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Ark. Code Ann. § 5-38-203

Criminal mischief in the first degree

Applied in 19 court decisions — leading case Jester v. State (2006)

Most recently applied in 2024 Ark. App. 473 - Tandi Speer v. State of Arkansas (October 2024)

Acts 1975, No. 280, § 1906; 1977, No. 360, § 7; 1981, No. 544, § 2; 1981, No. 671, § 1; A.S.A. 1947, § 41-1906; Acts 1988 (3rd Ex

How often courts cite this section

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citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) A person commits the offense of criminal mischief in the first degree if he or she purposely and without legal justification destroys or causes damage to any: Property of another; or

(2) Property, whether his or her own or property of another, for the purpose of collecting any insurance for the property.

(3) Criminal mischief in the first degree is a: Class A misdemeanor if the amount of actual damage is one thousand dollars ($1,000) or less;

(4) Class D felony if the amount of actual damage is more than one thousand dollars ($1,000) but five thousand dollars ($5,000) or less;

(5) Class C felony if the amount of actual damage is more than five thousand dollars ($5,000) but less than twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000); or

(6) Class B felony if the amount of actual damage is twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) or more.

(7) In an action under this section involving cutting and removing timber from the property of another person: The following create a presumption of a purpose to commit the offense of criminal mischief in the first degree: The failure to obtain the survey as required by § 15-32-101; or

(8) The purposeful misrepresentation of the ownership or origin of the timber; and

(9) There is imposed in addition to a penalty in subsection (b) of this section a fine of not more than two (2) times the value of the timber destroyed or damaged.

(10) However, in addition to subdivision (c)(2)(A) of this section, the court may require the defendant to make restitution to the owner of the timber.

(11) A person convicted of a felony offense under this section is subject to an enhanced sentence of an additional term of imprisonment of five (5) years at the discretion of the court if the finder of fact finds that the damage to property involved the removal of nonferrous metal, as it is defined in § 17-44-101.

Current official text: Arkansas General Assembly. Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Arkansas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.