In this news article a bicycle thief apparently pled guilty to 9 charges of theft and asked for 93 other incidents to be taken into account.
I’m curious about how one goes about this process of ‘other incidents’. Does the thief have to cite specific incidences where they committed crimes? Because I’m thinking that 93 is a heck of a lot to remember! Or do they just state a vague number in the hope that any future prosecutions can be put off by having already admitted to a whole bundle of offences but with no specific details of what they did?
IANAPoliceman or a lawyer or in any way qualified to answer. But …
I imagine the police have a file of similar cases which they put to the defendant and say, “This was you too, we could go to the trouble of forming a seperate case but it’ll be easier all round if you just cop to it now”.
I doubt a prisoner will admit to something out of the blue, because the police may have no record of it, or may have arrested someone else. I think it’s all down to the police going through their records looking for similar outstanding crimes.
It’s in the prisoners interest to ‘settle’ a crime that they could later be tried for, and once you get to twenty of so thefts I doubt the other eighty-odd make too much difference. And of course it’s in the police interest to ‘solve’ an extra 93 cases.
I’m sure someone will correct me in a second if I’m wrong.
I think you’re probably pretty close. I think as well that there’s almost certainly an upper limit to the penalty for bicycle theft – nine charges would likely have got him there already, so he’s nothing to lose by copping to rest, and possibly something to gain: fully cooperated with the police, made a clean breast of it, hopes to put his criminal past behind him etc.
Plus, if he didn’t – and the police had sufficient evidence – they could presumably keep charging him with batches of nine bicycle thefts, meaning he’d end up serving a series of 11 maximum sentences (in theory at least – I realise there are reasons why this wouldn’t happen in real life).
I realise he’s probably not the sharpest tool in the shed but I’m very puzzled at his going to all the trouble up saying ‘yup, that was me’ 93 extra times and then not turning up to the actual party. Now he’s wanted for 102 crimes rather than 9 fairly minor crimes.
Jim Carrey gets pulled over.
Jim: Good afternoon, officer.
cop: Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?
Jim: Actually, no. That depends on how long you’ve been following me.
cop: Well, let’s just hear it all, shall we?
And then since Jim is forced by the premise of the movie to tell the truth, he tells the cop about several dozen offense from speeding to running stop signs, making illegal turns, and failing to pay hundreds of dollars worth of parking tickets.
