I saw someone who took a motor vehicle without the owner’s permission (aka “joyriding,” a minor felony in Washington.). Surprisingly, such people are arrested pretty quickly. The car had been taken from a used car lot. Within an hour he was arrested, the car returned to the car lot, and he was booked into the jail, where he promptly bonded out. An hour after that, the owner of the car lot called the police, reporting that the car had been stolen again. This time, the police went directly to where the defendant worked, and stopped him as he was pulling into the parking lot.

When he had his arraignment, the judge read the charge aloud to him, and when he got to count II, he stated that it must be a typo because it listed the same date and the same VIN in both counts. When the prosecutor noted it was in fact two counts, the judge was at a l...