Dad is stopped and gives son's name and date of birth.

Signs ticket with son's name.

Trooper finds out Dad did this because he wanted to stay out of prison.

Trooper filed forgery of Government Document (signed ticket). And Fraudulent use and possession of ID info.

Any comments?

If Dad's behavior is any indication of his parenting skills, the son may be better off with Dad in prison.

We have one like that, didn't use kin, but a friend's name, and the defendant actually paid off the ticket on time. Found out b/c the friend whose name she used got notice her DL was going to be suspended for the no DL conviction and contacted DPS (and then the court where the D paid her ticket). Our D is charged with Fail to ID/Fugitive.

We have another FID case where the guy told the officer his name (it was his cousin's name) then inadvertently signed the ticket with his real name. Our alert officer noticed and hooked him up after confronting D about it.

Well, on the one hand, I have to deal with misidentification expunctions (I in fact have six or seven of them to deal with this very afternoon), and they really are a pain, so I personally am all in favor of nailing daddy with anything and everything conceivable.

But on the other hand, unfortunately I don't think that's likely to stick, seeing as the forgery statute section that makes it a 3rd deg. if it's a government record, PC 32.21(e)(2), refers you to PC 37.01(2)(C) to find out what a government record is for these purposes: "a license, certificate, permit, seal, title, letter of patent, or similar document issued by government, by another state, or by the United States."

So, a traffic citation wouldn't really seem to fall into that category. If you're trying mostly to just get it filed as something better than a Fail to ID, Tampering With Governmental Record could theoretically work. (PC 37.10(a)(1), with intent to defraud or harm another makes it a SJF under 37.10(c)(1)), since it uses a fuller definition of "government record". But, it seems like the whole in pari materia thing might mess that up too, and you'd end up with just a Fail to ID at the end of it all.

And yeah, it is a little scary that I know all that pretty much off the top of my head, but I've spent a lot of time trying to come up with a just punishment on this--these people really do manage to do a great job of messing up their victim's lives and creating huge headaches for law enforcement. This is the first father-son one I've heard of. You'd think that would probably be pretty hard to pull off as to the date of birth--brothers, cousins, etc. usually work much better.

Elizabeth

I have had two very similar cases. One with a cousin and another with a dead beat mother.
I have filed both cases as Fraudulent Use or Possession of Identifying Information. I hope you are on the right track because I'm right behind you.

Nothing better than a def. who has a couple of munic.warrants for traffic tickets and know this so gives cousin's name and dob only to find out, much to his dismay, that cousin has been indicted for a couple of felonies. Ooops.

I forgot to say it, but dear old dad did go back to prison.

I have a story similar to JMH's. Genius gets pulled over for minor traffic violation and his Tx DL is suspended so he claims he lost it and gives cop his real birth date and a name he makes up out of thin air adding that he's from Ohio thinking cop can't run Ohio DLs. Remarkably, NCIC shows same name and dob and he's from Ohio. Next thing Genius sees is a somewhat nervous 9mm pointing at his face. Seems Mr. Ohio has two warants for murder and the words: "Consider armed and extremley dangerous" .

I read a news story yesterday about the large number of parents who are committing identity theft with their kid's information! Whatever happened to parental love?

Janette Ansolabehere

Semi related to this topic.

Brother #1 using brothern #2's information. Of course, brother #2 gets jacked up. Repeatedly. Now we have brother #1, what can be done to keep brother #2 from being jacked in the future for what brother #1 did? (Gosh, don't you know their family reunions are tense.) I seem to recall a point of contact for TCIC questions and issues, but that training was in a former jurisdiction and I don't have it anymore.

this is true story from past

identical 50-something year-old twins riding in car together. Both intoxicated. One has 5 prior DWI arrests and the other has 6. Dressed in similar clothing. When removed from car they keep moving around and arguing about "who was driving" and "what name belongs to which twin" in attempt to confuse officer as to who is who.

[This message was edited by raythomas on 08-07-06 at .]

And I'm sure the police got fibers from the driver's seat and fingerprints off the steering wheel to ID the proper twin (DNA might not have helped much).

Don't leave us hanging...what happened????

the driver got hooked up for felony DWI, the passenger for PI. Dressed similar but different enough that it was not too difficult to keep straight who was who, although very difficult not to laugh. This was long enough ago that I either never knew or have forgotten the final oucome as far as plea, trial, etc.