You’re begging to differ to someone who’s explaining why this is illegal. We all already know thievery is illegal. Your distinction doesn’t make any sense if you’re not disputing the principle behind its illegality here.

Just maybe all twelve of them understood that the purpose of the jury is to settle matters of fact, not matters of law, and found that yes, you did actually put soap in chocolate hoping someone else would eat it.

Ah, so I can change the taste of the food with spices and substitute lookalike drink that tastes bad, but I cannot add medication, anything inedible, or anything that I know would affect their health (like peanuts if I know the theif is allergic).

What if the theif turns out to be allergic to hot sauce? Like yeah I didn’t mean to seriously harm them, but I was boobytrapping the food with the expectation of causing some amount of harm. If they sue for the medical bills I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have to pay them and if they press charges I can see that going very bad for me