California has long suffered at the hands of liberal politicians, left-wing Hollywood personalities and crony capitalists, who perpetually dominate our government, and whose public policy kleptomania of our taxes has left our state in financial ruin and facing a $13 billion deficit. And when they actually get outed at plying their trade — stealing in public and from the public — though sad, it is life affirming for the rest of us who recognize a cardinal rule of proper financial management: you just can’t have what you can’t afford without consequences.
Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi’s mugshot was released by the San Francisco Police Department in connection with her detention on charges of grand theft (stealing) from the lovely Neiman-Marcus store off Union Square in San Francisco. It truly is a lovely store and used to be home to a distinct and wonderful San Francisco store named “City of Paris.” As a youngster my parents would take me there around now to see their famous Christmas decorations and several story decorated Christmas tree placed in the lobby. But I digress…..
The release of the Hayashi mugshot means her political career is over, thankfully, and there will be one less thief to be concerned about in Sacramento. But will she stay in the Assembly to complete her current term?
The crime Hayashi was detained for is called grand theft because it involves over $400 in merchandize (the leather pants she lifted alone where priced at twice the grand theft threshold, a total of $2,500 in goods were taken from the store). Grand theft may be charged by the prosecutors as either a felony or a misdemeanor. It appears that prosecutors have gone the felony route, and now Hayashi is awaiting a “preliminary hearing” to determine if there is sufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution. When an Assembly member is convicted of a felony, generally they must resign from office. Hayashi has already dodged one preliminary hearing date and a new one is being scheduled. She won a personal “excusal” from that next hearing, meaning it will proceed without her being present, making it a formality. Her excusal is pretty much an admission of guilt. This is because the “preliminary hearing” in California is what the Perry Mason television series courtroom arguments were always based on. When there is exculpatory evidence, criminal lawyers always lard it out at the preliminary hearing stage to quickly derail further proceedings. Hayashi’s attendance at that hearing would punctuate any “not guilty” plea. Her absence might otherwise be allowed, but it begs the question of sufficiency of evidence to prove felony theft. It appears there is no exculpatory evidence, and now rumors of even more evidence that Hayashi was on a “watch list” at the Neiman-Marcus store for past suspicious behavior only worsens the outlook for her in court, and raises new questions about her mental state.
Everyone is entitled to their presumption of innocence and I am entitled to my current opinion that Hayashi is guilty of stealing. But if she has indeed stolen from the Neiman-Marcus in the past, that would be evidence that she may be suffering from the theft disorder known as kleptomania. According to the Mayo Clinic, kleptomania is the irresistible urge to steal items one generally doesn’t need. It is a serious mental health disorder, a type of impulse control disorder. There is no cure for kleptomania, treatment requires medication and psychotherapy.
The liberal Democrats in Sacramento who spend money the state doesn’t have, who throw new taxes on anything that moves, and who undermine taxpayer protections like Proposition 13 and the 2/3rd requirement to raise taxes in our constitution, are also kleptomaniacs. But in this case there is a cure if Californians can come to see the disease: throw them all out of office.
Mary Hayashi can beat the felony wrap and stay in the Assembly by arguing that she is “not guilty by reason of insanity,” meaning that at the time of the crime she did not have the necessary “mens rea”, a guilty mind or wrongful purpose, to form an intention to steal, because she was at that moment of theft overcome with the impulse to steal since she is an untreated kleptomaniac. While I think such a defense could prove fruitful in front of a liberal San Francisco jury, which invented the so-called “twinkie” junk food defense that successfully reduced former Supervisor Dan White’s punishment for murdering Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk from the death penalty to five years time served, the real precedent it would set would be to establish for all history that a confirmed kleptomaniac can also be and is a member of the California Legislature. Who knows, maybe she could become a champion of recovering kleptomaniacs and even return to the Legislature, where the disease is rampant, and there are plenty of others in need of treatment. Mary Hayashi can indeed get better if she has kleptomania. But can California ever recover from its devastation at the hands of a Legislature full of Mary Hayashis?
(James V. Lacy is publisher of California Political Review.)