Article M-902 - Smuggling

"You carried what you were not licensed to carry. The goods are forfeit and so, for a term, is your liberty."

A border is only as real as what it can stop. When a citizen moves restricted or unlicensed goods past a checkpoint, the offense the Code names is not the carrying but the evasion: the State's claim to know what crosses its ground, set aside for private profit.

The opening term is measured in the better part of a day, and the ceiling runs to a full one. Smuggling sits above trespass and below sabotage in the Code's reckoning, which is the Court's way of saying that a smuggler harms the State's interests without yet harming its people.

Escalation Under the Recidivism Clause

A second conviction within thirty days doubles the term, and a third doubles it again, up to the article's ceiling. A citizen caught twice is not treated as unlucky.

On Bail

M-902 is bailable, but the price is set at twice the plain value of the term. The reasoning is openly commercial: a smuggler is presumed to have been paid, and the State declines to let the trade's own profits buy the trader out at face value.