State v. Fields

Court of Appeals of Oregon

State v. Fields

79 P.3d 915, 191 Or. App. 127, 2003 Ore. App. LEXIS 1633

CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon

DecidedNovember 26, 2003

Docket01C44362; A116156

StatusPublished

Cited by2 cases

This text of 79 P.3d 915 (State v. Fields) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

State v. Fields, 79 P.3d 915, 191 Or. App. 127, 2003 Ore. App. LEXIS 1633 (Or. Ct. App. 2003).

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Opinion

*128 PER CURIAM

Defendant appeals his conviction for identity theft, ORS 165.800, assigning error to the trial court’s denial of his motion for a judgment of acquittal. The state confesses error, and we reverse.

During the course of a traffic stop, defendant identified himself as his friend and gave the officer his friend’s personal identifying information. As a result, he was charged with and convicted of violating ORS 165.800(1), which provides:

“A person commits the crime of identity theft if the person, with the intent to deceive or to defraud, obtains, possesses, transfers, creates, utters or converts to the person’s own use the personal identification of another person.”

Defendant argues on appeal that the statute applies only to financial or commercial crimes, not to misidentifying oneself to a police officer. The meaning of “converts to the person’s own use” is ambiguous in that respect. The original draft of the statute specifically prohibited a person from misrepresenting to a peace officer or a judge that the person is another person. The legislature deleted that prohibition because of concerns over the cost of enforcing it and because it believed that other statutes already prohibited giving false information to a peace officer. See, e.g., ORS 162.385 (prohibiting giving peace officer false information for a citation). The state concedes that the legislature expressly decided not to apply ORS 165.800 to the facts of this case. We agree.

Reversed.

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*128 PER CURIAM

Defendant appeals his conviction for identity theft, ORS 165.800, assigning error to the trial court’s denial of his motion for a judgment of acquittal. The state confesses error, and we reverse.

During the course of a traffic stop, defendant identified himself as his friend and gave the officer his friend’s personal identifying information. As a result, he was charged with and convicted of violating ORS 165.800(1), which provides:

“A person commits the crime of identity theft if the person, with the intent to deceive or to defraud, obtains, possesses, transfers, creates, utters or converts to the person’s own use the personal identification of another person.”

Defendant argues on appeal that the statute applies only to financial or commercial crimes, not to misidentifying oneself to a police officer. The meaning of “converts to the person’s own use” is ambiguous in that respect. The original draft of the statute specifically prohibited a person from misrepresenting to a peace officer or a judge that the person is another person. The legislature deleted that prohibition because of concerns over the cost of enforcing it and because it believed that other statutes already prohibited giving false information to a peace officer. See, e.g., ORS 162.385 (prohibiting giving peace officer false information for a citation). The state concedes that the legislature expressly decided not to apply ORS 165.800 to the facts of this case. We agree.

Reversed.

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Bluebook (online)

79 P.3d 915, 191 Or. App. 127, 2003 Ore. App. LEXIS 1633, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-fields-orctapp-2003.

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