\nThey patched the law to make it plausible to infer car theft from possession again now (For a while if they caught a tweaker in a stolen car with car theft tools he’d be like “uhh, Bryan gave it to me” and then prosecutors would have to prove there was not in fact another homeless junkie car thief in Portland named Bryan who stole it first. That’s why possession is nine tenths of the law.)
So that’s back down, catalytic converter thefts are up which makes sense cause that’s a second-best way to make money from crime against a parked car, also license plates too. They say it’s to replace the trucks they steal to do even heavier crime in, but plates stolen off a car in the driveway seem to get reported almost as fast as the car itself so not really sure what that helps
I don’t think that’s why possession is nine tenths of the law.
The principle here is: if something is known stolen, it’s pressured whoever possesses was the thief.
When I did law a-level we were told it was related to something different: it’s legally possible to steal something you own, if you aren’t in possession of it. (Consider a car you left with a mechanic, that you drive away without paying for the works done.)
And Wikipedia says it’s about a third thing: whoever possesses something is assumed to be the rightful owner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-tenths_of_the_law
I don’t super trust Wikipedia to include all the relevant detail here. But like, I expect your thing is at most a small part of what the phrase refers to.
it seems related to how physical evidence is the most reliable and everything else is much more open to question
@reasonableapproximation then what’s the point of a mechanics’ lein, if you can hold the car hostage under existing law? Just to establish a claim if you give it back on a promise to pay later and they welsh out?
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