Stealing my pet back? I was dating this guy for about a month. Within that,He convinced me to let my bird stay with him and he, my dad, and I all agreed that I would get her back if we broke up. Texted him last night and he’s refusing to give her to me and says I can come see her. If I take her without using physical force(unless needed) would I get in any sort of trouble with the law?
You don't state a jurisdiction, but the following will apply in most common-law jurisdictions. If you entered with permission, picked up the bird and walked out with it without any objections then a charge of theft would not stick; you were simply reclaiming your own property with the permission of the householder. However from your post that doesn't sound likely. If your ex objects to you taking the bird then they can call the police. The police will refuse to get involved in arguments about ownership and will just act to preserve the status quo ante. As long as you haven't broken in or acted deceitfully then you haven't committed a crime, but they are unlikely to let you take the bird as long as the person with possession claims legal title. If you try to &quot;steal it back&quot; then you will be guilty of theft, and possibly burglary, criminal damage and maybe other crimes depending on how you did it. Don't go there. You probably need to file some kind of civil case for the return of your property. Details will depend on the jurisdiction, but if you can get a court order for possession then the police should accept that as evidence that you are acting legally when you turn up to reclaim your property. However (again, depending on jurisdiction) you might need to hire a specialist to do the actual repossession; the laws about gaining entry, searching property etc tend to be complicated and you don't want to get on the wrong side of them. This is all on the assumption that the value of the bird is lower than the likely cost of hiring a lawyer. If this is an expensive bird then you need legal advice.
Two people can have an equal interest in real property without being married, and being incarcerated doesn't affect a person's property rights. What matters is that now your ex-wife has a legal interest in the property. As a separate issue, she presumably also has a legal obligation w.r.t. the mortgage (otherwise the quitclaim deed makes no sense). The easiest solution is for the other party to voluntarily transfer their interest in the property to you via a quitclaim deed. A difficult solution is to use the judicial process to remove a person from the title. This could be done if there was fraud involved in the property transfer process, for example if the quitclaim deed was forged (presumably not the case here). You might sue to correct an error which doesn't reflect the terms of the transaction, via a reformation action, but that doesn't seem to be the case (a party not understanding the consequences of transferring an interest isn't an error in the relevant sense). You need to hire an attorney to solve the problem (he will look at all of the documentation relevant for your case for a possible solution).
You are 500km away and you neither intend to do her harm, nor are you personally doing her harm. You are not an accomplice by any means. You may, appropriately, feel a moral obligation to do as much as you can to help, but not doing everything that you wish you could does not make you an accomplice.
This is a fun one. I don't have any particular domain knowledge about this question. So this one is just a guess. My answer is strictly from a practical standpoint. If I were faced with this situation in real life, what would I do? (Technical point: I feel the vagueness of the language, "Is he allowed to" allows me to answer this way.) My assumptions: My assumptions are that: The cost of consulting an attorney on the matter or filing a law suit would likely exceed the combined total cost of the bike and the lock. Usually, the law follows what "feels right" and what makes common sense to the average person. Usually. Not always. But usually. (Legal principles: "Equity follows the law." and "Equity does not aid a party at fault." See this reference.) What I would do: So, I would do the following... (if I were in the U.S.) I would simply cut the bike lock and repossess my bike (unilaterally) if and only if all the following conditions were true in the situation: I could confirm without any doubt that the bike in question is actually my bike and not just another one that looks just like it. I could not find anyone around who looks like they might be the owner of the lock or the other bike. If I could find the owner of either the lock or the bike it is highly likely there was some mistake and the situation could be resolved directly with them. There are no law officers nearby. If so, I would engage them in helping me rectify the matter. If they said it was a "civil matter" and refused to get involved, I would proceed to the next item on this list. I had the tools handy and available to cut or break the lock. If any of the above conditions were false, I would flag down the nearest law officer or call one to the scene to help resolve the issue. Any other approach would seem impractical to me on the basis of my above assumption numbered 1. If I were anywhere outside the U.S., I would involve the local authorities without considering the unilateral repossession option.
Of course The prosecution just needs to prove that the crime happened (or the defendant believed it to have happened) and you helped (in brief, there will be specific elements of the crime that each need to be proved). This would be easier if the primary crime had a convicted perpetrator but it’s not impossible without. Allow me to illustrate with an example. I will set out facts which are somewhat contrived and would not be so clear cut in a real case but for the purposes of the example please take them as undisputed and fully supported by evidence. John and Jill are in a relationship. This relationship is well known to be argumentative with frequent shouting matches and one or the other storming out. This does not amount to domestic violence by either party. John's friend Alan believes (wrongly) that there is domestic violence. During an argument Jill drops dead of a heart attack. John rings Alan distraught and says "I've killed her." Alan assumes (wrongly) that John has murdered Jill. Alan says "i'll take care of it. You go to your dad's". Alan (alone) disposes of the body. John is not guilty of murder (or indeed, anything). Alan is guilty of accessory to murder even though the actual crime never happened. The fact that Alan believed it happened is enough.
Before you go changing locks, you might want to hire an attorney. There is law in Ohio that governs "such" relationship, which are typically landlord-tenant relationships, but might not be strictly construed the way you'd prefer. In a classic landlord-tenant relationship, it is illegal to change locks on a tenant, and if you want a tenant booted out, you have to go through the court process and get the court to order an eviction (carried out by the sheriff). A landlord-tenant relationship need not involve a written lease, all that matters is having an agreement. On the face of it, it looks to me as though you agreed to let your son live there, and his attorney would no doubt point to whatever benefit you received from allowing your son to live there as "consideration" in this verbal (vague) contract. The exact terms of that contract don't matter: what matters is that state law limits what you can do. You can read ORC here on the topic of evictions. Actually physically removing a person is a crime (battery), so definitely don't do that. Lockouts have been illegal since 1973. You no doubt can show the court that your son is now effectively a trespasser, but he clearly did not break in without permission, so the bottom line is probably a visit to the court (unless a letter from the attorney resolves the matter). Alternatively, it could be simpler and cheaper to just go directly for the court process. There are professionally-written manuals for about $20 that spell out the procedures, and an attorney is not actually required to evict someone. You can just treat the situation as a standard landlord-tenant process, give the required notices (using legalese in a notice may well be sufficient). If you do have to file in court, there are a couple hundred bucks of fees associated with filing. It takes time. There is a 3 day notice requirement on your notice, after that you can file the complaint and a hearing is scheduled after that (county dependent: I hear it's about 3 weeks in Franklin). Defendant can stretch that out for a week or so by asking for a continuance to seek legal counsel, but eventually you will prevail unless the judge is too warm-hearted and orders family counseling (you never know, these days). They you apply for the "red tag", the bailiff posts it within a few days, and that gives him 5 days to leave. If that doesn't work, you call the bailiff for the physical removal, and they probably respond within a couple of business days.
In California (where lost+found laws have been discussed quite a lot), this would be either "lost property" or "abandoned property". With abandoned property, you can do what you want. With lost property, it is legal to ignore it. If you take it, you have the obligation to try to return it to the owner. If you don't do that, it's theft. If you don't take it, you have no obligation whatsoever. Put it somewhere where the loser (the person who lost it) is more likely to find it, for example on the street. Don't take anything. Clarification for comments: There is a box. And the owner of the box is nowhere to be seen. That box is by definition lost or abandoned - it is abandoned if the owner got rid of it intentionally, it is lost if the owner is looking for it. We don't know. We can make guesses depending on the situation. No matter whether lost or abandoned, you are legally absolutely fine if you just ignore it. You have no reason to try to return it to its owner. If you don't make it your business, it's not your business. But if you decide you want the box, or bits of it, and it isn't abandoned (which is hard to know for sure), then you have to try to find the owner first, and if you don't find them, then you can keep it.
If there is no reasonable suspicion of a crime having been committed or about to be committed, then there is no reason to seize you, and the Fourth Amendment "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated". Even if a state has a "stop and identify" statute, reasonable suspicion is a minimum requirement for seizing your person, even temporarily. Texas is not a state with an obligation to identify statute. I would not expect the state to be very helpful, given the facts as you report them. There might be others, such as the ACLU, who may be happy to discuss the particulars of your case. The police need to justify a stop in court, and not to the person being seized. I don't know if there is any case law saying that a false police statement to a detainee ("No, I don't have a reasonable suspicion") precludes claiming in court that there was reasonable suspicion, but it should at least make the claim of reasonable suspicion less credible. They do have to have reasonable suspicion, and they do not have to tell you what that suspicion is. OTOH if they are just harassing bicyclists, that would be illegal.