Opinion ID: 2636836
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Criminal Impersonation under Section 18-5-113(1)(e)

Text: Section 18-5-113 defines the crime of criminal impersonation that may be committed in a variety of ways: (1) A person commits criminal impersonation if he knowingly assumes a false or fictitious identity or capacity, and in such identity or capacity he: (a) Marries, or pretends to marry, or to sustain the marriage relation toward another without the connivance of the latter; or (b) Becomes bail or surety for a party in an action or proceeding, civil or criminal, before a court or officer authorized to take the bail or surety; or (c) Confesses a judgment, or subscribes, verifies, publishes, acknowledges, or proves a written instrument which by law may be recorded, with the intent that the same may be delivered as true; or (d) Does an act which if done by the person falsely impersonated, might subject such person to an action or special proceeding, civil or criminal, or to liability, charge, forfeiture, or penalty; or (e) Does any other act with intent to unlawfully gain a benefit for himself or another or to injure or defraud another. § 18-5-113, C.R.S. (2005) (emphasis added). Criminal impersonation is a class six felony. Id. § 18-5-113(2). Alvarado challenges his conviction under section 18-5-113(e) for the prosecution's alleged failure to offer evidence that he [did] any other act with intent to unlawfully gain a benefit for himself pursuant to subsection (1)(e) of section 18-5-113. He characterizes knowingly assuming a false or fictitious identity or capacity as the first act required for conviction, which must then be followed by a separate required second act. We reject this two-act construction of the statute. The introductory provision of section 18-5-113 contains the words assumes a false or fictitious identity or capacity. Assumes in the context of a false identity in this statute includes to arrogate, seize, usurp the identity of another. Webster's Third New International Dictionary 133 (1961). A common sense reading and application of the statute prohibits holding oneself out to a third party as being another person when asked who he or she is. When a person does this in combination with any of the acts enumerated in subsections (1)(a)-(1)(e) he or she commits criminal impersonation. Under the statute, two acts are not required; the prohibited conduct can be seamless: question asked, who are you? answered falsely, in the instance here, to gain the unlawful benefit of avoiding arrest. Thus, the criminalized conduct can occur in the same breath. This is demonstrated by the words in the introductory language and in such identity and capacity. These are linkage words. In describing what constitutes commission of criminal impersonation, the General Assembly, by using the words if and and in the introductory phrase of this statute, plainly tied the assumption of a false or fictitious identity or capacity to defendant's use of it under enumerated circumstances, purposes, or results that manifest completion of the prohibited act of impersonation. Thus, subsection (1)(a) addresses pretending to marry, or sustaining the marriage relation with another person in the absence of that person's connivance; (1)(b), becoming a bail or surety for a party in a civil or criminal proceeding before a court or other officer; (1)(c), confessing a judgment, or subscribing, verifying, publishing, acknowledging, or proving a written instrument intending that it may be delivered as true; and (1)(d), any act that subjects the person impersonated to a civil or criminal liability action or special proceeding. Each of these four subsections identifies a particularized circumstance, purpose, or result involving defendant's knowing utilization of the false or fictitious identity or capacity. In turn, subsection (1)(e) criminalizes any act involving defendant's knowing utilization of a false or fictitious identity or capacity with the intent to unlawfully gain a benefit for one's self or another, or to injure or defraud another. The plain meaning and function of the statute is shown by the circumstances of this case. Confronted with a police officer asking who he is, Alvarado knowingly utilized another real person's identity to avoid arrest. Alvarado's construction of the statute allows a person to use the identity of another to gain a benefit without any penalty the first time he or she does it. The act must be repeated to incur punishment, an absurd construction and result. We conclude that subsection (1)(e) of the statute permitted the jury to convict Alvarado for criminal impersonation on proof that he utilized the other person's identity with intent to unlawfully gain a benefit for himself. Because Alvarado has stipulated to knowingly assuming a false identity, the only question is whether he utilized this false identity with intent to unlawfully gain a benefit for himself or another. Here the benefit was avoiding arrest on an outstanding warrant, which Alvarado accomplished until police ferreted out his true identity and thus matched him to the outstanding arrest warrant. In support of his two-act argument, Alvarado attempts to reformulate the statute as providing for an act in the introductory wording of the criminal impersonation statute followed by additional acts contained in subsections (a) through (e) of section 18-5-113. However, in setting forth the various ways that the offense of criminal impersonation may be committed, subsections (1)(a) through (1)(d) identify particularized ways in which criminal impersonation may be committed. Subsection (1)(e), under which the jury convicted Alvarado, is a generic provision addressing conduct not otherwise particularized in the statute. The General Assembly narrowed the potential breadth of this provision by circumscribing its application with a requirement that the prosecution prove an additional culpable mental intent beyond the knowingly culpable mental state of the statute's introductory language. Some but not all of subsections (1)(a) through (1)(e) require an additional culpable mental state. Subsection (1)(e) addresses any act of criminal impersonation done with intent to unlawfully gain a benefit for [defendant] or another or to injure or defraud another. On the other hand, subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b) do not contain an additional mens rea component. For example, an individual who knowingly assumes a false identity when marrying another, without the other person's connivance, is guilty of criminal impersonation under (1)(b) regardless of any additional intent. Subsection (1)(c), like subsection (1)(e), requires an additional culpable mental state. A person who has knowingly assumed a false identity in confessing judgment under subsection (c) must do so with the intent that the same may be delivered as true. The General Assembly's treatment of the criminal impersonation offense supports our analysis. In 1971, the legislature amended the criminal code, including the criminal impersonation statute. Prior to the 1971 change, current paragraphs (1)(d) and (1)(e) were found, with some differences, in a single paragraph. That provision read as follows: Does any other act in the course of any act or proceeding whereby if it were done by the person falsely personated, such person might in any event become liable to an action or special proceeding, civil or criminal, or to pay a sum of money, or to incur a charge, forfeiture, or penalty, or whereby any benefit might accrue to the offender or to another person. § 40-17-1(e), C.R.S. (1963) (emphasis added). By its 1971 revision, Ch. 121, sec. 1, § 40-5-113, 1971 Colo. Sess. Laws 388, 436, the legislature separated the benefit aspect of committing the crime of criminal impersonation into a separate provision containing an additional culpable mental state, the current section 18-5-113(1)(e). The legislature's action in this regard supports our conclusion that it intended this subsection to function as a generic provision that follows the identification of particularized ways in which the crime of criminal impersonation is committed. We disagree with Alvarado's injection of Colorado's false reporting statute into the argument for reversal of his conviction. Alvarado contends that he knowingly assumed a false identity in connection with a traffic stop, and this is punishable only under section 18-8-111, C.R.S. (2005), a class three misdemeanor. [3] We disagree. The General Assembly may define one or more offenses that proscribe a defendant's conduct. See § 18-1-408(1), C.R.S. (2005) (When any conduct of a defendant establishes the commission of more than one offense, the defendant may be prosecuted for each such offense.). Alvarado ignores the point that criminal impersonation is a separate offense from false reporting. In this case, Alvarado knowingly utilized a false identity to gain the unlawful benefit of avoiding arrest under an outstanding warrant by police officers. An act of criminal impersonation such as this done with intent to gain an unlawful benefit is not part of the false reporting statute. The prosecution could have charged Alvarado with both offenses, and the jury could have returned convictions for both. In People v. Johnson, 30 P.3d 718 (Colo. App.2000), the court of appeals correctly noted that the criminal impersonation statute requires the additional showing of intent to gain a benefit or injure or defraud, id. at 721, whereas false reporting does not, id. at 723. The two statutes contain different elements and validly prescribe different penalties. When interpreting statutes, we may consider the object the legislature sought to accomplish. § 2-4-203(a), C.R.S. (2005). The disparate placement of the false reporting and criminal impersonation statutes within the criminal code reinforces our conclusion that the legislature intended to establish separate offenses. The false reporting provision appears under governmental operation offenses. §§ 18-8-101 to -804, C.R.S. (2005). The legislature placed the criminal impersonation provision within offenses involving forgery, simulation, impersonation and related offenses. §§ 18-5-101 to -120, C.R.S. (2005). Clearly, the General Assembly acted within its prerogative in defining an offense more serious than false reporting that operates to proscribe intentionally avoiding arrest through knowingly assuming a false identity when responding to a police officer. Alvarado's construction of the statute would substitute a lesser offense for the greater, an absurd reading in light of the General Assembly's obvious statutory word choice and its placement of the two offenses in different parts of the criminal code.