For instance, I got the wrong $2 tube of caulking. There is a 45 minute lineup for customer service, and I have a 1-year-old with me. I asked someone in the department to do the exchange, and they directed me to the long lineup. I then put back the wrong tube and took the right one – same price point, same brand, same model/make/etc, just the different color. I did make a good faith effort to get an employee to help. Really, is that worthy of 200 hours of community service and a $250 fine?

I’m not defending Leake here, as I think it is altogether possible that he gets a thrill out of stealing stuff. But an honest mistake is an honest mistake, and if that’s the case, I don’t support the law making an example of a guy because he’s got a high profile. Even if he’s a buffoon who should have been able to figure out how to exchange his shirts.

The linked story dismisses this as an honest mistake, citing that Leake is willing to do the program. Couldn’t that just be his path of least resistance? I mean, I assume he does a fair bit of community work anyway, as most ballplayers do, and the fine is a drop in the bucket. I don’t take that course of action as necessarily inconsistent with this being an honest mistake.

From the same Cincinnati TV station report:

“The reliable source went on to tell me that OJ was simply trying to let Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman borrow his new shiny knife. And only in the process of clumsily trying to hand it to them, did he run afoul of, if not the law, then certainly the dictates of common sense by inadvertently stabbing them numerous times until they were…you know…dead.”