Intentionally Under-Ringing Merchandise at a Self-Service Scanner

My question involves criminal law for the state of: Arkansas

My mom and I were going through self-checkout at walmart, we were in a rush and had two separate transactions. Apparently some items were not scanned. The asset protection manager met us at the front of the store and demanded us to follow her. She took us the the back of the store and pulled our receipts and said she was going to show us what we did. The lady accused my mom of doing it on purpose and demanded my mom tell her she did or she would have another charge. After saying she was going to show us what we did she refused to see the video and said we would see it in court.

She then asked for both of our ID's and took pictures of both of us with her personal telephone. I was in ocmplete shock for also being charged, because I was only handing things to my mom to scan. She refused to tell me what I did to be charged as well. She insisted I sign a legal document about trespassing. I asked what it was and she said it was stating I wasn't allowed on property. I was not offered the time to read the document fully and ask the necessary questions about it. I felt pressured so I signed it. If we go to court what is the max charge I am looking at and will it go on my record?

Neither you or your mother have been "charged" with anything. I don't know why you're so shocked at getting caught.

If you get contacted by the police say NOTHING and get yourself an attorney. It sounds to me as if this is not going anywhere criminally or the police would have been called while you were in the store, but one never knows.

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Quoting chrisnic14

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Apparently some items were not scanned.

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And of course, you and your mother had no idea. The store LP people hear that story over and over again and it's not too believable.

The police were present and all 3 officers were confused as to why I am being charged. I was handing items to my mom to be scanned and putting bags in the cart. My mom also offered to pay for the few items that were missed.

The officers have to know why you are being charged in order for them to actually arrest you.

Other than the paper you signed for WalMart were you or your mother given anything by the police?

Even if the police do not pursue charges against you, the next sound you will likely hear is Walmart's "lawyers" demanding civil restitution for the damages people like you cause them.

I'd stay out of Walmart, while whether you actually committed a crime THIS TIME may be questionable, if you violate the trespass order, there will be no doubt. You can be convicted of that.

I would also avoid the self-checkout lanes in the future. If you read through other threads here a lot of people claim to make honest mistakes and end up getting charged.

I am personally familiar with exactly what you were doing. The technique you and your mother are accused of employing is called "skip scanning". It is a well known technique to loss prevention officers. I am not going to describe in detail what you were doing by skip scanning, but it involves two people, one of whom positions items in a certain way and another to scan them. The LPO was smart not to show you what they had on you so you would continue proclaiming your innocence, thinking you are smarter than everyone else and nobody is wise to your scheme. The self-checkouts are monitored very clearly on video and a prosecutor will explain to a jury frame by frame how it is done as s/he plays that video during your trial if you continue professing innocence. It's your call, but I'd suggest to stop the pretense and admit to your attorney exactly what you were doing so that your attorney can negotiate the best deal possible.

Don't worry, your lawyer will get a copy of the video in discovery. But s/he may not be familiar with the scheme you were employing so if you tell your lawyer you are innocent you might just convince him or her. That would be a huge mistake because the LPO will definitely educate everyone at trial. Been there, done this precisely in the scenario I've just described. There's nothing more gut wrenching than watching the face of a defense attorney who truly believed his client's innocence only to see proof of their guilt in the middle of the trial.

I didn’t come here to be accused of anything. I am innocent and not the type of person to steal. I have no reason to steal. Answering the questions or giving advice on the situation is why I’m here. Thanks for your input.

Okay, for the sake of argument, let's assume that you are completely innocent of anything but being careless. I'm not going to say whether I believe that to be true or not, but for the purpose of this discussion we'll assume I do.

The fact remains that not only have Walmart, the prosecutor, the DA and the judge, all heard that before, they've heard it so often that they no longer believe if EVEN WHEN IT'S TRUE. And in 9,999 cases out of 10,000, it's NOT true. Yes, maybe you're the 10,000th case, but the odds are that unless you're the first case on the docket, it won't even be the first time they've all heard it THAT DAY. And if asajim is right that there's a video, even if you were only careless that's going to show on the video. If the items weren't scanning as your mom put them through, it was up to her to notice that. And if you were somehow passing items to her that she was not scanning and putting straight into the cart, it was up to you to say, "No, Mom, you didn't scan that one yet."

I have to admit that while I could accept one item not scanning and someone not noticing, several of them means you should never use self-checkout lines again.

So if this goes to trial, you're not going to want to handle this on your own EVEN IF YOU ARE INNOCENT AS THE DRIVEN SNOW. Lawyer up.

If you did not employ the scheme I described then Walmart does not have a video of you doing that, and if you stole nothing then they do not have any evidence showing you stealing something on their videos. In that case, without evidence with which you could be convicted, the prosecutor will not bring you to trial. The police somehow misunderstood the evidence that gave them probable cause to arrest you.

However, given that you were passing the items to your mother and some items indeed did not get scanned, you'd better hope you did not "accidentally" position those items such that it was easy to skip scan them. Innocent people have nothing to worry about in my experience.