What To Do When Prosecutors Drop Your Case
In a case in Pineville, NC recently, two subjects entered the store and stole 21 baseball bats. They worked as a team, one subject distracting the employee while the other cut locks off the fixtures and stuffed the bats into a bag. As they started to exit, a member of the store’s management team questioned the pair about the bag. At this point, both men ran into the parking lot and entered a waiting car.
The manager took down the license plate and called police. He gave a full description to the police of both subjects, and the license plate number from the vehicle.
The subjects were not immediately apprehended, but were later apprehended in Virginia by Virginia State Police. They had in their possession the 21 stolen bats at the time they were pulled over and questioned. They also had a set of bolt cutters which they used to cut the locks off the store’s fixtures.
Virginia officials notified the retailer and the Pineville, NC Police Department. Warrants were issued in NC for both subjects.
Then, less than a week prior to the extradition hearing, NC officials refused to proceed with the prosecution, leaving the retailer without their merchandise, or any means to recover their loss. This was done with no warning, no notification, and no explanation.
Virginia Police officials agreed to proceed with the prosecution of the two subjects, but the retailer has to foot the bill to send the manager on a 2-day road trip to testify in an out of state court just to recover their merchandise and get closure to this case.
I’m not sure why this is happening, but it is. I’m being told that many local prosecutors are dropping cases and making deals just to cut the costs involved with prosecuting such cases. I don’t know that this is true for this case, but it would make sense. The county probably doesn’t want to pay for a couple of officers to go on a 2-day road trip to recover these two subjects for a $6,000.00 case, so they leave it to the retailer to deal with in another jurisdiction.
Can you believe this? Anybody want to comment?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Originally published at The Bunker Blog. Please leave any comments there.