Multiple Charges

A Story by Bookerbrant

A discussion on laying charges on an offender over a single incident.

Multiple Charges

By Booker Brant

How advisable or indeed prevalent is it to charge an offender on multiple infractions of the law, over the same incident?

As an example, let us take the common traffic stop. You have changed lanes inadvisably and crossed a white line. Unfortunately, you have been seen by the local law officer. During the course of the stop, you receive tickets for; not indicating, careless driving, not paying due care and attention, along with driving in a manner likely to cause injury to other road users. Each carrying a separate fine. OK, I made all that up but you get the general idea. This analogy may appear ludicrous on the surface, but add a few more elements and let's see.

Let's add another offence of equal or greater value. Your insurance has expired and your brake-light is faulty.

Does the officer issue three tickets? The original offence, the insurance and the light? Or does he act upon the most serious offence, giving verbal warning for the other two.

It will not surprise you to learn that the answer generally involves factors that have nothing to do with the offences. After all, many officers are given leeway to make judgement calls and allowances. Which is all right and proper. I hope most of us are assuming that the officer is at least attempting to be fair. But people everywhere are still human, and policing in general has many more demands upon it than we perhaps realise.

American culture in general has dominated the thinking and action of most of the world. Even those of us loath to admit it carry on daily activities to a standard set in the United States. Policing has also over the years become more and more americanised throughout the world.

How does America deal with the problem of multiple offences? Well quite badly as it happens.

District Attorneys, an elected position, assume the role of prosecutor. In most cases the position is a stepping stone for the incumbent to higher political office. Increasingly, police in America have their career path set by the number of prosecutions.

As a result of this, court cases frequently involve quite a long list of offences over a single incident. Frighteningly, because of mandatory sentencing laws, prison terms have been known to be in the hundreds of years. Oh bosh. I hear you cry. Nobody can live that long anyway. Ah, but you see the individual offender is not the purpose of the conviction. It is the number of convictions and lengths of prison term that law enforcement succeeds in obtaining that is important. So it does in fact happen that an offender can be charge multiple times for the same incident and be sentenced to ludicrously long prison terms.

The United Kingdom, long held as one of the more efficient and fair policing systems, has also recently proved capable of similar thinking. A recent case involving the stabbing death of an elderly man during a road rage incident, saw law enforcement charge the offender with the crime of carrying a knife. A recently strengthened law to deal with the rising crime of knife attacks in the jurisdiction. But it does beg the question, if he is being charged with murder by stabbing, is it self-evident that he was carrying a knife? And that this would surely be taken into account at the sentencing?

If the two offences are different in nature, should not the bringing of the knife be included in the murder trial?

But of course, this case stoked public outrage and the police were looking at ways to increase the length of prison time. It is only to wonder at whether they made a thorough check of the car for any motoring offences he may have committed.

It also begs the wider question; is it advisable to react to public outrage when considering the charges laid on an offender, given that the laws in Britain were never intended to act in concert with each other?

At the lower level, The United Kingdom has an existing law in place called 'going equipped', which was designed for stop and search burglary offences. Carrying around a crowbar for instance is a certain conviction unless you are a builder. But carrying a screwdriver can also be included under the letter of the law. And of course, a screwdriver can be a stabbing weapon. So which of the two offences trumps? Or does the officer apply both offences to the man going to fix his lazy son-in-laws garden gate. ‘Going equipped’ and ‘carrying a knife’.

The policing jurisdiction I am most familiar with would be typical, I hope, for many places. Long established law and practice, based on common sense and fairness, but constantly under threat from various forms of change.

So in most cases multiple convictions for the same incident usually involve organised crime, where the offence is made more serious because it comes under the organised crime ordinances. Recently of course, the same thing is happening for terrorist offences. Both topics in themselves.

Generally, day-to-day offences are not stacked up like a set of cards. The most serious offence for each person in any given incident is dealt with. In serious cases, the circumstances involved weigh heavily in sentencing. The courts are given a certain leeway in the length of time recommended. So for instance murder beats rape, but a rape-murder would receive a greater sentence than murder. The crime of kidnapping would be the greater offence if a rape victim managed to escape unharmed, before the intention of rape became clear under law. Kidnapping and attempted rape may be brought simultaneously in cases where the prosecution felt that they may only get a conviction for one, or the crime was heinous enough for the greatest possible sentence to be justified. Effectively leaving it up to the courts on how to proceed.

So to a large extent it is left up to common sense.

But does today's world uphold the standards of common sense previously supposed to exist?

Recently successful criminal prosecutions have been brought for ‘assault against police officers’ in two interesting ways. The first involved a high-minded (and rather high-handed) socialite who during a period of intense stress slapped a police officer. The officer collapsed like a premier league footballer, and then subsequently sued the socialite in civil court.

The second involved a public demonstration which quickly devolved into a pushing and shouting confrontation between police and protestors. A young woman was wrestled to the ground, and was then taken away covered in blood. She was successfully prosecuted for assault. With her breast. No, really.

Apparently the officer involved sustained an assault when the woman's breast came into contact with his person.

Which brings us back nicely to that traffic stop.

In a good jurisdiction, leeway must be given to law enforcement. Circumstances can often be dealt with at the scene, and minor infractions can be overlooked. Every circumstance cannot be foreseen, and police are in the best position to deal with the situation.

With increased enforcement and strengthened laws, can we really rely on our authorities to practice common sense? How do we even out the personality traits over a whole police force over the entire length of any officer's service?

I submit that it is not up to individual officers, but that the conduct of an officer is only a reflection of the leadership, training and support he receives.

And that perhaps on our worst day, we might have a thought for the police we encounter. They are only human, and increasingly are not equipped to deal with all the conflicting input they are given. Input that comes from the government, inside the police force itself, and of course from us.

For it is us who demand a standard of policing. Us who need our society to be regulated fairly. And ultimately it is us who must provide the consistency in requirement for policing.

So the question remains, do we continue to allow multiple convictions for the same offence. And if so in what circumstances?