"The majority of his 26 convictions, he points out, were for the petty thefts of meat."

Though perhaps not as evocative as the first line from Franz Kafka's classic about Gregor Samsa, the title of this post comes from my favorite sentence in the Seventh Circuit's reasonableness ruling today in US v. Rivera, No. 05-2788 (7th Cir. Sept. 6, 2006) (available here).  I am drawn to this reference in part because Rivera includes a paragraph discussing free will.

For those eager for more information, the Seventh Circuit tells us that Mr. Rivera "stole the meat to support his heroin addiction."  Were this not clarified, I might have assumed he was a marijuana smoker with a distinctive type of munchies.