Self-Checkout Theft

Many grocery and big-box stores have added self-checkout terminals to their checkout lanes in the last few years. For those unfamiliar with the self-checkout lanes, the customer can enter a self-checkout, scan their own items, input their payment using whatever form of payment they choose, and bag their own items to leave the store. The convenience of the self-checkout is that the lines are often shorter and the social interaction is limited. The cons of the self-checkout are that the customer has just become an un-trained employee of the store in which they are shopping.

Since self-checkouts became ubiquitous in the area, we have seen an uptick in prosecutions for theft using self-checkout machines. Anyone using a self-checkout should know that there are somewhere between 1 and 1000 (I exaggerate…slightly) cameras pointed at each of the self-checkout machines and (usually) a store employee stationed at the exit of the self-checkout area to “assist” customers with the machinery, but also to monitor for any theft.

As The Atlantic wrote in 2018, there are any number of methods by which a person might attempt to steal using self-checkout that differs from the usual methods of shoplifting.

There’s also always the chance that a mistake made by a customer in good faith not scanning an item can result in an arrest for shoplifting. In Louisiana, in order to prove that a person is guilty of theft, the prosecutor must prove that the person took something of value with the intent to deprive the owner permanently of that thing. In order to prove that intent, the prosecution may use a couple of inferences:

“when the defendant:

(1) Intentionally conceals, on his person or otherwise, goods held for sale.

(2) Alters or transfers any price marking reflecting the actual retail price of the goods.

(3) Transfers goods from one container or package to another or places goods in any container, package, or wrapping in a manner to avoid detection.

(4) Willfully causes the cash register or other sales recording device to reflect less than the actual retail price of the goods.

(5) Removes any price marking with the intent to deceive the merchant as to the actual retail price of the goods.”

Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:67(D). Unfortunately, that subsection (3) is what often trips people up in the self-checkout. Once the customer has placed an item that he failed to scan (whether intentionally or not) in a shopping bag, the court may infer that he intended to permanently deprive the store of the item.

If you or someone you know has been charged with theft using a self-checkout, give us a call to set up a consult at (318) 459-9111.