⚡ 10-Second Rule
The name of the stealing crime depends on how the thief got the thing — grabbed it, was trusted with it, or lied for it.
🧒 ELI-10 Scene
Three kids "steal" from the school bake sale, but in three different ways. Deja grabs a cupcake off the table and runs. Marcus is the trusted cash-box kid, and he quietly pockets ten dollars from the box. Priya hands over fake money and walks off with a whole cake the seller happily gave her. Everyone lost something. But each kid did a different bad thing: grabbing, betraying trust, and tricking. The law gives each move its own name.
⚖️ Actual Rule
At common law, larceny is the trespassory taking and carrying away of the personal property of another with intent to permanently deprive the owner. Under the continuing trespass doctrine, one who wrongfully takes without intent to steal, but later forms that intent while still holding the property, commits larceny. Embezzlement is the fraudulent conversion of the property of another by a person already in lawful possession of it. False pretenses is obtaining title to property by a knowing false representation of a material present or past fact, with intent to defraud. Larceny by trick is larceny where the trespassory taking is accomplished by a lie that obtains only possession, not title. Receiving stolen property is receiving control of stolen property, knowing it is stolen, with intent to permanently deprive the owner. The Model Penal Code consolidates these into a single offense of theft (Model Penal Code § 223.1, paraphrased), and most states have followed some version of that approach, but the MBE tests the common-law lines.
[NJ-VARIANT: flagged for future Eli Explains NJ Law module]
ELI-10 translation: grabbing is larceny, betraying trusted possession is embezzlement, and a lie is larceny by trick or false pretenses depending on what the lie won.
🔍 Ask These Questions
- Did the defendant take the property without any permission at all? (Did she just grab it? That points to larceny.)
- If the first taking was wrongful but innocent, did she later decide to keep it? (A bad borrowing plus a later "it's mine now" still makes larceny — the trespass continues.)
- Did the owner hand over lawful possession first, which the defendant then converted? (Was he the trusted holder — a bank teller, a trustee — who then treated it as his own? That's embezzlement.)
- If a lie got the property, did the owner give up only possession? (Owner says "borrow it," thief means "keep it" — larceny by trick.)
- Or did the lie make the owner give up title — actual ownership? (Owner says "it's yours now" because of the lie — false pretenses.)
- Did the defendant instead take in goods someone else stole, knowing they were stolen? (Buying a hot bike from the thief is its own crime — receiving stolen property.)
⚠️ Bar Trap
Exam language: When a misrepresentation induces the victim to part with property, examinees reflexively select false pretenses. But false pretenses requires that title pass; if the victim, though deceived, intended to transfer only possession — a loan, a test drive, a temporary entrustment — the offense is larceny by trick. A second recurring trap: a low-level employee handed property by his employer typically has mere custody, so his misappropriation is larceny, not embezzlement.
ELI-10: Ask what the lie actually won. If the owner meant "take it for a while," the crime is larceny by trick. If the owner meant "it's yours forever," the crime is false pretenses. And a stock clerk holding the boss's stuff doesn't truly "possess" it — pocketing it is plain larceny.
🧪 Question
A collector advertised his vintage guitar for sale for $2,000. A buyer came to the collector's home, inspected the guitar, and handed the collector a personal check for $2,000 drawn on an account the buyer knew he had closed the week before. The collector accepted the check, handed over the guitar, and said, "It's all yours — enjoy it." The check was dishonored, and the buyer refused to return the guitar. The jurisdiction retains the common-law theft offenses.
Of which crime is the buyer most likely guilty?
(A) Larceny, because he carried the guitar away intending to keep it without paying. (B) Larceny by trick, because his misrepresentation induced the collector to give up the guitar. (C) Embezzlement, because he converted property entrusted to him by its owner. (D) False pretenses, because his knowing misrepresentation caused the collector to pass title to the guitar.
Answer: (D). The buyer knowingly misrepresented a present fact — that the check was drawn on a live account — with intent to defraud, and the collector, so deceived, completed the sale and transferred ownership, not mere possession. Obtaining title by a knowing lie is false pretenses.
💡 Why the Wrong Answers Are Wrong
- (A) fails because there was no trespassory taking; the collector consented to the transfer, so the taking was not against his possession.
- (B) fails because the lie obtained title — "it's all yours" after a completed sale — not temporary possession.
- (C) fails because embezzlement requires lawful possession entrusted first and conversion later; here the fraud came first and won ownership outright.
- ELI-10: The misconception is treating every lie-for-property as the same crime. What the owner meant to hand over — a loan or the thing forever — picks the crime.
