Ok,I filed against some douche for small claims court. They took my mp3 player from the car,pretend and lied that they didn't,and then later admitted to a friend of mine they did it. We found it where they told us to look the next morning when daylight broke,but it was destroyed because of the rain.

So today I filed for Small Claims Court at the magistrate and the hearing is Nov. 13th. I was just looking at some information on what to prepare to make my case as strong in front of the judge that I can. I plan to show up about 10 minutes early (dressed nicely of course). I have the original receipt for the player,the dead player,and i'm going to bring the my friend's sister with me (the one who got the admittance about taking it) as a witness. Along with that,i'm going to write down all the details of how it happened on paper and just read from that so I don't leave anything important out.

Have I got this locked up tight or is there anything else I should be doing?

I watch a lot of peoples court. I think you'll do fine.

Did you file a police report? That might help.

Make sure not to talk to interrupt the defendant at all during his side of the story. Just take notes on what you don't agree with and go over them when you have a chance to talk again.

yea but he's got the proof of purchase and value. he might not get the entire cost of the thing back, but he'll get something. he fullfills his burden of proof..

I'd say you're set. You need to win by a preponderance of the evidence (51%), not beyond a reasonable doubt (as you probably know). A police report would have helped though.