If criminal damage to property occurs to a vehicle driven by a man whose wife holds title and registration to the vehicle and someone is indicted for damaging the property of the man, even though he has no title or legal claim to the vehicle is named solely in the indictment as the property owner, is the indictment irreparably flawed and legally demanding of acquittal since the title lists someone other than the person listed in the indictment?

Sosdog

if the car is held by his legal wife then all shared property rules apply and he will be listed as owner if he was operating the vehicle.


sos

Fr_Chuck

Ok, first please describe what type of criminal damage you are speaking of.
The charge differs from state to state and is not even a charge in some states.

But if a person did damge to someones car depending on the amount of damage would decide the level of the charge.

If the police report did not list the owner properly ( perhaps the driver said that he was the owner) In community property states then he would be consdered by default nomally as having interest in the property.

But the court could do several things, allow the DA to merley add the wife as owner and victim, or merley refile with the new information.
It will not make the entire case go away, merely cause for either a new charge or an admendment to the indictment.

s_cianci

Your post is a little hard to follow. However, as I understand it, damage was done to a car but the wrong person was listed in the indictment as the owner. Furthermore, the owner of the car in question was the wife of the person mistakenly identified as the owner in the indictment. If this is correct, then from a criminal law standpoint it shouldn't make much difference who the owner is or who is believed to be the owner; the fact is that the property was damaged and the person responsible, if convicted, is criminally liable. Especially if the actual owner is the spouse of the alleged owner as any court would consider a spouse to have a legitimate interest in the property in question and would be equally entitled to justice as the actual owner. I'm presuming in all of this that the husband and wife live together and the damage to the car in question didn't result from a dispute over the distribution of property due to a divorce or separation.