Friday Fail: What is Up with RPV Teens Lately?

This week’s Friday Favorite is about some teenagers trying to avoid bad grades by cheating, then getting caught. Fail! On Thursday, three Palos Verdes High School juniors were arrested on suspicion of breaking into classrooms, hacking into four teachers’ computers and changing their grades online. They also reportedly broke into classrooms late at night to steal hard copies of tests from teachers’ desks, which they would then sell to other students.

They were able to get into teachers’ classrooms because they picked the lock of the janitor’s office and took a master key! They then got into password protected computers by using “keyloggers” which recorded the teachers’ user names and passwords that were typed on their keyboards. Up to 12 students could be implicated in grade-tampering or for receiving stolen tests.

There are several crimes here, such as several counts of burglary, several counts of receiving stolen property, several counts of petty theft, and conspiracy.

Let’s talk about conspiracy because it is actually a very serious crime. Conspiracy takes place when one agrees with one or more people to commit a crime, and one of them commits an overt act in furtherance of that agreement. Any member of the conspiracy may commit the overt act, which doesn’t have to be criminal.

An overt act is an act that is done in order to help accomplish the agreed upon crime. Here, the students face Conspiracy to Commit Burglary charges. The overt act would probably be attaching the “keyloggers” to the computers; those “keyloggers” resembled USB drives. This act helped accomplish the crime of burglary. All of the teenagers in this cheating scandal can be convicted as co-conspirators even if they didn’t all know each other.

Typical defenses include that there was no agreement, there was no overt act, a defendant withdrew from the conspiracy, the defendant operated under mistake of law, or the defendant was falsely accused. It is important to understand that these teenagers can be convicted of conspiracy without ever having to be convicted of burglary. Burglary and Conspiracy to commit burglary are two separate charges. Key defenses that may be used by these teens are that there was no agreement, or that a particular teenager withdrew, or that one was falsely accused.

Even if a teenager in this case conspired to commit a crime, he is not guilty of conspiracy if he truly and affirmatively rejected the conspiracy and communicated that rejection to the co-conspirators. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are text messages that say “I’m out” or “I’m not going along with this.” However, those text messages or other communications must be delivered before someone commits an overt act in furtherance of the crime. If anyone waited until after the “keyloggers” were attached to the computers then they did not effectively withdraw from the conspiracy. That communication – after the overt act – can still save the individual from being held liable for any crimes that are committed after communicating his withdrawal.

What makes conspiracy even more dangerous is that members of a conspiracy are criminally responsible for all of the crimes that are committed by any of the co-conspirators if they are committed in furtherance of the conspiracy. This is true even when the members are not aware of the other crimes. This means that if some teenagers agreed to the burglary but didn’t agree to selling the tests, they are still on the hook for selling the stolen property.

Here, the teenagers facing conspiracy to commit burglary would be facing the same penalties that are imposed in connection with the burglary charge alone. The burglary charge for the Palos Verdes High School teenagers would be second degree burglary as a felony, and they each would face sixteen months, or two years or three years in state prison and a maximum fine of $10,000.

Read the story here.

Friday Favorite: Stealing From the Dead Probably isn't the Smartest Thing, Especially Right Before Halloween!

I am going to start a new series to post each Friday what my favorite crime story of the week was, with a little bit of explanation of the charge or potential charges. Here is a local one to start with.

In Rancho Palos Verdes, a 21-year-old Redondo Beach man has been charged with two counts of felony burglary for taking personal items of deceased people from inside a mausoleum at a Rancho Palos Verdes cemetery. This is my Friday Favorite because I thought it fit in just well with the upcoming Halloween weekend. Not to be gruesome or inconsiderate about the victims here, but it can’t be a coincidence that he was allegedly seen taking things from a mausoleum the week before Halloween. I wonder what would happen if he brought those items into the bathroom, closed the door, turned off the lights and played Bloody Mary. Would the owners of the personal items appear in the mirror with Bloody Mary? Okay, enough insensitive talk from me.

Burglary means that you enter a building (or other specified enclosure) with the intent to commit a theft or felony once inside. He is likely charged with second degree burglary which requires entry into a commercial building. First degree burglary is commonly referred to as residential burglary and is the more serious of the two types. You commit first degree burglary if you burgle any inhabited dwelling, that is, a place where someone lives or sleeps. A dwelling is "inhabited" if it is used for dwelling purposes, whether or not it is currently occupied.  I wouldn’t put it past a prosecutor to charge him with first degree burglary arguing that the mausoleum was in fact occupied by persons in their final resting place.

It is the “intent” which will be hard to prove in this case. The prosecutor must prove that he intended to commit a felony or petty theft at the time he entered the mausoleum. California burglary law, under Penal Code 459, requires that you intend to "commit a petty theft, grand theft, or other felony" once inside. It isn't necessary for the prosecutor to prove that you actually committed the intended crime, only that you intended to do so. Sometimes intent is obvious, sometimes it's not. He was seen trying to open a glass cabinet inside a container holding the personal items of the deceased. Without more, the defense would argue that he knew the deceased and was replacing the personal items or adding to it. There is no indication that he walked into the mausoleum with tools to pry the glass open or had a bag in which to place items that he was taking. It is these tools and other actions by the defendant that prosecutors use to prove “intent”. This case will definitely be interesting.

If he is convicted of second degree burglary as a felony, he faces sixteen months, or two or three years in the state prison and a maximum fine of $10,000.

Read the news article and see his mug shot here.