Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Return of Stolen Property

Yes, the owners of the property can still file a report. However, it is the district attorney who decides who to prosecute. If the value of the items stolen is nominal, then I doubt the DA will follow through. Of course, a suit in a civil court is something all together different. Unless the item was extremely valuable, the costs of a civil suit in tort are prohibitive, in my opinion.

Re: Return of Stolen Property

Yes.

There are basically two fronts on which a suit can be filed: criminally and civilly.

In a civil action, the aggrieved party (the plaintiff) will file a lawsuit for damages (money) or the return of the property or both. While the actual damages ($$ loss) may be minimal if the property is returned (i.e., rental value or loss of use of the property), the law provides for punitive damages (meant to punish the wrongdoer, not just to compensate the plaintiff) are sometimes recoverable for intentional torts such as this one. This can lead to very large $$ awards.

In the criminal settling, the District Attorney takes on the role of plaintiff and files the lawsuit. In a criminal case, you pay in punishment (money fines to the county and incarceration), as opposed to paying money to

a particular private person. In a criminal sense, it is irrelevant, academically speaking, that the property was returned; the question for a jury would be whether the crime was ever committed in the first place. (Did you intend to permanently deprive the owner of the property at the time you took it?)

The prompt return of the property, however, may be significant either to show a lack of intent to permanently deprive the victim of the property (depending on the circumstances), or it may be used as mitigation to lessen the detrimental effect of the prosecution, so to speak. In a practical sense, if there is truly no harm, the DA may call "no foul." Are you thinking of returning the property? Or has this been done already? I would recommend returning the property through an attorney as soon as is humanly possible, if this hasn't already been done. Depending upon the means by which the property was taken and its value, you could be facing a very serious felony (possibly a strike) charge. Hopefully the owner was nowhere in sight when you took it, and you did not take it from a home (or garage). Either of those scenarios could easily result in a strike felony. I don't mean to sound alarmist, but we are in California, where Three Strikes reigns. You can't be too careful with this.

If you have any other questions or if you would like to discuss your particular facts in greater detail, feel free to call me at 800-515-0233 (Fullerton office) or email me at [email protected]. My consultations are free. Good luck.

Re: Return of Stolen Property

Yes, they can.