How to pay off the bounty when the only options are to fight back or be arrested

Crime is generally localized to the hold you're in: if you are kill-on-sight in one hold, running to the next hold over should cause the guards to drop pursuit without new guards joining the chase.

However, in general, you should always be able to pay the guards, even if they decide to attack you. As soon as they do, sheathe your weapons/spells/shields and hope they trigger the dialogue to allow you to go to jail or pay off your bounty.

If they don't, there are a few things you can try to do:

• As Bri and RoughNeckRage mention, sometimes all you need is time. Wait out a few days and see if the situation hasn't died down by then. The guards will still want you to make reparations, though.

• An anonymous user mentions that you can try sneaking up to a guard from behind and trigger the dialogue screen to pay off your bounty.

• Stof mentions another possible thing, the bounty collector. The UESP suggests it's not guaranteed, but if he does visit you, you can pay off your bounty for a 20% premium (and even keep your stolen items!).

When you go to jail, everything you have on you will be taken away and stored in a chest until you serve out your prison sentence.

However, you will always manage to sneak a single lockpick with you when you enter jail so you have a chance to break out. If you choose this method, you'll have to locate the chest with your equipment to reacquire it.

Should you choose to serve your sentence, just sleep in your jail cell. Keep in mind this has some consequences

The reason why the amulet was not taken is due to the fact that it was most likely not considered stolen. When you kill someone and take the stuff from their body, its not considered thievery.

Note, this is only for normal arrests/jail sentences. There is at least 1 quest that gets you sent to jail and that is treated differently.