{
  "id": 50425,
  "name": "Melissa STEPHENS v. STATE of Arkansas",
  "name_abbreviation": "Stephens v. State",
  "decision_date": "1997-05-19",
  "docket_number": "CR 96-403",
  "first_page": "570",
  "last_page": "573",
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      "cite": "328 Ark. 570"
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      "cite": "944 S.W.2d 836"
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    "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court"
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    "name_long": "Arkansas",
    "name": "Ark."
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      "cite": "Ark. Code Ann. \u00a7 5-54-122",
      "category": "laws:leg_statute",
      "reporter": "Ark. Code Ann.",
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      "reporter": "Ark.",
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      "year": 1992,
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    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "Melissa STEPHENS v. STATE of Arkansas"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Ray Thornton, Justice.\nAppellant Melissa Stephens was convicted of filing a false report with a law enforcement agency. She challenges her conviction, raising the question whether our criminal statute prohibiting the filing of a false report with a law enforcement agency is violated when the false statement is made by a person other than the one who actually called the police to report the crime. She asserts that the trial court erred when it denied her motion for directed verdict, in which she argued that the State had failed to prove that she \u201cfiled\u201d the report. We find no error and affirm.\nThe facts surrounding her conviction are as follows. Appellant\u2019s boyfriend, Ron Mettetal, told her to ask her friend Sherry Taylor if she had given John Richards permission to take $600.00 from cash savings, which Sherry was holding in her apartment to buy equipment to treat her sick child. Appellant gave Sherry a detailed but fictitious account of how Richards told her that Sherry had given him permission to go into her apartment and take the money, that he said that he knew where the money was, and later that he asked appellant to go to Florida with him and fanned out six one-hundred dollar bills from his pocket.\nSherry and her boyfriend, Curt Ayers, went to the apartment and discovered that the amount of $600.00 was indeed missing. They called the police, and appellant came to Sherry\u2019s apartment and repeated the fictitious account to Officer Michael LeBlanc.\nLater that evening appellant arranged a meeting with Richards at a parking lot, where Mettetal and Ayers forced him into the car. Appellant drove them to the police station, where they delivered Richards into the custody of the police. At the police station, appellant gave a statement to Detective Debra Crews maintaining that Richards had told her that Sherry gave him permission to borrow $600.00, and that the next day Richards had shown her six one-hundred dollar bills.\nRichards, who was interviewed by another officer at the station, denied taking the money, but said that he would pay it back to prevent any hard feelings. He was arrested and charged, but was released pending trial.\nShordy before Richards\u2019s trial date, the State became concerned about discrepancies in the stories, and interviewed appellant again on a prosecutor\u2019s subpoena. Upon being confronted with these discrepancies, appellant admitted that her earlier account was false. She said that she told Sherry that Richards had taken the $600 because Mettetal, who was listening to the phone conversation, had suggested that she say that. She admitted that there was no meeting with Richards where he fanned out six one-hundred dollar bills.\nArkansas Code Annotated \u00a7 5-54-122 (Repl. 1993) provides:\n(a) For the purpose of this section, \u201creport\u201d means any communication, either written or oral, sworn or unsworn.\n(b) A person commits the offense of filing a false report if he files a report with any law enforcement agency or prosecuting attorney\u2019s office of any alleged criminal wrongdoing on the part of another knowing that such report is false.\n(c) (1) Filing a false report is a Class D felony if:\n(A) The crime is a capital offense, Class Y felony, Class A felony, or Class B felony.\n(B) The agency or the office to whom the report is made has expended in excess of five hundred dollars ($500) in order to investigate said report, including the costs of labor; or\n(C) Physical injury results to any person as a result of the false report; or\n(D) The false report is made in an effort by the person filing said false report to conceal his own criminal activity; or\n(E) The false report results in another person being arrested. (2) Otherwise, filing a false report is a Class A misdemeanor.\nUnder the facts of this case, making a false report would be a Class D felony because the amount of the alleged theft, $600, would constitute a Class B felony; the expenses incurred by the law enforcement offices exceeded $500; and the false report resulted in the arrest of another person.\nThe thrust of appellant\u2019s argument is that the State did not prove that she \u201cfiled\u201d a false report within the meaning of the statute because it was Sherry, and not appellant, who made the call to the police about the theft. When interpreting statutes, this court adheres to the basic rule of statutory construction that gives effect to the intent of the legislature, making use of common sense. Sanders v. State, 310 Ark. 630, 839 S.W.2d 518 (1992).\nHere, appellant\u2019s statements to police were the sole links that connected Richards to the disappearance of the money. Further, not only did appellant contact Sherry and tell her Richards had the money and then repeat the story to Officer LeBlanc when he went to Sherry\u2019s apartment to investigate the incident; but she also brought Richards to the police station, where she again reported to police that he took the money. While the statute speaks of \u201cfiling a report,\u201d it very clearly does not require that this be a formal written document, but specifically includes in the definition \u201cany communication, either written or oral, sworn or unsworn.\u201d Ark. Code Ann. \u00a7 5-54-122(a).\nWe conclude that appellant\u2019s false statements, made under these circumstances, were prohibited by both the spirit and the letter of the law regarding the filing of a false report. The trial court correctly denied her motion for directed verdict.\nAffirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Ray Thornton, Justice."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Office of the Public Defender, by: Theresa S. Nazario, for appellant.",
      "Winston Bryant, Att\u2019y Gen., by: J. Brent Standridge, Asst. Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "Melissa STEPHENS v. STATE of Arkansas\nCR 96-403\n944 S.W.2d 836\nSupreme Court of Arkansas\nOpinion delivered May 19, 1997\nOffice of the Public Defender, by: Theresa S. Nazario, for appellant.\nWinston Bryant, Att\u2019y Gen., by: J. Brent Standridge, Asst. Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0570-01",
  "first_page_order": 596,
  "last_page_order": 599
}