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In some cases
there's video surveillance, there's admissions which makes
legally defending a petty theft case very difficult.
A lot of petty thefts take place at retail stores and so the first
contact from that store is a loss prevention officer basically saying "look, I
saw you, you walked outside the store
you walked past these open registers and you have property which belongs to us."
They'll take you in the back room and they'll start you asking questions,
and the thing that a lot of people don't realize is that the fourth amendment
Miranda rights don't really apply to private citizens and loss prevention
officers are not
law enforcement, they're actually private citizens and so they don't have an
obligation to read you your rights
before asking questions, and so they're basically accuse you, and they'll do all types
of investigation prior to the police officers even showing up
sometimes they'll confront a suspect with
the close circuit television footage, saying
"That's you, you took our stuff now admit that you did it." A lot of times they'll have
pictures taken of the suspect and say "Look, you're no longer welcome at our store
we're gonna post your picture on a wall and if we see here we're gonna call the cops
and you can be arrested for trespassing." What they'll also get which is really
good for court - for the prosecution - is sometimes they'll get written
admissions basically saying "These are the things that I
had on my person, these are the values of the property and I admit I took them."
Sometimes people will sign those things hoping that the loss prevention officer will
let them go
with just a warning; or they'll say okay "I promise never to come back." But a lot of times
that gets forwarded to the police
and it's really rock solid evidence towards guilt.
Just like with other law enforcement encounters,
be cooperative to an extent; don't really answer any questions don't give
any written
admissions on things. Sometimes they'll just throw a piece a paper in your face
and say "sign this." People don't read it
and after the fact it looks like it's an admission. Of course,
at the time, my client is very stressed out, they're like
"I've never been in this situation before and they just sign the stuff because they want to
get out the situation.
They don't know what they're signing. Basically you want to be not argumentative
be cooperative to an extent, don't give any admissions about anything
you know, just kind of ask to be let go. Don't say "If I pay for the item
will you let me go" but just try and wiggle your way out of there without giving any
admissions.