Opinion ID: 768669
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sixth Amendment: Clarity of the Indictment

Text: 82 A defendant unquestionably enjoys the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. U.S. Const. amend. VI. All that is necessary to satisfy this constitutional mandate is that the indictment inform[] the defendant of the offense charged with sufficient clarity so that he will not be misled while preparing his defense. United States v. Brozyna, 571 F.2d 742, 746 (2d Cir. 1978) (internal quotation marks omitted); see United States v. Alfonso, 143 F.3d 772, 776 (2d Cir. 1998) (same). The Sixth Amendment's notice protection is implemented by the requirement of Rule 7(c)(1) that an indictment contain a plain, concise and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged. Fed. R. Crim. Pro. 7(c); see United States v. Walsh, 194 F.3d 37, 44 (2d Cir. 1999). 83 Here, the indictment satisfies these requirements. To be sure, the indictment does not use the label beneficial shareholder to describe Boyle, nor, for that matter, use the term nominee to describe Pirro. Nevertheless, the indictment: (1) describes in detail the evolution of Pirro's and Boyle's scheme, including the specific facts that led to Boyle's acquisition of a 45% ownership interest in DPC; and (2) notifies Pirro that this conduct allegedly violated § 7206(1). 84 Under any man-in-the-street reading, the language 45% ownership interest is sufficiently specific to apprise Pirro that he is being charged with a violation of § 7206(1) based on the concealment of Boyle's 45% ownership of DPC. Indeed, the defendant implicitly concedes that he had sufficient notice of the crime charged to allow him to prepare a defense. His brief on this appeal advances no real complaint that he was deprived of constitutional notice. And his successful Rule 12 motion in the district court did not argue for dismissal based on failure of notice, but rather on the weightier objection that there is no legal duty to fill out a Schedule K-1 for a person who enjoys only quasi-shareholder status. Finally, the district court did not even base its dismissal on failure of notice. Instead, as Judge Gibson concedes, the district court dismissed the Boyle Allegations because it concluded that a legal obligation to include an individual with an ownership interest on an S Corporation's tax return is debatable. Ante at 88. 85 In these circumstances, Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749 (1962), is totally unhelpful to Pirro. The Russell court did indeed hold that an indictment which failed to sufficiently apprise the defendant [of the crime charged] was inadequate. See 369 U.S. at 764. But the Court did so in unique circumstances which have been distinguished numerous times by this and other courts, see, e.g., Walsh, 194 F.3d at 45; United States v. McClean, 528 F.2d 1250, 1257 (2d Cir. 1976); United States v. Paulino, 935 F.2d 739, 750 n.4 (6th Cir. 1991) (collecting cases), and which bear little relationship to the issues confronting us today. 86 In Russell, the Court condemned indictments that alleged refusal to answer questions posed by the House Committee on Un American Activities. This refusal, the indictment charged, violated 2 U.S.C. § 192 which made it a misdemeanor to refuse[] to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry. The Court held that the defendants could not be guilty under § 192 unless the questions [they] refused to answer were in fact pertinent to a specific topic under [congressional] inquiry. 369 U.S. at 768. Crucially, however, the indictment failed to specify even the subject matter under congressional inquiry. Thus, the Russell defendants faced trial with the chief issue undefined. Id. at 766. 87 Here, there are no such problems. We all know what the issues are. As has already been made apparent, the Pirro indictment includes such a statement of facts and circumstances as to descend to particulars. Id. at 765. Unlike the cryptic indictments in Russell, the indictment here charges that Pirro failed to report [on the 1992 return] the hospital Chairman's ownership interest in DPC, and misstated thereon his own ownership interest in DPC, and failed to reflect thereon all of the payments DPC had made, through PMM, to the hospital Chairman's wholly owned company. In my view, this Circuit's case law simply does not require the government to descend into any greater particularity. 2 88 In sum, by relying on the notice requirements of the Sixth Amendment, Judge Gibson rests on a theory that: (a) has never been argued by the defendant; (b) was not relied on by the district court; and (c) demands a level of specificity beyond what the Constitution requires. 89