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Question: How can I be charged with Grafitti without the police catching me in the act?
Answer: Graffiti is more generally known as criminal damage. Damaging someones property can be a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the dollar amount of the damage. (A.R.S. § 13-1602).
A charge of criminal damage can be made against you when the prosecution believes it has enough evidence to have a judge or jury convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that you committed the offense. The officer who arrests you does not have to witness the damage when you did it. In fact, there doesnt have to be an eye-witness to the offense at all.
It is possible, for example, that someone else saw you commit the crime and reported it to the police. It is also conceivable that the officer saw the graffiti on a wall, and when questioning you about something else, noticed that your notebook had similar drawings and sayings as the graffiti. The state would still have to be able to convince the judge or jury that you did it, however, for you to be found guilty. The charge, by itself, is not evidence.
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| 36 thru 40 of 49 comments |
On 09/22/03
420 from CA said:
no you cannot be charged unless they have proof like you have written on your notebook the same thing that is on the wall or whatever. But if they get a chance to search your house and that is all over your stuff, you're burnt!!!!
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On 09/20/03
Bomber from CO said:
Hey if people want to write on walls let em'. Think back to when you were in school or,when you were a teenager, did you or did you not have something you beleived in so much you'd die for it. For some people this is sports,for some their family, and for others gangs, nicknames of themselves or friends. Grafitti will never end, so why not let it go. Cops these days are twisted they think oh I caught a fifteen year old boy writing North Side on a wall yet on the other side of town we have a murderer that walks away from the crime scene unditectied because that police officer was busy busting an
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On 09/11/03
PUSH from WI said:
I think that garfitti is not a crime I. look at a wall as it was my canvis and my spray can my brush and making nice sweeping movement whith the can. In my town we have a skatepark and there was supost to be a wall going up and I won a contest to paint the wall but do you think that the city counsle went on whith there word hell no they didnt they took the $$ that us kids had left over from the park and spent ot on the town bugit or somthing like that but my point it just to say its a art you just have to realise it and think and study what ever it may be that some on has painted on a wall.
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On 08/23/03
"Ares" from CA said:
In the World, we don't ever have enough of what we need. There isn't enough Money for schools, there isn't enough jobs for the poor, and there isn't art for the Masses. Oh sure, there's Art you'll see in a home, or in a frame, and there's the Modern art stuff out there too... But, do these Medians Comunicate to the YOUNGER generation? Well, I don't think so. But, look at the Streets... do they decive you? They can. Look downward on that alley way, and when your mind has waltzed far enough, you'll see that writing on the wall... or maybe, if you're lucky, Art. I'm not talking about that Nasty l
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On 08/17/03
Dave from Othe said:
Vandalism is a crime much like any other. If you damage someone else's property that is illegal. It doesn't matter if it looks good, or you think that its not a "real" crime. The police do not need eye witness accounts for grafitti, nor theft, nor homicide. It helps, but they just need evidence, regardless of its form. Seeing something is not the only way you can prove it happened.
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