Assignment:
One night in July, 1993, in Tempe, Arizona, Linda Ruschioni and her daughter Tracy, who is eight years old, go to the grocery store. As they leave the store and walk across the parking lot, Tracy spots something on the ground. There are no cars around and no people. Tracy bends down and picks up two instant scratch off lottery tickets. The cost $2 each and have the potential to pay from $1 to $20,000.
Tracy yells, "Mom. Come here!" and hands her the tickets. Linda examines the tickets and sees that they are not scratched off. No one seems to be looking for the tickets, so she puts them in her purse intending to play them later. Later that night, Linda lets Tracy scratch off the tickets. One of them is a $4 winner. The other scores $10,000, a 144,000-to-1 shot!
Linda cannot believe it. The next morning she and Tracy show up at the lottery office and present the $10,000 ticket. Linda tells the lottery agent that Tracy found the ticket in a parking lot. The agent says Tracy is too young to cash the ticket, but it is perfectly okay for Linda to sign it and take the prize. After taxes, the ticket pays $6,700. The commission determines that the ticket was purchased at the grocery store where Linda and Tracy were shopping. Linda's family uses the money to pay a few bills and go to Disney World for a vacation.
Unknown to the Ruschionis at the time, an Arizona statute requires persons finding property worth over $3 to turn it in to a local police station. The true owner may reclaim the property within one year, otherwise, it becomes the property of the finder. Another provision of that law makes it a crime to "unlawfully convert" the property of another to one's own use.
Please answer the following questions after discussing with your classmates:
1. Should Linda Ruschioni be found guilty of converting the lost ticket to her own use?
2. If so, what amount of punishment would you impose?
3. Is ignorance of the law an excuse?
Dudley Haney is not a big gambler. He likes to try his luck with the scratch-off lottery tickets each week while at the grocery store. He usually only buys a couple of tickets. Most weeks, he takes them home and he and his wife scratch them off together. Dudley realized he lost his lottery tickets when he got home that night.
He goes back to look for them, but cannot find them because by the time he returns, the Ruschionis have already found the tickets and left. During his search, he talks to the cashier at the grocery store and learns that the tickets were numbered 116 and 117. He later learns that one of them is a $10,000 winner.
Dudley is unsure what to do. He contact the Ruschionis and their view is "Finders keepers, losers, weepers." He makes a claim with the lottery commission, but it is denied because the winnings were already paid out. He finds out from friends about the law and makes a complaint to the police department. They refuse to get involved. Dudley does not want the Ruschionis prosecuted, but he does want his
winnings.
4. What do you think should happen in this case? Do these additional facts change your view of whether Linda Ruschioni should be found guilty of converting the lost ticket to her own use?