The Wire Already in Custody

A large quantity of electrical conduit and wire — worth several thousand dollars — was stolen from a supplier. Police recovered the stolen property, but instead of simply returning it they used it to bait a trap: with the material now in police custody, officers watched as the Defendants arranged to buy it, believing it to be stolen goods offered at a suspiciously low price. The Defendants met the middleman, examined the property, and one of them had begun unloading it when officers moved in and arrested them. The Defendants plainly believed they were buying stolen wire and intended to do exactly that. The legal snag was that, by the time they received it, the wire was no longer 'stolen' in the eyes of the law — the police had already recovered it, and it had lost its stolen character. The Defendants were charged with receiving stolen property, and the case turned on whether they could be guilty of any crime when the goods were, at the moment of the deal, not actually stolen.