Winning a theft case is hard, getting the best results possible is also hard when it comes to theft cases. Depending on your record, many times getting the best results possible means keeping a client out of jail or prison. If you have any questions about winning your theft case, call Shawn now at 616-438-6719. Get the best results possible!
Theft Cases Are Won on Elements, Not Explanations
People charged with theft almost always want to explain what happened. I understand the impulse, but it is the wrong instinct — explanations get written into police reports and used later. Theft cases are won by attacking what the prosecutor has to prove.
Every Michigan theft offense has the same core: a taking of someone else's property, without consent, with the intent to permanently deprive them of it. Add the specific statute's own requirements — a store for retail fraud, a position of trust for embezzlement, force for robbery, knowledge for receiving stolen property — and those elements are the whole battlefield.
The Five Things That Actually Beat These Charges
1. Intent
This is the most commonly winnable element, because so many theft charges come out of ambiguous situations. An item left in the bottom of a cart. A tool borrowed from a job site with every intention of bringing it back. Property taken during a break-up that both people claim. None of that is an intent to permanently deprive, and intent has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt like anything else.
2. Claim of right
If you genuinely believed the property was yours, there is no larceny — even if you were wrong, and even if you went about retrieving it badly. This defense comes up constantly in cases between family members, roommates, former partners, and business partners.
3. Value
Michigan grades theft offenses at $200, $1,000, and $20,000. Value is an element. Reports routinely list what an owner paid years ago, or a retail replacement figure, instead of what the used item was actually worth on the day in question. Getting that number right has moved cases from felony to misdemeanor in my practice more than once.
4. Identification
Store video is grainy, taken from above, and shows clothing rather than faces. Show-up identifications conducted in the back of a patrol car within the hour are suggestive by design. Where the case is one witness pointing at one person, the reliability of that identification is the case.
5. The search
A great many theft charges follow a vehicle search, a consent search, or a search of a bag. If the stop was unlawful, if consent was not freely given, or if the search went beyond what was authorized, the property comes out of the case — and usually the case goes with it.
When the Evidence Is Strong, the Goal Changes
Not every case gets dismissed, and any lawyer who promises otherwise before reading a file is selling something. When the proofs are solid, the objective shifts to keeping a conviction off your public record. Michigan gives real options here:
- Holmes Youthful Trainee Act (MCL 762.11). For someone who was 17 to 23 at the time of the offense, HYTA can keep the case off the public record entirely on successful completion.
- Delayed sentence (MCL 771.1). The court can delay sentencing for up to a year; complete the conditions and the charge can be reduced or dismissed.
- Diversion. Several West Michigan prosecutor's offices run first-offender programs for low-value theft, particularly before charges are formally authorized.
- Charge reduction. Moving a first-degree retail fraud to a second, or a larceny to attempted larceny, changes the guidelines, the maximum, and the expungement timeline.
- Expungement. Under Michigan's clean slate law, many theft convictions can eventually be set aside — and some are set aside automatically. What you plead to today decides whether that is available later.
What to Do Right Now
- Do not talk to the police, loss prevention, or your employer about it. No exceptions, including if you are innocent.
- Do not sign anything in a back office or at a station.
- Do not contact the complainant to sort it out. It reads as witness tampering and it will be charged that way.
- Write down what happened for your lawyer only, while it is fresh.
- Ask about the video immediately. Store and municipal footage is overwritten on a cycle measured in days or weeks. A preservation request has to go out early, and this is one of the strongest reasons to bring in a lawyer before you are even charged.
Related reading: theft and property crimes defense, when theft is considered a felony, shoplifting penalties, and burglary vs. robbery vs. larceny.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a theft charge be dismissed in Michigan?
Yes. Theft charges are dismissed when the prosecutor cannot prove intent, when identification is unreliable, when the property was taken under a genuine claim of right, or when evidence is suppressed after an unlawful search. They are also resolved without a conviction through deferrals, delayed sentences under MCL 771.1, and the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act for those who were 17 to 23 at the time.
What is the most common defense to a theft charge?
Lack of intent. Every Michigan theft offense requires an intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property. Forgetting an item at the bottom of a cart, taking property you believed was yours, borrowing with an intent to return, and disputes over jointly owned property are all situations that get charged as theft but do not satisfy the element.
Does the value of the property matter?
It decides almost everything. Michigan grades larceny, retail fraud, embezzlement, and receiving stolen property by dollar thresholds at $200, $1,000, and $20,000. Value is an element the prosecutor must prove, and police reports frequently use replacement or original retail cost rather than the fair market value of used property. Moving the number across a threshold can turn a felony into a misdemeanor.
Will a theft conviction show up on a background check?
Yes, and it is worse than most convictions of the same severity. Theft is a crime of dishonesty, which means it can be used to attack your credibility if you ever testify, and employers treat it differently from other offenses. That is why keeping the conviction off the record often matters more than the sentence attached to it.
Talk to Me Before You Talk to the Police
I am Shawn Haff, and I defend theft and property crime cases across Kent, Ottawa, Allegan, Barry, Ionia, Muskegon, Newaygo, and Van Buren counties. The call is free, I answer my own phone, and in a property case the earlier I am involved the more room there is to work. Call 616-438-6719 or send me a message.