What would the law say about this scenario (Shoplifting baby)?

A one-year-old baby is in Tiffanies with its mother. Several sales personnel are helping the mother. This generates much merchandise to be pulled out, reviewed, and looked at. The woman makes her purchase, and leaves the store. Once she leaves, a buzzer goes off, and the security personnel find a diamond tennis bracelet valued at $100,000.00 in the babies roller.

The security camera's show that it was the baby that took the diamond tennis bracelet while the mother and sales people were busy.

1.) Should there be shoplifting charges brought upon the baby, mother, or maybe sales clerks?

2) How would the charges change if the mother and baby got home and kept this merchandise but Tiffanies discovered the thief on their video cameras?

No prosecutor would bring charges with video clearly showing the baby did it on its own. If the mother got caught pawning it then yeah, but otherwise the mother could just claim ignorance as the item could have fallen off the stroller into the grass after she left the store.

First,

This company and most high end jewelers only pull out one piece of jewelery out at a time.

I can't see a salesperson noticing a 100K diamond bracelet "missing"

But to the root of the question. No, the parent would not get charged if clearly shown on video that baby five fingered it.

Respectfully,
Judobigdog

Theft requires intention, something that the mother and clerks clearly lack. Typically, babies are not subject to the criminal law. (In Canada, the threshold is 12 years of age.)

Now, if, despite the whole unlikeliness of the whole scenario, the mother and baby had left the store before the missing bracelet was discovered on the security video...the store would be entitled to demand the return of the bracelet, and the mother would have to comply. Once the 'theft' was discovered, the mother *might* be criminally liable for refusing a demand of its return, *would* be criminally liable for disposing of (i.e. selling) it, and would certainly be civilly liable if she didn't return it. So, criminal charges or not, she'd probably get sued for the return of the bracelet or its value.

While this sort of thing is extremely unlikely to happen with a $100k piece of jewelery, it isn't uncommon for it to happen in other contexts; a baby in a stroller grabs an item off the shelf while the parent is paying attention to something else. There isn't usually any criminal liability, but the parent has a responsibility to return the item when he or she becomes aware of what happened - as a matter of law, morality, and good parenting.