In Australia, Yes.
If you find something and don’t make a reasonable attempt to return it to the owner you can be charged with theft. They refer to it as theft by finding.
http://www.aussielegal.com.au/informationoutline~nocache~1~SubTopicDetailsID~820.htm
So yeah, find a bag of loot take it straight to the Police. The good part is, if it’s not claimed in a specified period, it’s given back to you to keep.
With such a large amount, should you ring them first, just in case?
And quite possibly these moralistic films are crafted as contemporary agitprop by our masters to inculcate virtuous reactions in the weak, easily tempted masses.
Long time since I saw any Hollywood output extolling the hedonistic life of rejecting societal norms, shunning the political process, living without work and having few needs.
Such jolly agent provocateurism sounds pretty much like enticement to a crime and entrapment.
The bad part is that the bank will have already claimed it before you breath out.
They have to actually prove it’s theirs, though.
Don’t even do that. Nothing good will come of being associated with possibly stolen stuff any longer than is necessary. Call the police and they can come and touch it themselves.
I was going to lecture you on how A Simple Plan was directed by Sam Raimi of all people (seriously, this guy’s first film featured a rapey tree, he’s not exactly a modern Machiavelli), but I see it’s not necessary. Great parody, you had me until the second paragraph, which was a tad overboard. I mean… pretty much all of TV, for starters.
People advocating depositing paycheck and spending the loot in small amounts, wouldn’t an audit highlight something awry?
An audit of who/what? How would the auditor know I am eating dinner at a 5 star restaurant every night, paying cash, rather than McDonalds and paying cash?
It doesn’t sound like entrapment to the legal system, though.
It could be a case of insufficient evidence… I’m not sure that merely passing by a uniformed officer is sufficient proof of an intent to steal the property. Obviously the specific laws of the state involved are important, but if I were a judge, I’d want to see something more than that to prove intent. Taking cash and leaving the purse behind, or removing the cash and dumping the purse later, would be examples of conduct which might prove the intent to steal. But merely walking by a uniformed officer does not, in my view, prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt.
But that has nothing to do with entrapment.
In the OP’s case, the fact the monies were wrapped in Chase’s own bag would give them a pretty good presumption.
Meh, dunno this Raimi, but dedication rather than intelligence is the hallmark of all minions of state public guidance.
I’m ever amazed that citizens willingly believe that the Other uses artful techniques in persuasion to deceive the mass — and can naturally jeer at the 8th Production Brigades staging of Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy in Li Wo village in Shan Teng province; or Bezhin Meadow performed to an audience of feeble-minded soviet peasants — yet think their own media does not perform exactly the same manipulation. Often the same people applaud the power of advertising to shift rotten goods.
I can on go by Wiki for the American legal bits:
Since the werewithal for the crime could not have been present if the officers had not placed the object to tempt random passersby, they would be causing his fall from grace.
She reckons it belonged to that prostitute who was caught with Hugh Grant? 
State specific on remedial action.
In Ohio, there are 4 types of property; Abandoned; Lost; Mislaid; Treasure Trove.
American Jurisprudence 2nd at the law library has a good volume on it.
If I remember correctly, “the finder of LOST property has claim to it over anyone in the world except the true owner”.
Now, IF I see a man drop his clip of money, then I know for sure who the true owner is, therefore keeping it is theft.
I do remember a case in my mind about a person finding some money in a bank safety box area, now since it had to belong to only a limited # of people, as that portion was not open to the general public as a counter would be, the finder had a duty to turn it in to the bank, such as with Mislaid property. In Ohio, mislaid property MUST be turned over to the business, etc., it was found in, then it becomes a bailment.
According to Ohio law on TT, if I am on a persons property with permission, and say step in a hole outside and find money, coins, etc., it is mine, even though it was not on my property. NOW, if I also remember correctly, this does not include such as a meteorite, sunken ship, etc.
From memory, Ray v. Flower hospital a nurse found an eyecase of jewels on a counter at the hospital she worked at, she claimed it was hers, the hospital claimed it was thiers to keep until the owner could ID it. A suit was filed, the hospital won.
I’m sure you’re very proud of your subscription to Adbusters and your Banksy T-shirt, but can you not see the irony in this sentence? You start by expressing contentment with your ignorance of the topic at hand and end by mocking the intelligence of folks you’re arguing with.
I mean, keep on keepin on, but nobody ever changed the world by not knowing what they’re talking about.
sigh
If your reading were correct, that would apply to any undercover police operation, wouldn’t it?
The “werewithal” for the crime of soliciting prostitution would not have been present if the undercover officer hadn’t been on the street wearing hooker clothes. The “werewithal” for the crime of buying heroin would not have been present if the undercover officer had not offered to sell heroin.
So… since undercover stings obviously result in successful prosecutions, might your read of the language be a bit mistaken?
I absolutely believe you on the law, Bricker. And I certainly believe that applying “finders keepers” to a lost wallet/purse (especially if there’s ID) is theft.
But there’s something about this operation that strikes me as being different from the anti drugs/prostitution work you cite. I think it’s to do with what you might call general intent. That is, the junky/john arrestees were on the lookout for an opportunity to break the law - they were seeking out dealers or hookers and were just unlucky to pick the cop. Whereas people don’t go looking for lost wallets, or have “find lost wallet, take cash” on their to-do list as they go about their day. Lost wallets are rarer and more random than drug dealers or hookers and so the police are creating not just the specific circumstance of a planted wallet, but the general circumstance of their being any opportunity for that person to commit a crime.
It seems essentially like a job-creation scheme. Rather than going out to solve crimes that are happening without their involvement, the police are willing the crime into existence so that they can claim to have solved it. Essentially, if this squad wanted to bring down crime rates, they should work less, not more. That’s not illegal, the people they arrest are criminals - but it’s not really serving the community, either.
It might help to look at it this way: real people lose wallets and purses. It’s true that many people don’t go around looking for such lost items, but because such losses really exist, they create a crime of opportunity when they happen. The police are merely duplicating the circumstances of a real lost item in a controlled situation where they can react to whatever choices are made by the finders.
Again, from the original description, the police may well be reacting too soon: I don’t agree they show intent to commit a crime merely by allowing the finder to walk past one uniformed officer. But that’s not an issue of entrapment – that’s an issue of proof of the actual elements of the crime. And I think your disquiet about “general intent” may have some roots in that as well.
Yes, real people lose wallets and purses. And if the police catch people stealing those wallets and purses then real people have a chance of being made whole, or at least of seeing justice done. But they are not helped - and I imagine it is no consolation at all - when the police arrest someone for stealing a “fake” wallet/purse. It is of course much harder to get justice for the “real” crime, but that doesn’t make the easy option worth pursuing.
You could argue that there’s a deterrent effect here - if it’s known that some found cash may be staked out by cops, people might think harder about doing the right thing. But I suspect that deterrent effect is fairly weak (“Can I see a uniformed cop just hanging around? Then it’s probably not one of those stings I read about.”)
Anyhow, this is something of a hijack and I don’t mean to drag you into one. With respect to the OP, I can’t imagine ever not handing in anything like that amount of money because
a) It’s not mine
b) If it’s someone’s legitimate money, they almost certainly assembled that much cash for a major, life-changing purpose and I’d be screwing them doubly over;
c) If it’s illegitimate money, then the cops need to know about it. And I need to be free of any suspicion that I’ve got it so that Anton Chigurh doesn’t waste his time on me.
So I’d hand it in, then tell everybody about what I did.
Harumph… way to puncture a nice daydream. So now I can’t roam the Neiman aisles toting my fat Chase bag. If the Secret Service are going to be so ‘Johnny On The Spot’ after me … why weren’t they out there scooping up the bag before I did? Don’t the NYC police have anything better to do than entrap some tired but eagle-eyed shopper? That Lindbergh baby would turn 83 on June 22nd. And that loot is supposed to be squirreled away and parsed out to last ten years? In my daydream it lasted ten hours max. Fuhgettaboutit!! I’ll leave the dang thing by the side of the road.
Reality version: all I’ve ever seen by the side of the road is dead deer, skunks, raccoon and perhaps some old furniture. Never any fat bank bags.
It also seems like an excuse-to-frisk-and-check-for-outstanding-warrants scheme if they truely are frisking the honest citizens.
[QUOTE=Alley Dweller]
If someone gives the property to the officer, then the officer frisks the guy and runs his ID and lets him go if nothing is found.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t have an objection to people with warrants out getting caught, but I don’t think the police should be engineering situations where random passer-byes either get to commit a crime or get to be searched. If I knew that kind of thing was going on I’d just ignore any ‘lost’ wallets I saw in the city; too bad for anyone who genuinely loses theirs.
You’re not from around here, are you? Here’s how things work with the NYPD.
That about sums it up. I like to think I’m a Good Samaritan. Yesterday, while driving towards the Holland Tunnel, I drove past a fellow whose car was dead in the middle lane with traffic swerving around at 45-65 mph. I pulled over, walked back up past him along the outer edge of the shoulder and started lighting flares and putting out a angled flare pattern. 4 flares in the car is a waste. 12 is a minimum. Having said this, there’s no WAY in hell I’d touch any property I saw in NYC. Wallet, pocketbook, backpack. Nothing. Bag of money. Nothing. Because of the program outlined above. The odds are very very good that I’d be swept up in the classic wide deep net program. Am I on the lamb? I am not. Do I have a record? I do not. It is irrelevant.
Someone else can pick up the item and try to find a police office. Me, I’d rather not be forced to comply with # 1-4.