Responsibility of a false report

[JQ Citizen]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Texas

How serious is a false report to a police officer, are people often convicted?

If some one gives a false report to a police officer and the officer, has the accused charged with a crime and and arrests them, is the accuser free from liability?

Could the maker of the false report be responsible for the legal costs of defending the false charge?

 

[quincy]

Reports made to the police are considered privileged, which means that no civil action can arise from the report unless it can be shown that the report was made with actual malice (with a knowledge that the report was false when it was made). Actual malice is difficult to prove, so most false reports will go unpunished.

That said, if the police have to expend a lot of time and resources investigating a report that later turns out to be false, there are criminal penalties that can be imposed on the false-reporter. This is most often the case in false reports of kidnappings or rapes or child-related crimes or reports of that nature.

For example, charges were filed against the parents of "balloon boy," after it was discovered (thanks to statements made by the boy) that the report of the runaway balloon with the boy inside was just a publicity stunt.

The reason why police reports (and reports to CPS) are covered by privilege is to allow for the unfettered reporting by citizens of crimes or suspected crimes without fear that the citizen-reporter will face a lawsuit should the report turn out to have no merit. The names of the reporters of crimes are generally kept confidential, unless there is a court order that demands disclosure.

Police reports are not considered true or false, by the way. It takes a police investigation to determine their truth or falsity. If false, the matter is generally dropped. If the report is found to have some merit, and the person reported is charged with a crime after a police investigation, there has been enough evidence found to support the charges.

 

[JQ Citizen]

Thanks Quincy, that was very helpful.

 

[CdwJava]

How serious is a false report to a police officer, are people often convicted?

In most states, I believe this tends to be a misdemeanor offense. And they are rarely prosecuted, much less convicted.

To be prosecuted it would have to be clear that the person making the false report clearly knew the information they provided was false. This is not always easy. Many times the issue is clouded in perceptions - or claims of perceptions - that were incorrect. Or, it can no more be proven that a claim was false than true.

If some one gives a false report to a police officer and the officer, has the accused charged with a crime and and arrests them, is the accuser free from liability?

Could the maker of the false report be responsible for the legal costs of defending the false charge?

As Quincy mentioned, it would likely have to be as a result of a knowing and intentional act by the reporting party. Being found not guilty or having the complainant's testimony impeached would not - by itself - give rise to such a claim. If it did, no one would report crimes for fear of being impeached at trial.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

False report to a police officer is a class B misdemeanor in Texas (PC 37.08) and actually it is charged and prosecuted quite frequently from what I've seen. It does not require that someone absolutely fabricate an allegation, all it requires is that someone makes a materially false statement to an officer during an investigation. For example, a female could truthfully report to an officer that she was assaulted by her husband but lie and state that she didn't hit him back during the assault. Technically, she has violated the statute.

When I was in the District Attorney's office we would frequently have complainants come to sign affidavits asking us to dismiss the charges, and often they would insist that they fabricated the allegations. If the offense was serious enough we would subpoena them to testify to the Grand Jury. 95% of the time the fear of perjury would force them to be truthful and we would continue prosecution. On the rare occasion when the allegations were truly fabricated, and they testified as such to the Grand Jury, we would then charge the complainant with false report to a police officer (of course only if we truly believed it was a false report.)

As for civil liability, the cause of action is called malicious prosecution and it is indeed very difficult to prove. The elements of this tort are:

(1) a criminal proceeding was commenced against the plaintiff; (2) the defendant initiated or procured the proceeding; (3) the proceeding was terminated in the plaintiff’s favor; (4) the plaintiff was innocent of the crime charged; (5) the defendant lacked probable cause to initiate the criminal proceeding; (6) the defendant acted with malice; and (7) the plaintiff suffered damages.