[Cboldt]

LOL. That's a fun case too. Anyway, the defendant in that one falsified his ID upon being stopped for traffic violations. He assumed the name and other details of his brother, and signed papers with his brother's name. The purpose of that was to avoid personal liability. There are those pesky present legal rights, even though the only person affected was the perp, still criminal.

In the CBS/Killian case, even if the forged Killian memos were authentic, no present legal rights are affected.

[Turin_Turambar]

You're not reading that case. The defendant is the traffic court judge, who messed with the record TO AID IN THE ELECTION of the person convicted of the traffic offense by concealing the presence of his criminal record. There is no question of personal liability or even of harm. Your position is specifically rejected:

FN8. Asserting what he calls "an additional, independent ground" in support of his position, Campbell argues that "the alteration to the docket sheet could not, as a matter of law, harm or prejudice the rights of another, for it lacked any legal capacity to do so." (Emphasis in original). "[T]he docket sheet," he says, "does not touch or impact tangible property rights [and] cannot be relied upon by others to their detriment...." (Emphasis in original). But Code § 18.2-168 is designed, not to protect property rights, but to protect the integrity of public records. The General Assembly, the author of public policy, has decided "as a matter of law" that forgery of any public record, for whatever reason, is a criminal offense. It is, therefore, immaterial whether a particular public record can be shown to have a special capacity to cause unique harm or prejudice to the rights of another.