Beware Kentucky Librarians

Kentucky librarians save the day with quick thinking and aggressive confrontations in this entertaining sentencing case from the Sixth Circuit.  While the opinion's author seems to be quite taken with the fact that the bed sheet used by the would-be rare book robbers to carry out their nefarious plan was pink, the story is riveting (by judicial opinion standards).  Here's an excerpt:

[A librarian] caught up to them in a stairwell where they were attempting to open the emergency exit and, surprised by her arrival and aggressive confrontation, they dropped several objects — specifically, the two remaining volumes of the Birds of North America four-volume set (they had left two volumes atop the pink bed sheet in the Special Collections Department) and the two volumes of the Quadrupeds three-volume set (one of the three volumes had been left behind, tuck in its drawer in the Special Collections Department). Lipka and Borsuk fled through the emergency door carrying five objects (Hortus Sanitatis, the 20 pencil drawings, Synopsis of the Birds of North America, Origin of Species, and Illuminated Manuscript), with Ms. Brown and other librarians in hot pursuit. Lipka and Borsuk scrambled into the waiting van and Allen sped away, though not before Ms. Brown had scratched the van with a key in an attempt to mark it for later identification. Once the robbers had escaped, the police were called, but before the police could document the crime scene, some librarians collected the discarded objects and returned them to their proper places.

Bully for them! For future reference, the value of books never removed from their primary home (in this case, the rare book room) are not "taken" and so are not to be considered in sentencing calculations, whereas the value of books removed from the rare book room but later abandoned (even within the same building) are "taken" and should be be considered.  Indeed.

[JJ]