Shoplifting Defense Attorneys: When the “Five-Finger Discount” Costs You More Than It Saves

Strolling down Madison Avenue on a Saturday afternoon shopping spree with a beautiful young actress you’ve recently met, you’re suddenly whisked inside her favorite up-market department store. After exploring countless sexy outfits among the awesome designers, your date models a pair of tight black Trussardi leather pants for you, fixing you with a look of uncontrollable longing. Despite a secret fear of exceeding your modest credit limit, you cast caution to the wind, and manfully slap the purchase on your credit card. Afterwards, gallantly carrying her bags and exiting through the revolving doors, you’re stunned when three solemn-looking security guards surround you on the street.

One of the guards investigates the bag you’re carrying, locating a $4,000 Vena Cava zip dress and a $2,000 Marc Jacobs clutch, both items sans receipts. What’s worse, you later learn that the electronic tags were removed with a pair of scissors by your “partner-in-crime,” as one security guard puts it, as you allegedly stood “lookout” in front of her changing room. Your true love, now reduced to a puddle of tears, claims it’s all been an honest mistake. She’s simply preparing for a role about shoplifting. Police officers arrive, but they’re unmoved by her explanations and your proclaimed innocence. The two of you are charged with shoplifting.

What Is It?

Shoplifting is a slang term for the criminal offense of petty theft. Shoplifting is governed by state penal codes, but they all generally define the offence as intentionally removing an item from a store or place of business, depriving the owner of his merchandise as a consequence. When detected, the shoplifter is often arrested by the store security, then questioned and detained, until local police or law enforcement officials arrive to formally arrest the alleged perpetrator.

Shoplifting costs business owners staggering sums of money annually, and it’s a loss that grows during periods of recession. “When the going gets tough,” one popular adage explains, “the tough go shoplifting.” Almost all merchants rely on a wide variety of sophisticated security measures, including hidden surveillance cameras, electronic tags, and in-house sleuths. While some merchants hesitate to prosecute shoplifters because of the expense and time involved in legal action, many others see successful prosecutions as sound financial strategy, especially when it’s estimated up to sixty percent of shoplifting is perpetrated by a business’ own employees.

There are criminal defense lawyers who specialize in petty theft and shoplifting. Frequently retained immediately after an arrest, the first goal of these attorneys is to seek an informal resolution through restitution before any official charges are filed in court. After this initial contact, talented shoplifting attorneys next match their unique set of legal tools and in-depth knowledge of precedent with all the evidence and information gathered in police reports.

Who Needs It?

If you’ve been arrested or ticketed for shoplifting, you will need a defense attorney who specializes in petty theft. Every state entitles you the right to defend yourself, and many shoplifting defendants refuse legal counsel, in an unrealistic hope to simply explain away the charges to a sympathetic municipal court judge. To later remorsefully admit, in the clear light of day, that your actions constituted no more than some silly, impulsive, or flat-out crazy aberration – this decision does not necessarily guarantee your offense will simply be dismissed and forgotten.

In the recent past, thanks largely to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s highly successful stewardship as mayor of New York in the 90s, criminal offenses of “moral turpitude” received increased attention by law enforcement. The collective consensus today is that by cracking down on minor crimes, felonies are less likely to occur. That means offenses like shoplifting, which you might consider trivial, are far likely to aggressively prosecuted.

Benefits

The benefits of hiring the services of a local shoplifting defense attorney far outweigh the risks of going it alone. For starters, since most shoplifting charges hinge on the issue of intent, a good shoplifting defense attorney will plausibly and strenuously assail the supposition that the defendant – beyond a reasonable doubt - actually intended to steal anything at all. Bypassing the case of simple absentmindedness, intent becomes particularly germane when an individual’s mental state is impaired. For instance, countless prescription drugs and medications can contribute to acts of perceived thievery, and a knowledgeable legal counsel will humanize the defendant’s psychological state by presenting mitigating medical facts. The incriminating portrait of the alleged shoplifter, offered up by a zealous prosecutor, can often be skillfully turned upside down on its head by a careful analysis of the defendant’s psychological condition.

Risks

The risks of not retaining the services of a criminal defense lawyer are underscored by recognizing the serious and lifelong consequences that a conviction for petty theft - or shoplifting – carries. Items exceeding a mere $200, in many states, can propel a shoplifting charge from a misdemeanor charge into grand larceny. In other states, shoplifting as petty theft constitutes a “strike” on your criminal record, meaning that any subsequent offense can be charged as a felony. A shoplifting conviction remains on your criminal record permanently, and cannot be erased. Often judges will impose an order preventing a convicted shoplifter from ever returning to the store where the act occurred, sometimes even the entire shopping mall where it was located. If you’re convicted of shoplifting as an employee, the task of finding a new job might be insurmountable.

Interesting Shoplifting Facts

Employees commit most shoplifting, stealing from their own employers, nearly double the rate perpetrated by outsiders. Moreover, juveniles and young adults are less likely to shoplift than middle-aged shoppers. And despite theories about poverty and poor education, business owners located near colleges and universities experience triple the number of shoplifting incidents compared to stores in less affluent neighborhoods.