busted with bottles

Maybe the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will be listening to a defense attorney in Michigan as he defended his client for collecting five-cent-deposit bottles in Kentucky and attempting -- or thinking of attempting -- to cash them in in Michigan where the return is ten cents per container. 10,000 bottles. Jail time possible.

The case will turn on whether Everidge’s conduct went far enough to say he “attempted the crime, rather than was he just thinking about it”, Henning said. “His lawyer is making this is a purely legal argument: ‘Yes, he had the bottles from out of state ... but he hadn’t gotten far enough yet. And therefore he has not committed a crime.”
“You can’t be punished for your thoughts ... the difference is between mere preparation and perpetration,” he said.