Any person has a right to prevent the consequences of theft by seizing any personal property that has been stolen and bringing it, with the person suspected of committing the theft, if that person can be taken, before a magistrate for examination, or delivering the property and the person suspected of committing the theft to a peace officer for that purpose. To justify a seizure under this article, there must be reasonable ground to believe the property is stolen, and the seizure must be openly made and the proceedings had without delay.
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 18.16
PREVENTING CONSEQUENCES OF THEFT
Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case Aitch v. State (1994)
Most recently applied in Oriji v. State (November 2004)
Acts 1965, 59th Leg., vol. 2, p. 317, ch. 722
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Texas Constitution and Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Texas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.