Opinion ID: 1652270
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Criminal Syndication Count of the Indictment Did Sufficiently State an Offense.

Text: Parker contends the criminal syndication count of the indictment fails to state an offense. We disagree. The criminal syndication charge is contained in count one of the indictment. Count one reads in its entirety as follows: That between the 1st day of January, 1996, and the 17th day of July, 2002, in Jefferson County, Kentucky, the above named defendants, Kenneth Parker, DeShawn Parker, Wilbert Bethel, Marcus Stallard, Clifford Warfield and Dominique Coffey, and others known and unknown, committed the offense of Criminal Syndication by doing one or more of the following: (a) organizing or participating in organizing a criminal syndicate; (b) providing material aid to a criminal syndicate; (c) managing, supervising or directing any of the activities of a criminal syndicate; (d) conspiring or attempting to commit, or acting as an accomplice in the commission of a criminal syndicate; (e) conspiring or attempting to commit or act as an accomplice in the commission of[] any offense of violence. According to Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 506.120(1), there are seven actions a person may take to commit criminal syndication. Specifically, KRS 506.120(1) provides that: (1) A person, with the purpose to establish or maintain a criminal syndicate or to facilitate any of its activities, shall not do any of the following: (a) Organize or participate in organizing a criminal syndicate or any of its activities; (b) Provide material aid to a criminal syndicate or any of its activities, whether such aid is in the form of money or other property, or credit; (c) Manage, supervise, or direct any of the activities of a criminal syndicate, at any level of responsibility; (d) Knowingly furnish legal, accounting, or other managerial services to a criminal syndicate; (e) Commit, or conspire or attempt to commit, or act as an accomplice in the commission of, any offense of a type in which a criminal syndicate engages on a continuing basis; (f) Commit, or conspire or attempt to commit or act as an accomplice in the commission of, any offense of violence; or (g) Commit, or conspire or attempt to commit, or act as an accomplice in the commission of bribery in violation of KRS Chapters 518 or 521, or KRS 119.205, 121.025, 121.055, 524.070, 156.465, 45A.340, 63.090, 6.080, 18A.145, or 244.600. Similarly, a criminal syndicate is defined in KRS 506.120(3) as: (3) As used in this section criminal syndicate means five (5) or more persons collaborating to promote or engage in any of the following on a continuing basis: (a) Extortion or coercion in violation of KRS 514.080 or 521.020; (b) Engaging in, promoting, or permitting prostitution or human trafficking in violation of KRS Chapter 529; (c) Any theft offense as defined in KRS Chapter 514; (d) Any gambling offense as defined in KRS 411.090, KRS Chapter 528, or Section 226 of the Constitution; (e) Illegal trafficking in controlled substances as prohibited by KRS Chapter 218A, in intoxicating or spirituous liquor as defined in KRS Chapters 242 or 244, or in destructive devices or booby traps as defined in KRS Chapter 237; or (f) Lending at usurious interest, and enforcing repayment by illegal means in violation of KRS Chapter 360. Parker acknowledges that our precedent holds that all that is necessary for an indictment properly to charge an offense is to name the offense. [2] And the indictment at issue sufficiently names the offense of criminal syndication. But Parker contends that we should adopt a specificity requirement for criminal syndication charges. Toward that end, Parker contends that a criminal syndication indictment must allege at least one of the seven methods of committing the crime set forth in KRS 506.120(1) and one of the six forbidden activities set forth in KRS 506.120(3). We disagree. Parker has not cited any specific authority that would move us to except criminal syndication from our general pronouncement that an indictment sufficiently charges an offense simply by naming the offense. Holding in Parker's favor on this issue would be a de facto return to the old Code of Criminal Practice, which our predecessor Court stated requir[ed] an indictment to contain every essential element of the crime charged. [3] In sum, we reiterate our commitment to the principle that an indictment properly states an offense merely by naming the offense charged. In other words, a criminal syndication indictment is not infirm and subject to dismissal solely because it lacks a detailed recitation of the underlying facts. The protocol for a defendant who desires more information is to serve a motion for a bill of particulars. [4] The indictment in the case at hand closely tracked KRS 506.120(1). Nothing else was required.