go onto someone else's property and take stuff? You know you don't.
The point is not the value or what he was going to do with it later. The point is that it was his and it was on his property.
At age 8 it is excusable. When you are an adult you should know, you don't go on to private property and take stuff.
If it takes six months in the city jail for them to get it through their heads that you don't go on to people's property and take things without permission then I guess it takes six months.
It is not like they were starving. They would have at worst missed a snack.