Introduction

Receiving Stolen Goods

Introduction

A thief and the person who later ends up holding the stolen goods commit different crimes, and the law asks different questions of each. The thief is judged by how the property left the owner's hands. A buyer who takes the goods from the thief, a fence who stores them, or a pawnbroker who lends money against them never touched the owner's property until someone else handed it over, so no analysis of the original taking can decide that person's liability. The questions that decide it are what the defendant did with the goods afterward and what the defendant knew while doing it. The Model Penal Code states the offense in one sentence: a person is guilty of theft if he purposely receives, retains, or disposes of movable property of another knowing that it has been stolen, or believing that it has probably been stolen, unless the property is received, retained, or disposed of with purpose to restore it to the owner.¹ The Code then defines receiving to mean acquiring possession, control or title, or lending on the security of the property.²

That sentence is the outline of this chapter, because each of its phrases supplies a separate element. The act element asks whether the defendant received, retained, or disposed of the goods. The property element asks whether the goods were movable property of another and had stolen status when the defendant dealt with them. The mental elements divide in two: the defendant must act purposely, and must know the goods are stolen or believe they probably are. The closing clause removes anyone who dealt with the goods to return them to the owner. Claim of right then sits outside the sentence as an affirmative defense to theft, and grading sorts the offense into felony and misdemeanor levels by the amount involved and the kind of property.³ The pairing of knowledge and purpose does the most work. Without a knowledge requirement, anyone who paid a fair price to a seller later revealed to be a thief would be guilty, and the offense would reach the innocent purchaser. With it, the offense reaches the fence and the knowing buyer, who have chosen to deal in goods they understand to be someone else's.

The Code classifies receiving as one way of committing theft, and it treats all theft as a single consolidated offense.⁴ An exam answer should nonetheless run receiving as its own analysis, separate from any larceny analysis, because the proof is different: the question is the receiver's conduct and awareness, and the manner of the original taking matters only to show that the goods were stolen. The older common-law offense is built the same way, covering the acquisition or control of property known to have been stolen by another person, and some jurisdictions add a requirement of wrongful intent.⁵ The Code and the common-law formulation therefore largely line up. The first section below places receiving within the larger theft framework and sets the common-law elements beside the Code's version before each element is taught on its own.