Court Opinion

ID: 9744284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:59:20.245218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:48.225177
License: Public Domain

*213DARDEN, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur as to Issues I, III, and IV. With respect to Issue II, I respectfully dissent.
It has long been the law in Indiana that criminal statutes are "strictly construed against the State." Sunday v. State, 720 N.E.2d 716, 719 (Ind.1999); see also e.g., Fahnestock v. State, 102 Ind. 156, 1 N.E. 872, 877 (1885). We look to the "plain, ordinary, and usual meaning of the language unless the statute itself provides a contrary meaning." Sunday, 720 N.E.2d at 718.
The statute defines the offense of false informing as the giving of "false information in the official investigation of the commission of a crime, knowing the information to be false." Ind.Code § 35-44-2-2(d)(a). Thus, as I read the statute, the law enforcement officer must have been conducting "an official investigation of the commission of a crime" in order for the provision of "false information" to constitute the offense. Id. Here, the record indicates that the responding officers were investigating an accident and had no indi-cia of criminal activity at the time Claney was questioned. Because the officer was not conducting an "official investigation of the commission of a crime" at the time Clancy informed the officer that Joshua was driving, I would reverse Clancy's conviction in that regard.