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Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

That particular distinction doesn't really matter: If I drop my wallet in the street and someone finds it and takes all my cash, that's theft regardless of whether it landed on the public road or a short distance away on a private driveway. (Also, I don't think anyone would consider it "finders keepers" if the thief started using the credit-cards!)

So it's theft either way, but the private-ness of the zone may mean additional crimes are getting committed, such as trespassing and/or burglary. (Or worse variations of the same crime, depending on how the laws are written.)

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There are two sides of the law.

What is written in the books.

What is practiced by law enforcement and the judicial system.

So while dropping your wallet in the street may technically be a crime, the idea that law enforcement is going to go about seeking justice for the infraction is pretty much laughable in the vast majority of situations unless there is a large amount of corroborating evidence.

>(Also, I don't think anyone would consider it "finders keepers" if the thief started using the credit-cards!)

I mean, that is its own separate crime, and the only one likely to be punished as there is a direct evidence chain where you're accessing an account without permission and performing the act of theft.

Would it still be theft if the money in your wallet was money that you found on the street the day before?

Huh? Thieving from a thief is still theft, the same way that raping a rapist is still rape.

(Also even when a wily Sicilian complains that "You're trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen".)

You are wrong. In most jurisdictions theft is defined as taking something away from the legal owner. If what you said was true then taking away your own property from the thief who stole it would also be a theft.

No, that's now the scenario the parent poster gave: They never even suggested that the Wallet-Taker was somehow the true legal owner of the cash!

All they said is that the other person, Wallet-Dropper, is something less than the prima facie legal owner. This permits several possibilities, but in every case Wallet-Taker still seems to be doing something wrong:

1. If Wallet-Dropper is a thief, then Wallet-Taker is just a thief stealing from a thief.

2. If Wallet-Dropper is the well-meaning temporary custodian of unclaimed property that they cannot (yet) claim as their own, then Wallet-Taker is a thief, taking to deprive the legal owner (wherever they are) of their property.

3. If Wallet-Dropper is the new legal owner of the discovered cash, that's theft by Wallet-Taker no matter how much you think Wallet-Dropper "didn't really earn it."

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