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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
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    2

    Post How Long Can a Store Legally Detain a Shoplifting Suspect

    My question involves criminal law for the state of: HAWAII
    I know I was detained almost Four hours because it was stated on the Police Report I obtained. I asked for a copy of the Video which the store says they No longer have it. I was holding my GF package which I didn't know had some stolen merchandise in it. And I think the reason it took so long to call the Police was because they had to make it so the items coincide with where I walked around in the store. I was reading that you are Not officially under arrest until the police are called therefore you should be allowed to walk around and speak to a friend etc and use the bathroom. Not be Locked down because the stores LPO are Not police and if they don't call the police after how long you may walk out unless they call the police. I am facing a Solid Misdemeanor I was told from my Publuc Defender. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME😌

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    38,867

    Default Re: How Long Can a Store Legally Detain a Shoplifting Suspect

    You were being detained; no, you had no right to get up walk around and chat with friends.


    §663-2 Defense of lawful detention
    In any action for false arrest, false imprisonment, unlawful detention, defamation of character, assault, trespass, or invasion of civil rights, brought by any person by reason of having been detained on or in the immediate vicinity of the premises of a retail mercantile establishment for the purpose of investigation or questioning as to the ownership of any merchandise, it shall be a defense to the action that the person was detained in a reasonable manner and for not more than a reasonable time to permit such investigation or questioning by a police officer or by the owner of the retail mercantile establishment, the owner’s authorized employee, or agent, and that such police officer, owner, employee, or agent had reasonable grounds to believe that the person so detained was committing or attempting to commit larceny of merchandise on the premises.
    As used in this section, “reasonable grounds” includes, but is not limited to, knowledge that a person has concealed possession of unpurchased merchandise of the retail mercantile establishment, and a “reasonable time” means 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.
    For the purpose of this section, the term “retail mercantile establishment” means a place where goods, wares, or merchandise are offered to the public for sale. This section applies to legal actions resulting from detentions occurring after May 21, 1967.
    they are allowed to detain you a reasonable time to investigate the alleged crime. Once they have determined they believe you have in fact committed the crime of shoplifting, they can call the police and detain you until they arrive.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    Behind a Desk
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    98,846

    Default Re: How Long Can a Store Legally Detain a Shoplifting Suspect

    Let's leave the police report aside for the moment. Surely you have some sense of how long you were detained from your own memory -- from looking at a clock, your watch, your phone.... So were you detained for four hours or not?

    I very much doubt that the store didn't call the police for four hours. That is something you should be able to discern from the police report's business record elements -- the time they received the call from the store, the time they arrived in response to the call, and the time they either cited or arrested you (and your girlfriend?) What is the actual time line?

    The full, current statute:
    Quote Quoting Hawaii Statutes, Sec. 663-2. Defense of lawful detention.
    In any action for false arrest, false imprisonment, unlawful detention, defamation of character, assault, trespass, or invasion of civil rights, brought by any person by reason of having been detained on or in the immediate vicinity of the premises of a retail mercantile establishment for the purpose of investigation or questioning as to the ownership of any merchandise, or a motion picture theater for the purpose of investigation or questioning as to an unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture, it shall be a defense to the action that the person was detained in a reasonable manner and for not more than a reasonable time to permit such investigation or questioning by a police officer or by the owner of the retail mercantile establishment or motion picture theater, the owner's authorized employee, or agent, and that such police officer, owner, employee, or agent had reasonable grounds to believe that the person so detained was committing or attempting to commit larceny of merchandise or unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture on the premises.

    As used in this section:

    "Motion picture theater" means a movie theater, screening room, or other venue in use primarily for the exhibition of a motion picture at the time of the unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture.

    "Reasonable grounds" includes, but is not limited to, knowledge that a person has concealed possession of unpurchased merchandise of the retail mercantile establishment or has made an unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture taken at a motion picture theater.

    "Reasonable time" means 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 or motion picture theater relative to the ownership of the merchandise or making of an unauthorized audiovisual recording of a motion picture.

    "Retail mercantile establishment" means a place where goods, wares, or merchandise are offered to the public for sale.

    This section applies to legal actions resulting from detentions occurring after May 21, 1967, for retail merchant establishments, and after May 18, 2005, for motion picture theaters.
    It's difficult to imagine that a four hour detention would be justified before the store contacted the police, even assuming you were meandering around the store for so long during your girlfriend's shoplifting spree that it took store employees a long time to review the video. But even if you cross that bridge, what are your damages?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    441

    Default Re: How Long Can a Store Legally Detain a Shoplifting Suspect

    There's a lot of lines to read through here, so this is my GUESS:

    I think a couple of things conflated here. This sounds, first of all, like one of those cases where OP was walking around the store for a long time ripping off price tags and taking things out of packaging, and ditching the tags and packaging in odd places, concealing merchandise, and leaving a (hidden) mini-trail of destruction wherever he went. I've had people spend an hour doing such things. Do you have any idea how long it can take to reconstruct something like that in order to find accurate prices and original packaging from merchandise? I've had it take me an hour + to do so when the person spent a very long time doing things like this.

    Second of all, it sounds like maybe after they did all that, and it took well over an hour, that it's likely the police were busy and took a couple of hours to come get OP. He doesn't make it clear how he knows when exactly they placed the CALL, etc.

    My best guess - again a GUESS because the OP was rather unclear - is that it took an hour + for the store to find price tags, packaging, etc., then 2 + plus for the police to arrive because they were busy, and that the OP took that to be "around 4 hours."

    While this scenario isn't the norm, it absolutely does happen. And a store can usually detain one for a "reasonable" amount of time. "Reasonable" can change upon the circumstances, and out of all the court cases I've ever read, the only time I've ever seen a court objectively label a detention time to be manifestly and objectively UNREASONABLE was when the detention was in the 8 hour + range. I remember a good lawsuit where a court found 12 hours to be totally unreasonable in any case. I've never seen 4 hours or anything even close to that touched by a court.

  5. #5

    Default Re: How Long Can a Store Legally Detain a Shoplifting Suspect

    There are only a handful of States that spell out how long a shoplifting suspect may be detained and Hawaii isn't one of them.

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