B***h, new laws!' California shoplifting suspect surprised stealing is now a felony

https://www.fox13news.com/news/new-laws-california-shoplifting-suspects-surprised-stealing-felony

20.5k Upvotes

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u/slusho55 1d ago

So, they can actually hold you for a couple minutes, but they can’t detain you no matter how much they suspect you stole.

So there’s a privilege known as shopkeeper’s privilege which allows a shop to ask you to wait and investigate for a reasonable amount of time (read: few minutes) if you’ve stolen something. Otherwise, they have to call police, because any other form of detention is false imprisonment, even if it is a felony amount.

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u/Chanticleer_Hegemony 1d ago

Depending on the state, you can citizens arrest someone long enough for police to arrive if you witness them commit a felony. So, if a felony amount was stolen OR if the shoplifter uses force to keep the items (making it then a robbery), they can be cuffed and held for law enforcement by LP or security

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u/os_kaiserwilhelm 1d ago

In New York, it is any offense. NYS CPL 140.3. Any citizen can arrest any other citizen for any offense provided such person has, in fact, committed that offense.

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u/PooForThePooGod 1d ago

This should be Luigi Mangione’s defense

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u/ThunderCorg 1d ago

He arrested his development

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u/SynthsNotAllowed 1d ago

OR if the shoplifter uses force to keep the items (making it then a robbery)

Thankfully, it wasn't common for my case as LPs couldn't unless for felony amounts and just about no one was that motivated to physically protect company merch when it was a felony amount.

If it was someone trying to steal a gun from the sporting goods stores, I'm sure that would've been a different story but the only time people tried to steal guns was by trying to burgle them after hours (they failed).

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u/SnatchAddict 1d ago

Arrest someone for stealing from a corporation? Lmao. I'm not risking my life over that bullshit.

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u/SynthsNotAllowed 1d ago

Me neither. I was willing to and sometimes did go hands-on to protect the staff or a colleague, but never just for merch. Thankfully companies understand because neither LPs or mallcops get paid enough for half the shit they already deal with.

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u/Chanticleer_Hegemony 1d ago

No one says you should, this is just the legality of such a thing. You could do the same for someone stealing from you personally

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u/os_kaiserwilhelm 1d ago edited 1d ago

Source that reasonable amount of time means a few minutes? I'd hazard to guess that a court would agree "until police arrive" constitutes a reasonable amount of time.

And, at least in New York, if they can demonstrate you've stolen, the store can arrest you, regardless of the value of the merchandise. NYS CPL 140.3

Now, no big box store will arrest you or even physically engage with you, due to liability concerns.

Edit: My memory of NYS GBS 218 was wrong. The statute defines a reasonable amount of time as the time necessary for the accused to make, or not make, a statement, and the business to investigate its employees and records as to the possession of the material. This would be at most 15-20 minutes as they usually have most of the information they need regarding the merchandise.

Again, though, this doesn't matter in NYS if the accused did, in fact, steal due to CPL 140.3.

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u/sten45 1d ago

I’m not risking shit to stop retail theft

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u/slusho55 1d ago

I mean, it’s going to be state-by-state on how long the shopkeeper’s privilege is going to be, and most of the time it’s going to be case law, not statutory.

Majority rule is shopkeeper’s privilege is a few minutes. That’s not going to be every state. New York, as many should know by now, is weird. What’s murder 2 there is murder 1 in most states. I’d also wager, as someone else kinda mentioned, in CA this might not be as big of an issue now because the “shopkeeper” is intervening in felonious activity against themself. It’s state by state, but most states follow the false imprisonment-shopkeeper’s privilege model.

“No big box stores will arrest you due to liability concerns,” dude, re-read that. If they aren’t doing anything due to liability concerns, that means they’re afraid of legal issues. The legal issue is false imprisonment. That also explains shopkeeper’s privilege, but it’s vague because it is a state to state thing

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u/os_kaiserwilhelm 1d ago

“No big box stores will arrest you due to liability concerns,” dude, re-read that. If they aren’t doing anything due to liability concerns, that means they’re afraid of legal issues. The legal issue is false imprisonment. That also explains shopkeeper’s privilege, but it’s vague because it is a state to state thing

One issue is false imprisonment. If a state has a citizens arrest law, and the person making the arrest is within that law, there is no case for unlawful detention. The concern is that their employee will make a mistake and open them to legal issues. The other large concern is injury to the employee in pursuit of company policy, leaving the company on the hook for damages. The legal issues aren't just related to the detainee. If it is against company policy and is clearly communicated that no detention should be made, the company can avoid liability for injuries sustained by the employee resulting from the attempted detention.

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u/slusho55 1d ago

One issue is false imprisonment. If a state has a citizens arrest law, and the person making the arrest is within that law, there is no case for unlawful detention.

Yeah, if someone acts within the confines of the law and defenses and privileges set forth, then the defendant is not going to be found liable for false imprisonment. That’s literally what I said from the start lol.

The concern is that their employee will make a mistake and open them to legal issues.

This is also part of the problem, if the employee messes up, that means they acted in a way that was not privileged and did break the law and can be held liable.

The other large concern is injury to the employee in pursuit of company policy, leaving the company on the hook for damages…If it is against company policy and is clearly communicated that no detention should be made, the company can avoid liability for injuries sustained by the employee resulting from the attempted detention.

There is also that too. But, that’s also not what I said, I said they can’t because for the most part it’s illegal for a shop to detain someone. While true, this fact is irrelevant to the current matter.

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u/os_kaiserwilhelm 1d ago

But, that’s also not what I said, I said they can’t because for the most part it’s illegal for a shop to detain someone.

This really hinges on the meaning of "for the most part." Using NYS as an example again, it would be lawful to detain a person if they did in fact commit the offense as any person has arrest powers in NYS when they witnessed a person in fact commit an offense.

More generally, though, all 50 states have done version of shopkeepers' privilege. Below is an excerpt from NYS GBS 218, defining a reasonable time.

and a “reasonable time” shall mean the time necessary to permit the person detained to make a statement or to refuse to make a statement, and the time necessary to examine employees and records of the mercantile establishment relative to the ownership of the merchandise, or possession of such an item or device.

This could take 15 minutes or so, which could be more than enough time for police to arrive and detain and formally trespass if not arrest.

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u/slusho55 1d ago

I’m not sure why NYS matters when I’m just talking about the majority rule? Okay, NYS has these statutes that don’t necessarily match straight to the majority rule, great. We already established that.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here? NYS has its own laws. I’m still not even sure you’re citing it right, because you haven’t even given case law, which is likely where we’re going to find the definitions of “reasonable time.” That’s what I said in the prior comment, we need caselaw to actually define “reasonable amount of time.” The statute just gives a framework of what it should look like, in the case law we see the nitty gritty of it. Hypothetically, we would see, “It only takes two minutes to investigate if they stole a TV;” “If there’s an accomplice than the other can be detained for a slightly longer amount of time;” “The time of detention starts at the first question;” etc.

If you want to get into the nitty gritty about NYS’s differences and nuances of detaining someone, then by all means feel free to provide the case law so we can get definitions. I don’t practice in NY, and don’t care to, so I’m not that interested in learning how your shopkeeper’s privilege differs from ours, but you seem interested and if you want to share what you find you’re more than welcome to!

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u/NUTS_STUCK_TO_LEG 1d ago edited 1d ago

Wrong wrong wrong.

Shopkeeper’s privilege means they CAN detain you, and is in fact a defense to a false imprisonment claim

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u/slusho55 1d ago edited 1d ago

Is that not what I said…?

Edit: Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yeah, I think it was more bad wording. I was focusing on the italicized suspect part, they can’t detain you beyond a few minutes without knowing they did something. A shopkeeper cannot, under majority rule, actually detain, (as in imprison) someone just for suspecting they stole something. They can hold them for a few minutes, but they can’t do any holds during an investigation like actual law enforcement can.

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u/razgriz5000 1d ago

And unless they have actually left the building, it's not really shoplifting. When I worked asset protection at Best buy, the corporate rules basically prevented me from even thinking about stopping people.

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u/SynthsNotAllowed 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's contingent on state law. I'm not familiar with shopkeeper's privilege and I don't think it's a thing in my state unless they changed it since I stopped being a mallcop. Companies did have policies that they could only keep suspects in for a limited time (usually 2 hours) if the cops or parents don't come to take custody.