Johnathan Keith Towns v. State ( 2020 )

FIRST DIVISION
GOBEIL,
COOMER and PIPKIN, JJ.
NOTICE: Motions for reconsideration must be
physically received in our clerk’s office within ten
days of the date of decision to be deemed timely filed.
http://www.gaappeals.us/rules
October 19, 2020
In the Court of Appeals of Georgia
A20A1206. TOWNS v. THE STATE.
COOMER, Judge.
Johnathan Keith Towns appeals from his conviction for the felony offense of
making a false statement. Towns contends that the trial court erred in denying his plea
in bar because the State waited over two years to indict him for conduct that is a
misdemeanor. For the following reasons, we reverse.
The facts, as stipulated to by the parties at Towns’ bench trial, establish that on
August 21, 2016, Towns called the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office and reported
that his car had been stolen. A deputy investigated and discovered Towns’ story to
be false. On August 26, 2016, the deputy invited Towns to the station to make a
witness statement for his false assertion of his car’s theft. Towns agreed to do so,
arrived at the station, and wrote a witness statement in support of the false report. The
deputy then confronted Towns with his knowledge of the crime’s falsity and arrested
Towns for making false statements and making a false report of a crime.
On April 9, 2019, the State indicted Towns for making false statements and
making a false report of a crime. Towns filed a general demurrer and a plea in bar on
June 10, 2019, which the trial court heard on July 9, 2019. On July 22, 2019, the trial
court granted the general demurrer and plea in bar with respect to making a false
report and denied them with respect to making false statements.
On October 23, 2019, the State re-indicted Towns for one count of making a
false statement. Towns filed another general demurrer and plea in bar on November
25, 2019, based on the rule of lenity and the statute of limitations. On December 17,
2019, after a hearing, the trial court denied Towns’ general demurrer and plea in bar.
After a stipulated bench trial, the trial court convicted Towns of making a false
statement. The State conceded that the rule of lenity applied for purposes of
sentencing and recommended a misdemeanor sentence, which the trial court adopted.
This appeal followed.
Towns contends that trial court erred in denying his plea in bar. We agree.
Towns argues that the rule of lenity makes his conduct a misdemeanor. “As in
all appeals involving the construction of statutes, our review is conducted under a de
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novo standard.” Mitchell v. State, 343 Ga. App. 116, 117 (806 SE2d 226) (2017)
(citation and punctuation omitted).
“The rule of lenity applies when a statute, or statutes, establishes, or establish,
different punishments for the same offense, and provides that the ambiguity is
resolved in favor of the defendant, who will then receive the lesser punishment.”
Banta v. State, 281 Ga. 615, 617 (2) (642 SE2d 51) (2007). “The fundamental inquiry
when making this assessment, then, is whether the identical conduct would support
a conviction under either of two crimes with differing penalties, i.e., whether the
statutes define the same offense such that an ambiguity is created by different
punishments being set forth for the same crime.” Gordon v. State, 334 Ga. App. 633,
635 (780 SE2d 376) (2015) (citations and punctuation omitted; emphasis in original).
“[T]he essential requirement of the rule of lenity is that both crimes could be proved
with the same evidence.” Id. at 637 (citations and punctuation omitted). As the
Supreme Court of Georgia recently explained, when
one offense has been criminalized by two different statutory provisions,
one of which provides a lesser punishment than the other . . . , the
statutory provision imposing the greater punishment is effectively
abrogated by the provision imposing the lesser punishment, and the
defendant cannot be properly prosecuted or convicted under the more
stringent provision.
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State v. Hanna, 305 Ga. 100, 104 (2) (823 SE2d 785) (2019) (emphasis supplied).
“[T]he effect of completely overlapping and therefore ambiguous criminal statutes is
that the defendant can be subject only to the statute with the lesser penalty[.] Id. at
105 (2) n. 4 (emphasis in original).
Towns was charged with the felony offense of making a false statement, which
is committed when a person
knowingly and willfully falsifies . . . a material fact; makes a false,
fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or makes or uses
any false writing or document, knowing the same to contain any false,
fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry, in any matter within the
jurisdiction of any department or agency of state government or of the
government of any county, city, or other political subdivision of this
state[.]
OCGA § 16-10-20. Towns argues that the rule of lenity makes his conduct a
misdemeanor, the offense of making a false report of a crime, which is committed
when a person “willfully and knowingly gives or causes a false report of a crime to
be given to any law enforcement officer or agency of this state[.]” OCGA § 16-10-26.
The indictment charged Towns with committing the felony offense of making
a false statement by
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knowingly and willfully [making] a false statement to [the deputy] in
regards to a matter within the jurisdiction of the Paulding County
Sheriff’s Office, a department of the Paulding County government, to
wit: the accused did write a witness statement reporting to law
enforcement that said accused’s vehicle had been stolen, in violation of
O.C.G.A. § 16-10-20[.]
Upon review of the two statutes at issue, although there are many ways
that the crime of making a false statement may be committed, [Towns’]
conduct, as charged, subjected him to prosecution and sentencing under
both OCGA §§ 16-10-20 and 16-10-26. Indeed, [Towns] wilfully and
knowingly made a false statement to [a law enforcement officer] by
falsely reporting to [that] officer[] a crime that he alleged to have
occurred in [his] jurisdiction. Thus, because these two statutes provide
different grades of punishment for the same criminal conduct, [Towns]
is entitled to the rule of lenity.
Gordon, 334 Ga. App. 633, 640-641 (780 SE2d 376) (2015) (footnotes omitted).
Consequently, Towns could not properly be prosecuted for or convicted of making
a false statement under OCGA § 16-10-20. See Hanna, 305 Ga. at 104 (2).1
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If the State had indicted Towns within the two-year statute of limitations for
misdemeanors, it could have prosecuted Towns for making a false report of a crime
under OCGA § 16-10-26.
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Accordingly, we reverse Towns’ felony conviction.
Judgment reversed. Gobeil and Pipkin, JJ., concur.
A20A1206. TOWNS v. THE STATE.
GOBEIL, Judge, concurring fully and specially.
Because I agree that the trial court erred in denying Towns’s plea in bar, I
concur in the Majority’s opinion. I write separately, however, to elaborate upon my
rationale for doing so.
In short, there is no dispute that Towns’s conduct in this case would be a crime
under both OCGA § 16-10-20 (making a false statement, a felony), and OCGA § 16-
10-26 (making a false report of a crime, a misdemeanor). There also is no dispute that
the statute of limitations (two years under OCGA § 17-3-1 (e) for misdemeanors) had
expired at the time the State indicted Towns in April 2019. The State then decided to
re-indict Towns for one count of making a false statement under OCGA § 16-10-20
(a felony) and the trial court convicted him of this charge. The trial court sentenced
him, however, as if he were convicted of a misdemeanor offense.
As set forth in State v. Hanna, 305 Ga. 100 (823 SE2d 785) (2019), the rule of
lenity has been applied when the court concludes that one offense has been
criminalized by two different statutory provisions, one of which provides a lesser
punishment than the other. Id. at 104 (2). In that situation, the statutory provision
imposing the greater punishment is “effectively abrogated by the provision imposing
the lesser punishment, and the defendant cannot be properly prosecuted or convicted
under the more stringent provision.” Id. As relevant here, our Supreme Court
explained that
[a]lthough the rule of lenity may require a court to reverse a conviction
based upon the violation of a statutory provision that has been
effectively abrogated by a duplicative provision imposing a lesser
penalty, the rule does not allow the court to impose a sentence for an
offense different than the one unambiguously provided for in the statute
to which the defendant pled or was found guilty.
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Hanna, 305 Ga. at 105 (2) (emphasis in original). See also Brown v. State, 276 Ga.
606, 608 (581 SE2d 35) (2003) (“Because the same conduct constituted both a felony
and a misdemeanor, the rule of lenity requires that Brown be subjected to the
penalties for the misdemeanor, rather than the felony. Accordingly, we reverse
Brown’s felony conviction.”). In the instant case, the State failed to timely indict
Towns for the misdemeanor offense of making a false report of a crime under OCGA
§ 16-10-26. As a result, because Towns was not indicted for nor convicted of the
misdemeanor offense, the trial court could not substitute a misdemeanor sentence for
his felony conviction. See Hanna, 305 Ga. at 105 (2). Importantly, because the statute
of limitations had run, the State no longer could indict and prosecute Towns for the
misdemeanor offense of making a false report.
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