allegations forwarded his report to the Carson City Sheriffs Department. 

Without further investigation, the State filed an information alleging that 

Volosin had committed ten counts of sexual assault with a child under age 

- fourteen and two counts of lewdness with a child under age fourteen. 

The district court dismissed the information on the grounds 

that the charges did not allege the dates with enough specificity to give 

Volosin adequate notice and that a number of the counts alleged multiple 

offenses within a single count. The district court allowed the State to 

amend the information to cure the defects. After the State failed to file an 

amended information, the district court dismissed the information. 

DISCUSSION 

On appeal, the State argues that the district court abused its 

discretion by (1) dismissing the information for failing to allege 

timeframes as close to the exact dates as possible, (2) dismissing counts 

six through twelve for alleging multiple offenses in each count, and (3) 

dismissing the State's case after the State failed to timely file an amended 

information. 

This Court reviews a district court's dismissal of a charging 

document for abuse of discretion. Hill v. State, 124 Nev. 546, 550, 188 

P.3d 51, 54 (2008). However, "we review de novo Whether the charging 

document complied with constitutional requirements." West v. State, 119 

Nev. 410, 419, 75 P.3d 808, 814 (2003). 

The district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing the 

information for failing to allege timeframes as close to the exact dates as 

possible 

The State argues that the district court abused its discretion 

by dismissing the information on the basis that it violated Volosin's due 

process rights because the State could have alleged narrower timeframes 

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in Counts I to V and IX and failed to demonstrate that the timeframes in 

the remaining counts were as close to an exact date as possible. 

The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution 

provides that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the 

right . . . to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation." The 

Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State from depriving a person of 

"life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Accordingly, the 

United States Supreme Court has held: 

The object of the indictment is, first, to furnish the 

accused with such a description of the charge 

against him as will enable him to make his 

defen[s]e, and avail himself of his conviction or 

acquittal for protection against a further 

prosecution for the same cause; and, second, to 

inform the court of the facts alleged, so that it may 

decide whether they are sufficient in law to 

support a conviction, if one should be had . . . . A 

crime is made up of acts and intent; and these 

must be set forth in the indictment, with 

reasonable particularity of time, place, and 

circumstances. 

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 558 (1875) (emphasis added). 

Additionally, NRS 173.075 requires that an indictment or information 

contain "a plain, concise and definite written statement of the essential 

facts" of the charged offense. 

In Cunningham v. State, this court addressed a similar issue 

to the one in the present case. 100 Nev. 396, 683 P.2d 500 (1984). In 

Cunningham, the State filed a criminal information that alleged that the 

defendant sexually assaulted a fourteen-year-old girl "on or about the 

calendar year of 1981," and on two other occasions "on or about the 

calendar years of 1981 and 1982, but prior to November 15, 1982." 100 

Nev. at 400, 683 P.2d at 502 (internal quotation marks omitted). This 

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court rejected the defendant's argument that the information was deficient 

because it did not allege the exact date of the offense. Id. This court noted 

that the State may give an approximate date on which it believes a crime 

occurred when, as here, time is not an essential element of the offense. Id. 

This court noted that cases involving child victims "pose 

special problems for the state in attempting to allege the exact date of the 

commission of the crime," because the child victim often lacks the ability 

to recall with any precision exact dates of offenses. Id. This is especially 

problematic in sexual abuse cases because there are usually no witnesses 

other than the victim and the assailant. Id. In the case of sexual abuse by 

family members, such problems are compounded by the child victim's 

reluctance to tell anyone until long after the abuse occurred. Id. This 

court cited the Idaho Supreme Court in concluding that the State did not 

have an absolute obligation to allege the dates with any greater 

particularity: 

It would be a very weak rule of law that would 

permit a man to ravish a fifteen year old girl . . . 

and then say in effect: "You cannot convict me of 

this crime, as you did not guess the right date." 

Id. at 400-01, 683 P.2d at 502 (quoting State v. Rogers, 283 P. 44, 45 

(Idaho 1929)). 

Still, failure to allege any date whatsoever "would clearly 

deprive the defendant of adequate notice of the charge against him," thus 

"the state should, whenever possible, allege the exact date on which it 

believes a crime was committed, or as closely thereto as possible." Id. 

Therefore, Cunningham explores how the State's obligation to provide 

defendants with a sufficiently detailed charging document may come into 

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tension with pursuing sex abuse cases where certain important details 

simply are not available.' 

A number of jurisdictions have approached this tension in 

different ways. See State v. Baldonado, 955 P.2d 214, 219-20 (N.M. Ct. 

App. 1998) (surveying the approaches taken by various jurisdictions). 

Some have simply concluded that because time is not an element of the 

offense, the state is not required to address the timeframe in the 

indictment. See, e.g., Dilbeck v. State, 594 So. 2d 168, 174 (Ala. Crim App. 

1991). This approach ignores the constitutional notice dimension outlined 

in Cunningham, and thus such cases are inconsistent with this Court's 

jurisprudence. See Cunningham, 100 Nev. at 400, 683 P.3d at 502 (noting 

'The State relies on two other cases where this court has addressed 

the sufficiency of evidence supporting a conviction in light of a child 

victim's inability to recall the exact instances of abuse. Rose v. State, 123 

Nev. 194, 163 P.3d 408 (2007); LaPierre v. State, 108 Nev. 528, 836 P.2d 

56 (1992). These cases are inapposite, however, because they each involve 

the question of sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, which 

does not involve the constitutional issue of notice to the defendant. 

The State also cites an unpublished disposition in a case 

where this court upheld a jury conviction with a criminal information very 

similar to the one in this case. Caron v. State, No. 58792, 2012 WL 

5992095 (Order of Affirmance, Nov. 29, 2012). This is problematic for two 

reasons: First, SCR 123(1) provides that an unpublished order shall not 

be cited as legal authority except when the order is relevant under the 

doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. The State 

recites this rule before proceeding to discuss Caron, but fails to explain 

how any of those exceptions apply. Second, even as persuasive authority, 

the case is inapposite, as the sufficiency of the criminal information was 

not addressed in the unpublished order. Accordingly, we disregard the 

State's citations to Caron. 

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that the State should allege the timeframe with specificity to the extent 

possible). 

Other jurisdictions note that time is not an element of the 

offense and allow the State to avoid any notice-related issues through full 

discovery. See, e.g., State v. Wilcox, 808 P.2d 1028, 1033 (Utah 1991). In 

Wilcox, the Utah Supreme Court held that the lack of a specific timeframe 

"goes not to the constitutional adequacy of the notice, but to the credibility 

of the State's case." Id. Again, this approach does not appear to 

sufficiently address the problem of adequate notice. Additionally, such an 

approach may discourage effective investigation. The present case serves 

as such an example. The entire investigation was performed by a 

California detective investigating crimes that occurred in his jurisdiction. 

Any crimes that occurred in Carson City were not the focus of the 

California investigation. The report arising from the California 

investigation was forwarded to the Carson City Sheriffs Department, but 

the Carson City District Attorney appears to have filed the information 

without performing any independent investigation. 

The most persuasive approach is to review whether an 

indictment is reasonably particular with respect to the time of the offense 

on a case-by-case basis. See, e.g., Baldonado, 955 P.2d at 220; Erickson U. 

People, 951 P.2d 919, 925 (Colo. 1998); State v. Mulkey, 560 A.2d 24, 30 

(Md. 1989); State v. Martinez, 541 N.W.2d 406, 414 (Neb. Ct. App. 1995), 

aff'd, 550 N.W.2d 655, 658-59 (Neb. 1996); In re K.A.W., 515 A.2d 1217, 

1222-23 (N.J. 1986); People v. Morris, 461 N.E.2d 1256, 1260-61 (N.Y. 

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1984); State v. Fawcett, 426 N.W.2d 91, 94-95 (Wis. Ct. App. 1988). 2Such 

an approach is consistent with our decision in Cunningham, where we 

held that although sex abuse cases present special challenges, "the state 

should, whenever possible, allege the exact date on which it believes a 

crime was committed, or as closely thereto as possible." Cunningham, 100 

Nev. at 400, 683 P.2d at 502. Based on an individualized inquiry as to the 

reasonableness of the timeframes alleged in the State's information, we 

conclude that the State failed to allege the dates of abuse with sufficient 

specificity. 

Of particular note in this case is the glaring absence of an 

investigation into the abuse allegations by the State. In Fawcett, the 

Wisconsin Court of Appeals noted that when considering the 

reasonableness of timeframes alleged, it is useful to ask whether "the 

2In particular, Fawcett lays out seven nonexhaustive factors to determine 

on a case-by-case basis whether the information or indictment is too vague 

to satisfy the Sixth Amendment's notice requirement: 

(1) the age and intelligence of the victim and other 

witnesses; (2) the surrounding circumstances; (3) 

the nature of the offense, including whether it is 

likely to occur at a specific time or is likely to have 

been discovered immediately; (4) the length of the 

alleged period of time in relation to the number of 

individual criminal acts alleged; (5) the passage of 

time between the alleged period for the crime and 

the defendant's arrest; (6) the duration between 

the date of the indictment and the alleged offense; 

and (7) the ability of the victim or complaining 

witness to particularize the date and time of the 

alleged transaction or offense. 

426 N.W.2d at 95. 

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prosecutor is able but has failed to obtain more specific information due to 

a lack of diligent investigatory efforts." 426 N.W.2d at 94-95 n.2 (citing 

Morris, 461 N.E.2d at 1260). 3In the present case, the district court held a 

hearing to determine whether the State could have indicated the 

timeframe with more particularity. In that hearing, the State argued that 

it was not required to do so, and brought no evidence of any investigation 

beyond the report it received from the California investigation. The 

hearing demonstrated that the State made no additional effort to 

investigate the crimes. Indeed the State appears to have failed to even 

interview the victims who were, at that point, eighteen and fifteen years 

old, and presumably more capable of conveying useful information than 

younger victims would be. 4 

3In rejecting the Fawcett defendant's writ of habeas corpus, the 

Seventh Circuit adopted a more objective approach, instead asking 

whether the charge "contains the elements of the crime, permits the 

accused to plead and prepare a defense, and allows the disposition to be 

used as a bar in a subsequent prosecution." Fawcett v. Bablitch, 962 F.2d 

617, 618 (7th Cir. 1992) (citing Ham,ling v. U.S., 418 U.S. 87, 117 (1974)). 

Because this case was a post-conviction habeas review, it appears to set a 

lower bar than most state courts that have addressed this issue. See id. at 

619 ("Federal courts engaged in collateral review of state judgments do not 

superintend the 'reasonableness' of prosecutors" conduct or state judges' 

decisions."). 

4The State argues that further interviews of the child victims would 

have compromised the victims' competency to testify, citing Felix v. State, 

109 Nev. 151, 173, 849 P.2d 220, 235 (1993), superseded on other grounds 

by statute as stated in Evans v. State, 117 Nev. 609, 625, 28 P.3d 498, 509- 

10 (2001)). Felix involved the testimony of two children testifying about 

allegations of abuse that occurred a number of years earlier. Felix, 109 

Nev. at 156-57, 849 P.2d at 224-25. We held that district courts must 

evaluate a child's competency to testify on a case-by-case basis, and listed 

a number of factors to consider. Id. at 173, 849 P.2d at 235. According to 

continued on next page... 

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We conclude that the district court correctly held that the 

State's charging document must allege sufficiently precise timeframes to 

provide adequate notice to defendants. Further, giving deference to the 

district court's factual findings, we conclude that the district court did not 

abuse its discretion by dismissing the present information for failing to 

allege the timeframes as specifically as possible. Cunningham, 100 Nev. 

at 400, 683 P.2d at 502; Fawcett, 426 N.W.2d at 94-95 n.2. 

The district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing the remaining 

counts 

The State argues that the district court abused its discretion 

by dismissing Counts VI to XII, which according to the district court 

violate the requirement that different offenses be charged in different 

counts." 

Although there is a great deal of case law from other 

jurisdictions dealing with the issue of duplicity in the context of long-term 

sexual abuse, the only authorities mentioned in the briefs are NRS 

173.115, which allows the State to charge multiple counts in the same 

indictment or information, and the State's unhelpful reliance on a single, 

...continued 

the State, it did not conduct further interviews of T.C. and S.C. in order to 

avoid tainting their testimony through apparent coaching. T.C. reported 

abuse that had been ongoing from age six until just eight days prior to 

contacting South Lake Tahoe Police Department when she was fifteen 

years old. S.C. made her statement to the California authorities when she 

was eighteen years old. Accordingly, the issues of child testimony raised 

by Felix are inapplicable here. Furthermore, reliance on Felix does not 

explain why the State was unable to make other efforts to narrow the date 

range besides further interviews of the victims. 

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inapposite case. 5Accordingly, we affirm the district court's decision on the 

sole basis that the State's argument is not adequately argued or 

supported. See Maresca v. State, 103 Nev. 669, 673, 748 P.2d 3, 6 (1987) 

(noting that this court need not consider allegations of error not cogently 

argued or supported by any pertinent legal authority). 

The district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing the State's case 

after the State failed to timely file an amended information 

The State argues that the district court improperly restricted 

the State's prosecutorial discretion by giving the State the opportunity to 

amend the information. The State mischaracterizes the district court as 

having ordered it to file a proposed amended information for the court's 

approval. The district court clearly stated that if the State wanted to 

avoid dismissal, the State had the option to file an amended information. 

The district court's order did not mention anything about submitting a 

proposed amended information. Rather, the district court dismissed the 

original information and stated that justice required that the State be 

allowed to amend the defective information or face dismissal. We 

conclude, therefore, that this argument lacks merit. 

Accordingly, we 

5The State cites Wilson v. State, 121 Nev. 345, 114 P.3d 285 (2005). 

to support its argument that each and every act does not necessarily need 

to be charged as a separate count. The State's reliance on Wilson is 

unhelpful, however, as Wilson found that a single act of using a minor in 

the production of pornography could only be charged once when four 

photographs were taken in the course of that single act. Id. at 358, 114 

P.3d at 294. Conversely, this case involves repeated sexual assaults, each 

of which does form a separate offense. 

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ORDER the judgment of the district court AFFIRMED. 

Pickering 

Parraguirre 

J. 

Saitta 

cc: Hon. James E. Wilson, District Judge 

Attorney General/Carson City 

Carson City District Attorney 

State Public Defender/Carson City 

Carson City Clerk 

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