Major Misdemeanor: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Let's say that Bob jaywalks. Not a car within a thousand miles, perfectly safe. But a cop arrests him. This makes his boss consider Bob a "criminal", and fires him. His wife, not wanting to be married to an unemployed criminal, divorces him.

 

{{examples}}

* A Serta Mattress advertisement once had the counting sheep getting [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErbKAWueD3g thrown in jail for tearing the "Do Not Remove Under Penalty Of Law" tag off a new Serta mattress.]

** Which is funny, because it's actually only the ''dealer'' who's not supposed to remove the tag, not the ''consumer''.

 

* ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' is built on this. Littering, for example, usually carries a sentence between six months and two years, and Walter the Robot was arrested for throwing a cream pie to stop a criminal about to kill Dredd.

* In one ''[[The Punisher|Punisher]]'' story, Frank has been brainwashed by his archenemy Jigsaw and is set out for blood. He starts killing jaywalkers, red light runners, and litterers.

* The ''[[Strontium Dog]]'' story arc "The Rammy" is a [[Law Procedural]] in which a lawyer accuses the [[Bounty Hunter]] protagonists of breaking the law in an elaborate scheme to reap a large monetary reward from said bounties. The charges are murder, conspiracy to murder, assault, fraudulent misrepresentation of a sporting contest, conspiracy to defraud actual fraud, drunk and disorderly conduct, and committing a nuisance in a public place. Given their line of work and the rights and privileges that gives them, the bounty hunters are eventually cleared of all charges except, of course, drunk and disorderly conduct and public nuisance. They're punished to the full extent of the law for this, which is a 3 million [[We Will Spend Credits in the Future|credit]] fine for each person (almost all their earnings from the entire scheme).

 

* In ''[[Female Perversions]]'', the main character's sister gets arrested for shoplifting. She can't pay the fine/bail, so she is kept in jail. Because of this, she risks missing getting her doctorate, tarnishing her academic career.

* In the film ''[[The 51st State]]'', also known as ''Formula 51'', [[Samuel L. Jackson]], just fresh from graduating college with a degree in pharmacology, is pulled over by a patrolman and caught smoking marijuana. His arrest and conviction prevents his employment as a pharmacologist. Unable to work as a pharmacologist, he turns to a life of crime.

** And Motherfucker Jones spent 10 years in prison for {{spoiler|pirating ''[[Snow Falling on Cedars]]''}}.

 

* This is a major element of ''[[Les Misérables]]'', in which the main character serves years on a galley for stealing bread to feed his family. Even after serving his time, he continues to be stained as a criminal because of this act.

* One of [[Larry Niven]]'s themes in his [[Known Space]] universe is that of body-part replacement technology. At one point (the novel ''A Gift From Earth'' centers around it), the demand for replacement parts is so high that crimes like running stop signs and littering are punishable by the death penalty (so that your parts could go into the organ banks).

*** Leading to the [[Fridge Logic]] of how they could be held accountable if they didn't even know what evil was.

 

* In one episode of ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'', the detectives uncover that a man has misplaced some paperwork. For this misdemeanor, they get his cell phone tagged so they can follow him around everywhere. They also do some intensive lobbying - trying to convince a lot of women to hate him, eventually leading one of them to murder him.

** There was also the time they're tracking a suspected rapist and murderer who they ''know'' did it, but can't hold him. Every effort to get evidence before he flies off fails, {{spoiler|until Stabler arrests and holds him for jaywalking across an airport crosswalk.}}

 

* The [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] song "Don't Download This Song".

* Inverted in the Arlo Guthrie song [[Alice's Restaurant (music)|"Alice's Restaurant"]]. Littering is what kept him out of the army and [[The Vietnam War|Vietnam]], quite possibly saving his life.

 

* In a [[Sunday Strip]] of ''[[Garfield]]'', it was implied that the police were after Jon for trying to redeem expired coupons at the supermarket.

 

* In ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' games, the slightest bump into a police car apparently gives cops enough of a reason to try and arrest you in and of itself.

* In the older ''[[Hitman]]'' games, just running or even walking "suspiciously" can get you shot.

** The guards will also react this way if you invade their personal space.

 

* One arc in ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' does this, wherein Belkar and Roy are sentenced to the live out the rest of their lives as gladiators for not having entrance papers.

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Torg, because he shouted something at an airport that included the words "blow them up" and "kill everyone", gets sent to the Guantanamo Bay prison as an enemy combatant. The only thing that gets him released is something even more inconsequential: his "viking heritage" apparently let him pass their "Caucasianometer".

* ''[[The Japanese Beetle]]'' has the Jaywalker, a [[C-List Fodder]] member of the Beetle's [[Rogues Gallery]]. Jaywalking didn't ''completely'' ruin his life, it was merely the straw that broke the camel's back: he was [[Butt Monkey|fired, divorced, and evicted on the same day, and forced to take a job as an advertising mascot in a blue jay costume]]. When he jaywalked, the Beetle intercepted him and, due to the costume, he was assumed to be a supervillain and given 20 years in prison. This actually '''does''' make him become a supervillain, plotting to destroy the city as well as developing schizophrenia and believing that the costume is talking to him.

 

* In ''[[Danny Phantom]]''{{'}}s [[Bad Future]] Episode, Danny cheats on his CAT test. Indirectly causing his friends and family to die. Which causes him to ask his nemesis for help. Which prompts his nemesis to remove his ghost half from him. Who then kills his human half. And then becomes just about the most evil villain the series ever had.

* There's that [[Bad Future]] Episode of ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' where he turns into the fearsome Darkwarrior Duck, ruling St. Canard with an iron fist and levying harsh punishments on even the most minor offenses. Lifetime imprisonment for jaywalking, maybe... or was it littering? Either way it was probably moot, Darkwarrior considered having ''high cholesterol'' a crime.

* The justice system in [[SpongeBob SquarePants]] pretty much is this trope. If you litter, if you have no front license plate, IF YOU RUN A STOP SIGN; you better believe they will be ready to take you to jail.

 

* There are a bunch of [[Real Life]] examples of people being locked up for life for relatively minor third crimes under [[wikipedia:Three strikes law#Controversial results|"three strikes" laws]].

* Bill Clinton was impeached for having an extramarital affair in the Oval Office.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]