[quote]tedro wrote:
You accuse everyone else of making stuff up but you still haven’t shown any resources that say a store has the right to demand a receipt and detain someone. Go ahead and do a search, I’m waiting. If you wish to save face and not respond, I’ll understand.
[/quote]
Burden of proof is not on me. You are the one that says rights exist. I asked you to prove it. You refuse. You say laws exist. I asked you to prove it. You refuse. Show me one time where I have been asked to show anything. Like I said…making shit up.
[quote]tedro wrote:
You accuse everyone else of making stuff up but you still haven’t shown any resources that say a store has the right to demand a receipt and detain someone. Go ahead and do a search, I’m waiting. If you wish to save face and not respond, I’ll understand.
[/quote]
In almost all jurisdictions in the United States, merchants are legally empowered to detain shoplifting suspects for investigation and possible arrest and prosecution in the criminal justice system. This power is called “merchant’s privilege.”
Now while it is not a law per se, I will defer to their knowledge when they say “In almost all jurisdictions in the United States…”
In almost all jurisdictions in the United States, merchants are legally empowered to detain shoplifting suspects for investigation and possible arrest and prosecution in the criminal justice system. This power is called “merchant’s privilege.”
Now while it is not a law per se, I will defer to their knowledge when they say “In almost all jurisdictions in the United States…”
Read it. Learn it. Live it. [/quote]
Excellent post, rainjack!
Did you bother to read the whole thing? Just below your excerpt it says this:
a. The merchant’s privilege provides for detention of persons suspected of shoplifting only when probable cause or reasonable cause exists to believe a person has committed theft. The best practice for establishing this probable cause (as compared to any legal standard) is the security person’s having met all the following six steps: (1) observe the customer approach the merchandise, (2) observe the customer select the merchandise, (3) observe the customer conceal (or otherwise carry away) the merchandise, (4) keep the customer under constant and uninterrupted observation, (5) see the customer fail to pay for the merchandise, and (6) detain the customer outside the store.
Funny, that’s nearly identical to one of the links I posted. Care to recant any statements?
[quote]JohnnyBlaze wrote:
The shopkeeper broke the law when he tried to physically detain a customer who had legally purchased goods.
Anyway, I’m going by the law as a security officer in my own country, so the laws in Ohio, USA may be different in regards to that matter.
Although the customer refused to comply with his request, I’m sure there would have been more civil ways of dealing with the situation - although I don’t know what that solution would be in that particular state and country.
Over here in Australia, if someone refuses to comply with a search request, and has not been seen committing a crime, they can legally walk away without being held for questioning.
Furthermore, upon doing a bag search, you are not allowed to touch their bag or handle their property - they must open the bag and show you themselves.
I thought these basic principles would be similar across all Western countries, but apparently not…[/quote]
So what you are saying is if I’m in Austrailia and I have a bag and I go into a store as long I’m not seen by anyone I can steal as much shit as I can carry, because once the items are in my bag nobody has the right to detain me or search my person or bag?
If that’s the case when I’m Sydney this Tuesday I’m going to rob you all blind.
Thanks for the tip!
In almost all jurisdictions in the United States, merchants are legally empowered to detain shoplifting suspects for investigation and possible arrest and prosecution in the criminal justice system. This power is called “merchant’s privilege.”
Now while it is not a law per se, I will defer to their knowledge when they say “In almost all jurisdictions in the United States…”
Read it. Learn it. Live it.
Excellent post, rainjack!
Did you bother to read the whole thing? Just below your excerpt it says this:
a. The merchant’s privilege provides for detention of persons suspected of shoplifting only when probable cause or reasonable cause exists to believe a person has committed theft. The best practice for establishing this probable cause (as compared to any legal standard) is the security person’s having met all the following six steps: (1) observe the customer approach the merchandise, (2) observe the customer select the merchandise, (3) observe the customer conceal (or otherwise carry away) the merchandise, (4) keep the customer under constant and uninterrupted observation, (5) see the customer fail to pay for the merchandise, and (6) detain the customer outside the store.
Funny, that’s nearly identical to one of the links I posted. Care to recant any statements?
[/quote]
It says “best practice” for the security person. Key words being “best practice”.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that catching a thief red-handed is the “best practice”.
Suspicion can be raised by refusing a simple request to view a receipt.
Reasonable cause would be the customer leaving the store after refusing the request to view the receipt.
What you are obviously ignoring is that the shop owner has the right to detain under suspicion of shoplifting.
Now, are you going to save face and produce the laws which state that a property owner does not have a right to detain under suspicion of shoplifting?
Somehow I doubt it, as you have yet to do anything remotle resembling providing proof.
[quote]kelleyb wrote:
So what you are saying is if I’m in Austrailia and I have a bag and I go into a store as long I’m not seen by anyone I can steal as much shit as I can carry, because once the items are in my bag nobody has the right to detain me or search my person or bag?
If that’s the case when I’m Sydney this Tuesday I’m going to rob you all blind.
Thanks for the tip!
[/quote]
That is exactly what he, and all the rest of the Circuit City Martyr Fan Club, is saying.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
kelleyb wrote:
So what you are saying is if I’m in Austrailia and I have a bag and I go into a store as long I’m not seen by anyone I can steal as much shit as I can carry, because once the items are in my bag nobody has the right to detain me or search my person or bag?
If that’s the case when I’m Sydney this Tuesday I’m going to rob you all blind.
Thanks for the tip!
That is exactly what he, and all the rest of the Circuit City Martyr Fan Club, is saying.
[quote]kelleyb wrote:
So what you are saying is if I’m in Austrailia and I have a bag and I go into a store as long I’m not seen by anyone I can steal as much shit as I can carry, because once the items are in my bag nobody has the right to detain me or search my person or bag?
If that’s the case when I’m Sydney this Tuesday I’m going to rob you all blind.
Thanks for the tip!
[/quote]
[quote]lixy wrote:
kelleyb wrote:
So what you are saying is if I’m in Austrailia and I have a bag and I go into a store as long I’m not seen by anyone I can steal as much shit as I can carry, because once the items are in my bag nobody has the right to detain me or search my person or bag?
If that’s the case when I’m Sydney this Tuesday I’m going to rob you all blind.
Thanks for the tip!
It’s actually the way it works everywhere.[/quote]
You have yet to cite any law that prevents a store owner from detaining a suspected shoplifter. The customer’s refusal should be considered probable cause by any rational thinking person.
[/quote]
If a customer indeed has right of privacy, and I am not saying that he does on a shopkeepers ground, his insistence on his rights cannot be held against him.
If you refuse to let an officer search your car that does not establish probable cause that you hide something, otherwise laws that protect your rights would be meaningless because by invoking them you automatically lose them.
In other words, if that really was a legal principle we´d all be fucked.
Under most state shoplifting laws, a business owner or employee has the legal right to detain a suspect if they have probable cause . Probable cause is defined under shoplifting laws as: having direct knowledge of an offender’'s approach, selection, concealment, movement, and/or modification of an item, and his/her failure to pay before attempting to exit the store. When a person is caught shoplifting, they will be required to return the items, will be prohibited from returning to the store for a period of time, and may be prosecuted through shoplifting laws.
Seems to me the store owner or his employee did not have probable cause.
I haven’t read every word of this thread but I’m curious as to why no one has expressed any disdain over the fact that the blogger dialed 911 over this. 911 is meant for emergencies only. Emergencies like a house being on fire, a person going into cardiac arrest, or someone having just been shot.
I was more upset about that than anything else.
You have yet to cite any law that prevents a store owner from detaining a suspected shoplifter. The customer’s refusal should be considered probable cause by any rational thinking person.
If a customer indeed has right of privacy, and I am not saying that he does on a shopkeepers ground, his insistence on his rights cannot be held against him.
If you refuse to let an officer search your car that does not establish probable cause that you hide something, otherwise laws that protect your rights would be meaningless because by invoking them you automatically lose them.
In other words, if that really was a legal principle we´d all be fucked.[/quote]
You are mixing rights wrt to LE,or the government , and rights of property owners, or shop owners.
You can refuse all you want to the store, but they have the right to detain you and call the cops to help settle the issue.
If every property owner exercised all of his rights to protect his property, he would not have a store to make money with.
At some point common sense has to come into play, here. And that should apply to both sides.
[quote]kelleyb wrote:
I haven’t read every word of this thread but I’m curious as to why no one has expressed any disdain over the fact that the blogger dialed 911 over this. 911 is meant for emergencies only. Emergencies like a house being on fire, a person going into cardiac arrest, or someone having just been shot.
I was more upset about that than anything else. [/quote]
Well, this confirms the obvious, this guy is a dickhead. But is he right, will he win in court?
Under most state shoplifting laws, a business owner or employee has the legal right to detain a suspect if they have probable cause . Probable cause is defined under shoplifting laws as: having direct knowledge of an offender’'s approach, selection, concealment, movement, and/or modification of an item, and his/her failure to pay before attempting to exit the store. When a person is caught shoplifting, they will be required to return the items, will be prohibited from returning to the store for a period of time, and may be prosecuted through shoplifting laws.
Seems to me the store owner or his employee did not have probable cause.
No probable cause, therefore the shop employe fucked up, case closed.
[/quote]
The employee may have fucked up, but no rights were violated. You are citing laws that pertain to the prosecution of a crime - which is a completely different story than detaining someone until LE can show up and straighten out the confusion.
There is no law prohibiting a store owner from detaining an individual under suspicion of shoplifting.
Should it have gone this far? No. I don’t think anyone is arguing this point.
Your argument centers around what constitutes probable cause vs. reasonable suspicion. You seem to think probable cause is the standard for the owner, and I think probable cause is only used in the case of LE.
Reasonable suspicion should be enough to allow an owner to detain a customer until LE arrives. At that point if LE determines there is no probable cause - then the case is closed.
No one is advocating the owner being the judge and jury, but he does have the right - as I showed - to detain.
Under most state shoplifting laws, a business owner or employee has the legal right to detain a suspect if they have probable cause . Probable cause is defined under shoplifting laws as: having direct knowledge of an offender’'s approach, selection, concealment, movement, and/or modification of an item, and his/her failure to pay before attempting to exit the store. When a person is caught shoplifting, they will be required to return the items, will be prohibited from returning to the store for a period of time, and may be prosecuted through shoplifting laws.
Seems to me the store owner or his employee did not have probable cause.
No probable cause, therefore the shop employe fucked up, case closed.
The employee may have fucked up, but no rights were violated. You are citing laws that pertain to the prosecution of a crime - which is a completely different story than detaining someone until LE can show up and straighten out the confusion.
There is no law prohibiting a store owner from detaining an individual under suspicion of shoplifting.
Should it have gone this far? No. I don’t think anyone is arguing this point.
Your argument centers around what constitutes probable cause vs. reasonable suspicion. You seem to think probable cause is the standard for the owner, and I think probable cause is only used in the case of LE.
Reasonable suspicion should be enough to allow an owner to detain a customer until LE arrives. At that point if LE determines there is no probable cause - then the case is closed.
No one is advocating the owner being the judge and jury, but he does have the right - as I showed - to detain. [/quote]
First of all there does not have to be a law that FORBIDS him to infringe on my liberties.
He better has a law that allows him that, otherwise he breaks the law.
He has a law that explicitly allows him to detain people until the police arrives. If he has no probably cause that law does not apply.
Citizens arrest:
All states other than North Carolina permit citizen arrests if a felony crime is witnessed by the citizen carrying out the arrest, or when a citizen is asked to help apprehend a suspect by the police. The application of state laws varies widely with respect to misdemeanor crimes, breaches of the peace, and felonies not witnessed by the arresting party. Note particularly that American citizens do not have the authorities or the legal protections of the police, and are strictly liable before both the civil law and criminal law for any violation of the rights of another.[6]
So apparently this was no citizens arrest either.
With what legal authority did he hinder this man to leave?
edit to say that here was an edit that I deleted somehow.
Here we go,
false improsonment with a special par5agraph on shop lifting:
A store owner holds the common law shopkeeper’s privilege, under which he is allowed to detain a suspected shoplifter on store property for a reasonable period of time, with cause to believe that the person detained in fact committed, or attempted to commit theft of store property. The shopkeeper’s privilege, although recognized in most jurisdictions, is not as broad a privilege as that of a police officer’s, and therefore one must pay special attention to the temporal element – that is, the shopkeep may only detain the suspected criminal for a relatively short period of time.
However he needs to meet certain conditions:
Requirement
Most US states recognize a privilege, usually limited to shopkeepers to detain temporarily for investigation anyone whom they reasonably suspect of having tortiously taken their goods or is attempting to. In America to properly exercise this privilege all the following conditions must be satisfied:
Investigation on or near premises: The detention itself must be effected either on the store premises or in the immediate vicinity thereof. A majority of courts state that the privilege to detain is lost once they leave the store’s property. US Courts do allow shopkeepers to chase after the person to recapture their lost merchandise when they are in “fresh pursuit.” The investigation must be to determine ownership of the property, not to force a confession.
Reasonable suspicion: The shopkeeper must have reasonable grounds to suspect the particular person detained.
Reasonable force only: reasonable, nondeadly force may be used to effect the detention. Use of force is justified when the suspect is in immediate flight or violently resists detention. They may not handcuff a customer, lie them on the ground, sit them on the ground or not allow them to look for a receipt. Credibility and contradictory testimony is for a fact finder, i.e. a jury or judge to determine. Doing so is evidence to support damages of false imprisonment, and even gross negligence if the conduct involved exposed the customer to an extreme risk of substantial harm, which would allow an award of exemplary damages.
Reasonable period and manner of detention: The detention itself may be only for the period of time necessary for reasonable investigation (usually very short) and must be conducted in a reasonable manner. US courts have found that it may be only for 10 and never longer than 15 minutes. A detention can be accomplished by means which restrains the party so detained from removing from one place to another as he may see proper.
* If one of the conditions is not satisfied the shopkeeper loses the privilege and can be liable for false imprisonment, and any other torts they commit.
Since we established earlier that there was no probable cause he had no rights to detain.
You have yet to cite any law that prevents a store owner from detaining a suspected shoplifter. The customer’s refusal should be considered probable cause by any rational thinking person.
If a customer indeed has right of privacy, and I am not saying that he does on a shopkeepers ground, his insistence on his rights cannot be held against him.
If you refuse to let an officer search your car that does not establish probable cause that you hide something, otherwise laws that protect your rights would be meaningless because by invoking them you automatically lose them.
In other words, if that really was a legal principle we´d all be fucked.[/quote]
It is the possession of merchandise that contributes to establishing probable cause.
Under most state shoplifting laws, a business owner or employee has the legal right to detain a suspect if they have probable cause . Probable cause is defined under shoplifting laws as: having direct knowledge of an offender’'s approach, selection, concealment, movement, and/or modification of an item, and his/her failure to pay before attempting to exit the store. When a person is caught shoplifting, they will be required to return the items, will be prohibited from returning to the store for a period of time, and may be prosecuted through shoplifting laws.
Seems to me the store owner or his employee did not have probable cause.