possession is nine-tenths of the law?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve heard the phrase “possession is nine-tenths of the law” used in the
sense that “If I have it, I own it.” I contend that it means
“Nine-tenths of laws is concerned with possession/ownership issues.” Is
this not the case? The other way makes no sense; otherwise, possesion of
stolen merchandise would not be prosecutable.

2

First of all, ScottWS, welcome to SDMB.

The saying does not mean that if you have it you own it. All it means is that if you have possession of an item, and I claim that it is, in reality, mine, the burden of proof is upon me to prove that it is mine. You do not have to prove anything.

So, if a store can prove that (a) they owned the item and (b) the “customer” did not pay for it, they can be prosecuted.

Zev Steinhardt

3

Most people don’t understand what it means. The older version of this saying is, "Possession is nine points of the law. There was very recently a long discussion of it on this thread.