theft law-in-fiction
Do criminals really &quot;have no recourse&quot; if their ill-gotten property is stolen by a third party?
<p>From the TV series Better Call Saul (S1E7 - Bingo) main character Jimmy McGill is involved in a case wherein a client of his, Craig Kettleman, stands accused of stealing 1.6 million dollars.</p>
<blockquote class="spoiler">
<p>A crime which the client truly did commit. Later, Jimmy orchestrates the theft of the money from their client's home and has it returned to the District Attorney. Jimmy blackmails his client saying that &quot;criminals have no recourse&quot; when it comes to theft.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The money his client is accused of stealing was, itself, stolen from them. What can their client do in this circumstance?</p>
<p>Craig Kettleman is <i>accused</i> of stealing the money but has not been <i>convicted</i> of the crime. Because of these circumstances does that mean Craig would be able to inform the police of the theft without undue legal repercussions associated with announcing his possession of a suspicious amount of money?</p>
<p>Filing a police report would surely be unwise, but does would involving the police put Craig in as much legal jeopardy as threatened in the show?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Do criminals really &quot;have no recourse&quot; if their ill-gotten property is
stolen by a third party?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Basically yes.</p>
<p>At sentencing, they can argue that restitution or fines should be limited because the money was in turn stolen from them and they don't have it.</p>
<p>For example, I once had a client who was the sole heir to the estate of someone who had a substantial amount of illegal drugs in their possession at the time of the decedent's death (worth perhaps $100,000 USD), but the illegal drugs were stolen after the death of the decedent by someone known to my client. There was no legal way for my client to gain possession that stolen property or its worth.</p>

<p>Apply some logic: an item you steal isn't legally yours so if it is then stolen from you you still have no right to it.</p>
<p>Where it gets tricky is if you say steal a million dollar worth of jewelry, pawn it for a quarter million in cash, buy a Ferrari with that cash, and then the Ferrari gets stolen.</p>
<p>That'd depend on jurisdiction I guess. If the money used on the Ferrari can be traced back to the jewelry theft it may well be impounded and auctioned off if recovered to provide partial compensation to the original owner of the jewelry (or more likely their insurance company who by now will have paid out).
That's most likely what would happen here.
But it'd happen because property of the criminal gets impounded under criminal asset forfeiture, not as part of getting the criminal his car back.</p>

<p>The idea that &quot;criminals have no recourse when it comes to theft.&quot; is at best overstated.</p>
<p>Yes, if the authorities know that something is stolen, they won't return it to the thief, but rather to the original owner (if they know who that is). Yes, by reporting a theft, a thief could draw unwelcome attention from law enforcement. But if the first theft is not known, neither of those applies.</p>
<h2>Example</h2>
<p>Let's say that Bob has a cache of money, which he got through unlawful activity, loansharking, for example. Now George steals this from, Bob. Bob does not report this to the police, for fear they would discover proof of his loansharking -- they already suspect him. Now let's say that Mark steals this same money from George. Can George safely report this theft? It depends. The police don't know that the money was stolen, because Bob didn't report the theft. The police may ask George where the money came from. Obviously, George won't say &quot;I stole it.&quot;  But suppose George says &quot;It is the cash earnings from my tavern, &quot;Bar None&quot;. If the police believe this, or at least can't disprove it, they will not be able to seize the money (if they can find it) and will eventually have to return it to George, <strong>if</strong> they can recover it from Mark. So, in a case like this. George does have some practical recourse. Of course now George may well have to pay taxes on the money.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>If the thief thinks that the theft is not known to the authorities, and that the second theft can be reported without disclosing the first theft, the thief may choose to report it. If the thief is correct, there will have been effective recourse.</p>
<p>In strict legality, a thief is not entitled to any recourse, because a thief does not acquire valid title to what s/he steals. But the thief does not care about what is legal (s/he is a <strong>thief</strong>, after all). If a thief can abuse the system to get the stolen goods back from the second thief, so much the better, from the thief's point-of-view.</p>
<p>So it all depends on the details -- as so many things do.</p>
