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Comment by fny | Hacker News Reader

Your forgetting the nonsense a defense attorney will conjure.

How do you know he didn't buy the car from the thief?

We had a similar issue with the hit and run of my grandfather: even though video evidence found the car and later saw the suspect leave the car, the detectives worried a defence attorney would argue someone else may have been driving at the time the accident (e.g his wife), and therefore "beyond reasonable doubt" might be questioned.

In the end, the detectives managed to collect enough evidence to seek a conviction, and the experience taught me a lot of "unreasonable" doubts are often considered "reasonable."

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> How do you know he didn't buy the car from the thief?

If you're caught with stolen property, particularly a vehicle that has a title, I think the burden is on you to prove you thought you bought the car legitimately. Show a bill-of-sale, signed title, or any other evidence of a transaction. Particularly when that evidence includes identifying information of the seller.

This is a misunderstanding of the American justice system at the most basic level. The burden is never on the defendant to prove their innocence. If the prosecution can’t prove that you stole it or knew it was stolen when you bought it, you aren’t guilty.

> The burden is never on the defendant to prove their innocence.

False. Look up "affirmative defense".

That's separate and has no bearing on the burden of proof, which is ALWAYS on the prosecution. It is legitimately shocking that educated Americans can be ignorant of the most basic tenet of our justice system, the presumption of innocence.

I guess no crime can ever occur then, since you can never prove it wasn't consensual?

Oh you were caught in 4k walking down the street smashing every windshield with a crowbar. But how can they prove all the car owners didn't pay you to do that for a film project?

I have no idea what you want me to say. The presumption of innocence is the most basic, fundamental, indisputable element of the US justice system, it dates to the Anglo-Saxons, and it's part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: https://www.prosecutorintegrity.org/innocence/cornerstone/

The prosecution has the burden of proof to establish the basic accusation, and the defendant is always entitled to offer the negative defense of "I didn't do it". For instance, if I'm accused of killing Paul, I can always say "I didn't kill Paul" and the prosecution has the burden of proof to say that I did. On the other hand, if my defense is that I killed Paul in self defense, the burden of proof is on me to show that my actions satisfied the legal definition of self defense in my state.

The property is subject to forfeit ('caveat emptor' in law), but you have to be proven criminal beyond any reasonable doubt.

My brother bought a stolen motorcycle once. He checked with California DMV before purchasing it, and IIRC, the DMV issued him a title. Several months later, the local PD came over, asked him a lot of questions, took the motorcycle and let him go. Of course, he couldn't get in touch with the seller again, so he was just out the money.

Stolen property doesn't come with a sticker indicating it's stolen.

Doesn't carfax help with this? Ensuring the person it's registered to is the one who's selling it?

Checking with the title registration agency (California DMV) would have seemed to help, but it didn't. Not sure engaging a 3rd party service would help either.

Carfax on an old enough car seems pretty silly too, I dunno.

How did that happen?

The thieves stole the car, got a replacement title, and then officially transferred it to your brother?

I’ve bought and sold a couple of cars when I was younger and more foolish. Not even sure had contracts, just remember an exchange of cashier check and signed title, followed with a form to the state that the vehicle was purchased.

Man, never going to do that again!

I guess yeah. I never heard about it again, after the PD picked up the bike.

Maybe there's a stolen vehicle registry to check now... If it wasn't stolen recently, anyway.

Bank records are readily available, large cash transactions as well.

Need a subpoena/warrant for those records. Don't know the intricacies of that, but I doubt a judge would grant the warrant unless they had the person dead-to-rights and were going after a bigger fish higher up on the chain.

Warrants were never hard to get for a good-faith case and increasingly ignored for others.

This is why you also charge possession of stolen property, and not only theft

Well then he's in possession of stolen property, which is also a crime.

> Your forgetting the nonsense a defense attorney will conjure.

> How do you know he didn't buy the car from the thief?

How is that nonsense? Possessing stolen property doesn't prove you stole it. That would among other issues ruin the 2nd hand market.

Because most people can’t map their idea of obvious to the various levels of proof different courts have, and “beyond reasonable doubt” is a much higher standard than the colloquial English means.

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