Should Snatching an iPhone Be a Felony? 607
theodp writes "English comedian Russell Brand could be facing a felony conviction for snatching an iPhone from a would-be paparazzi and tossing it through a window. Singer/parolee Chris Brown also found himself in iPhone hot water after being charged with 'robbery by snatching' in a similar DIY-paparazzi-thwarting incident, which could be a misdemeanor or felony depending on the value placed on an iPhone. But in the world-of-crazy-pricing created by phone makers and wireless providers ($899 Nokia Windows Phone, anyone?), where the quoted price of an iPhone varies by a factor of 376 from the same company, should one really be charged with a felony for snatching an iPhone, especially when an iPad 2 can be had for $399 retail?"
Was it loaded with songs? (Score:5, Interesting)
See http://www.ted.com/talks/rob_reid_the_8_billion_ipod.html [ted.com] . Perhaps the iPhone is worth $8 billion (I mean, you are technically stealing every song on the iPhone as well as the phone itself).
Why bother stealing the phone? (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Wear something copyrighted.
2. Sue the paparazzi for copyright infringement.
3. PROFIT!!!!
Re:It already is (Score:5, Interesting)
It's already a felony in basically every democratic city in the world to snatch whatever private property someone else owns, and tossing it away like that (out the window).
In Germany, it isn't theft, when you are not trying to enrich yourself. Next, in the case of killing a person, there are distinctions being made between pre-meditated or spontaneous cases, or whether the death of the person was intented. In this particular case, there was no intent that the paparazzi would lose their phone, the intent was to protect someone's privacy.
Re:What is up with all these bad summaries lately? (Score:3, Interesting)
... and a prison industrial complex that encourages and indeed forces the criminal justice system to impose multi-year prison terms for petty offences for the sake of profit.
.
While I agree that the prison-industrial complex is out of hand. If someone snatched a Fabergé egg out of someone's hand and threw it, no one would be doubting if it were a felonious act. It's clearly an expensive object, taken by force, and then damaged.
As others have noted, it's not about excessive criminal sentences for snatching and damaging another's expensive property, it's about gauging the proper value of an "overpriced electronic toy".
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, so we've established this is a crime. That's not disputed.
But there are underlying reason why it was a crime, why that crime is assigned the penalty it has been, and why the legislators implement a price breakdown in the first place. If the specific law does not continue to correspond accurately with those intentions, it probably is being misapplied and/or needs to be modified.
One major function of the penalty (if not the only function) is to act as a deterrent. This means it needs to offset the potential gain to the offender in a way that accounts for his probability of being caught. In this case, a "robbery" charge is silly: robbers get a financial payoff and generally operate so as to escape penalty. Publically tossing someone's property obviously should involve assessing a different penalty because there is no financial reward and the chances of getting away with it are minimal.
Another key difference is where the perpetrator does not understand the value of the property. If someone grabs an unknown electronic item from you and damages it, how important is the price to whether he should be allowed to vote or made to spend significant time in prison? Seems to me that as long as he is required to make full restitution for the cost of the item, the additional criminal penalty should be roughly the same for most cases.
Consider, why did the legislators include a price breakdown at all? One reason may have been increased deterrence for major heists, another may have simply been to target particularly egregious offenses. Neither of which seems to me like something which should depend on whether it was an iPhone or a Nokia.
Re:it doesnt matter really (Score:5, Interesting)
Yesterday I was listening to C-SPAN, and they were discussing a concept of crime under passion, giving an example of jealous husband who stumbles upon his wife having sex with another man, and that in some jurisdictions it's considered as a factor for sentence reduction.
I think snatching a camera when the owner is actively abusing "being in public" concept, could fall into that category.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair, if the person taking the pictures is close enough for me to "snatch" the phone from his/her hand, it would seem to me that they are stepping over some line, harassment maybe? How much space around you can you reasonably expect? here in the midwest, I'd say at least an arms length.