When common sense collides with logic

I wrote a post some time ago about the ambiguity inherent in English (http://edittrain.blogspot.com/2010/06/trading-clarity-for-creativity.html), and this reminded me of a case I read while studying for my law degree. This was a very long time ago, and I may have got some of the details wrong (so please don’t rely on this as any guide to the law!), but I think it went something like this…

A van full of stolen goods was intercepted by the police, who, disguised as the thieves, went on to rendezvous with the people who had arranged to buy the items.

The police promptly arrested those people for attempting to handle stolen goods.

To secure a conviction, it had to be proved that the defendants intended to handle stolen goods.

This was the tricky part. As soon as the police had taken custody of the goods, they ceased to be ‘stolen’.

Even then, though, common sense seems to suggest that, since the would-be buyers believed the items to be stolen, they had every intention of handling stolen goods.

The trouble is that what common sense suggests doesn’t always go hand in hand with what logic dictates.

Consider the following questions and answers:

Did the buyers intend to handle the goods in the van?

Yes.

Were the goods in the van stolen?

No.

Did the buyers intend to handle stolen goods?

On this basis the only logical answer to the question is ‘no’.

I have a feeling that the conviction was secured in the end, but this does go to show how easy it is to tie yourself up in knots, and how poorly suited our language is to representing logical ideas.