Thursday, April 22, 2010

People v. Mathers (Cal. Ct. App. - April 22, 2010)

Sometimes I don't get what people are thinking.

Okay, so you deliberately wrote some bad checks. You opened up a checking account with $50, never made any more deposits, and wrote multiple bad checks on the account. That's fraud, but I understand it. You're a criminal. I get it.

I even understand it when, three months later, after the bank closes the account, you print a couple of new (bad) checks on this account off your computer and go to the Food Maxx store in Redding to try to get $482.63. Granted, this isn't the brightest thing in the world; obviously the store is going to run the thing and see the account is closed. But maybe the manager's lazy, so worth a shot. Again, I get it. Plus, even if they catch you -- which (here) they did -- maybe the manager thinks you're confused, or whatever, and doesn't call the cops.

Here's the thing I don't get. Why, later that night, do you go back to the same store with the same fake check and try to cash it again?! You're just begging the manager to call the cops this time. Which, not surprisingly, is what he does.

There's no other place in the universe you can try?! Or even in Redding?

Something that Robert Mathers gets to think about for the next nine years. And which the rest of us can think about for nine seconds.

Bad checks. Not rocket science. Those that pass them: Not rocket scientists.