STOLEN GOODS. In law. chattels which have been the subject of larceny and have not been restored to the possession of their owner. Inasmuch as the larceny does not divest the owner of his property in the stolen goods. a buyer cannot acquire title to them even if the purchase lie made in good faith. In England, however, this rule does not apply if stolen goods were bought in market overt (q.v.), and the owner had not prosecuted the thief, in which case the bona fide purchaser acquires valid title. In the United States there are no markets overt, and any person buying stolen goods acquires no better title to them than the thief has. That is, the owner has a right to take them wherever lie may find them. This rule is subject to the qualification that current money and negotiable papers payable to bearer or indorsed in blank may pass to and become the absolute property of a bona fide purchaser even if they have been stolen from their lawful owner. See NEGOTIABLE PAPER.
To constitute the crime of receiving stolen goods, the goods must have been stolen and not acquired by embezzlement or false pretenses. The receiver must either know that they have been stolen or have reasonable grounds for believing that they have been unlawfully taken from their owner. The crime becomes complete when the receiver takes them into his possession or they are taken for him with his knowledge by a servant or agents. If the goods after being stolen come back into the possession of the owner or are delivered to the receiver by the owner's authority, they cease to be stolen goods, and the crime of receiving cannot be committed with reference to them.
In England it early became the law that if goods were stolen in one county and carried into another by the thief, he was deemed to have committed larceny in both counties, and could be indicted and placed on trial in either. As the offense, wherever committed, was an offense against the same sovereignty. this rule as to larceny amounted simply to a convenient method of determining the place of trial. The English courts refused to apply the rule where goods were stolen in a foreign country and brought to England. Courts in many of the United States have somewhat illogically applied this rule to the several States, holding that if goods are stolen in a sister State and then brought within the State larceny is committed in both States. notwithstanding the fact that the original offense was committed against an in dependent sovereignty so far as the administra tion of the criminal law is concerned, and that the having in possession of stolen goods is a very different offense from the larceny of the goods. A few States, as Ohio, have refused to follow this rule, and one, Vermont, has applied the rule to goods stolen in other States and brought within the State, but has declined to follow it in case of goods stolen in foreign countries. (See LARCENY.) The crime of receiving stolen goods is now generally defined by statute and the punishment imposed varies in the different States. In most States the offense is deemed a felony. See CRIME; JURISDICTION.