# What's the smallest-value successfully prosecuted theft **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2014, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841 "2014-12-10T12:31:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/1 "2014-12-10T12:31:49Z")
In _Les Misérables_, the protagonist Jean Valjean is famously sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for stealing a loaf of bread. In real life, what’s the least valuable property whose theft led to a successful prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment? For instance, has anyone served time for stealing less than a dollar (or something worth less than a dollar)? My question’s meant to address simple theft where there’s no use or threat of violence (such as armed robbery), nor any property damage (such as breaking into a bank), since these things can often be considered crimes in their own right even when no theft is involved. ---
**Author:** ![eltro102](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@eltro102](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eltro102)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/2 "2014-12-10T12:39:46Z")
Three Strikes has resulted in some ridic sentences: [Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Shame of Three Strikes Laws – Rolling Stone](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-the-shame-of-three-strikes-laws-20130327) Life for a pair of socks. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/3 "2014-12-10T12:43:51Z")
To start, how about a life sentence for $2.50 worth of socks. Curtis Wilkerson had two prior felonies, dating to 1981. 14 years later, with no intervening legal problems, he shoplifted a $2.50 pair of socks. He was convicted and per California’s 3-strikes rule, sentenced to life in prison. [Rolling Stone article](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-the-shame-of-three-strikes-laws-20130327) (ninja’d while writing a synopsis!) ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/4 "2014-12-10T12:53:18Z")
> [@eltro102](#): > > Three Strikes has resulted in some ridic sentences: [http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-the-shame-of-three-strikes-laws-20130327](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-the-shame-of-three-strikes-laws-20130327) > > Life for a pair of socks. Yeah, and that’s not all the article mentions: > [@Rolling Stone](#): > > Have you heard the one about the guy who got life for stealing a slice of pizza? Or the guy who went away forever for lifting a pair of baby shoes? Or the one who got 50 to life for helping himself to five children’s videotapes from Kmart? I guess these cases are a lot more common than I expected, at least in jurisdictions which have mandatory sentencing rules for repeat offenders. Maybe it would be better to narrow the scope of my question to first-time convictions…? ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/5 "2014-12-10T13:14:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Many of these offences had been introduced to protect the property of the wealthy classes that emerged during the first half of the 18th century, a notable example being the Black Act of 1723, which created 50 capital offences for various acts of theft and poaching.[citation needed] Crimes eligible for the death penalty included shoplifting and stealing sheep, cattle, and horses, and before abolition of the death penalty for theft in 1832, “English law was notorious for prescribing the **death penalty** for a vast range of offenses as slight as the **theft of goods valued at twelve pence**.”[3] > **[Capital punishment in the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_Kingdom)** > > Capital punishment in the United Kingdom predates the formation of the UK, having been used in Britain and Ireland from ancient times until the second half of the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964; capital punishment for murder was suspended in 1965 and finally abolished in 1969 (1973 in Northern Ireland). Although unused, the death penalty remained a legally defined punishment for certain offences such as treason until it was comp... ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/6 "2014-12-10T15:05:53Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > narrow the scope of my question to first-time convictions This isn’t a theft case,so it’s a little off topic…But it’s an example of the same kind of overkill : A sex case…in which a woman gets a life sentence for letting a 13 year old boy touch her breast. [8-minute youtube clip from the courtroom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZmuXKNFIkM) ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/7 "2014-12-10T15:17:48Z")
[Mary Wade](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wade), one of Australia’s founding mothers. Sentenced to death by hanging for stealing a frock, a tippet and a cap when she was 11 years old in 1789. Sentence commuted to penal transportation to Australia. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/8 "2014-12-10T15:36:40Z")
Unless you specify ‘adjusted for inflation’, the winners are all going to be from long ago, when stealing a couple penniesworth of something meant stealing half a day’s wages. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/9 "2014-12-10T15:49:08Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Unless you specify ‘adjusted for inflation’, the winners are all going to be from long ago, when stealing a couple penniesworth of something meant stealing half a day’s wages. Well, to be fair, I did say the smallest value, not the smallest price. But yeah, I’m most interested in thefts in modern times. ---
**Author:** ![Idilia\_Dubb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c2a13f/32.png) [@Idilia\_Dubb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idilia_Dubb)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/10 "2014-12-10T16:34:35Z")
One of Jane Austen’s aunts was arrested for shoplifting a card of white lace. She spent several months in prison and could have been hanged or transported but was saved from those fates by her standing as a gentlewoman. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/11 "2014-12-10T21:44:44Z")
There was a case in Minneapolis some years ago where a successfully-prosecuted case of someone shoplifting a package of hamburger cost the presiding Judge his job! An elderly lady, a concentration camp survivor, was caught trying to shoplift a package of hamburger. I don’t think she was sentenced to any jail time except that already spent in jail, but when the judge was admonishing her in court, among other things he said ‘_you should have learned respect for law and order in the camp_’. That got a lot of comment around here. And people, especially the Jewish and GLBT communities, started raising money for ‘whoever runs against him’ at the next Judicial election. But when that came, in a couple of years, he decided not to run for re-election. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/12 "2014-12-12T20:44:56Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > To start, how about a life sentence for $2.50 worth of socks. > > Curtis Wilkerson had two prior felonies, dating to 1981. 14 years later, with no intervening legal problems, he shoplifted a $2.50 pair of socks. He was convicted and per California’s 3-strikes rule, sentenced to life in prison. > [ Except, the sentence was not just for stealing socks, it wa also for having committed several other serious felonies. Mind you, the 14 years later thing should have made the prosecutor not charge him with a felony. ---
**Author:** ![slowlearner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@slowlearner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowlearner)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/13 "2014-12-13T00:36:40Z")
I was in college in the late 70’s and there were lots and lots of Iranian students. This was at UT Austin where the average Texan was still trying to get used to having black Americans in the classroom, and Iranians were not widely liked. Then came the Iranian Revolution and the great big hostage crisis so they were really unpopular around town, then the far seeing Jimmy Carter ordered all Iranian students to register their whereabouts with the Govmint, kinda like the Jews had to in Germany…anyway, I know of no way to find out if this guy was convicted, but an Iranian student was contemplating the grapes in the vegetable aisle at the HEB grocery and tasted one to decide if he wanted to buy a bunch. He was arrested and jailed for shoplifting. Lucky for him it was before Cheney revived that old WW2 P.O.W. torture we executed Japanese prison guards for called water boarding. There was no outcry over this. I don’t think you could buy one grape at that time because it’s value was less than one cent so this case is as low as you can go. ---
**Author:** ![Artemis\_Tardis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@Artemis\_Tardis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Artemis_Tardis)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/14 "2014-12-13T00:39:26Z")
Here in Brazil we had more than one case of people getting arrested (and spending quite a lot of time in jail) for stealing stuff like some butter. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-smallest-value-successfully-prosecuted-theft/706841/15 "2014-12-13T04:56:57Z")
I was thinking I’d heard about a German guy arrested for theft of EUR0.02 worth of electricity when he charged his mobile phone at an outlet in a train station, but I can’t find a news story. But I found a[similar story](http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20121112/ARTICLE/121119888) about a homeless guy in Sarasota, Fla.