Opinion ID: 2368471
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: False Identity

Text: Having defined the element of false capacity, we now consider the element of false identity. We recently defined this term in Alvarado, 132 P.3d at 1207. In that case, the police stopped a car in which Alvarado was a passenger. Id. at 1206. The police arrested the driver and then began to question Alvarado. Id. Alvarado had an outstanding warrant for his arrest but gave the police a false name and birth date. Id. When the police ran a warrant check under that false information, no warrants were found. Id. We stated that 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. Id. at 1207. We therefore concluded that, by giving a false name and birth date to the police, Alvarado held himself out as being another person and had therefore assumed a false identity. Id. at 1208. The court of appeals resorted to a similar definition of false identity in Jones, 841 P.2d at 374. In that case, the defendant applied for a number of loans using a false social security number. Id. at 373. His application included otherwise accurate identifying information, including his proper name. Id. The court stated that [t]he common meaning of the phrase `assumes a false or fictitious identity' is to hold oneself out as someone that he or she is not. Id. at 374 (emphasis in original). Applying this definition, the court of appeals held that the defendant had not assumed a false or fictitious identity on his loan application. Id. The court noted that the false social security number was but one of several items of identifying information on the loan application and that the defendant supplied accurate answers to a number of the personal questions asked. Id. The court therefore concluded that Jones had not assumed a false identity. It explained that, under the circumstances, the failure to provide an accurate social security number was not equivalent to the assumption of another persona, as alleged in the information. Id. Consistent with our definition of the term in Alvarado and the court of appeals' opinion in Jones, we hold that one assumes a false identity under the statute by holding one's self out to a third party as being another person. We do not decide as a matter of law what factual circumstances are sufficient to constitute holding one's self out as being another person.