Opinion ID: 1435910
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The meaning of the indictment.

Text: In ascertaining the meaning of the indictment, we must look to its language and to the circumstances, known to all parties, that led to Roberts' prosecution. By the time the indictment was returned, a preliminary hearing had been held, and it was no secret to the prosecutors or to the defense that K.L.W. had accused Roberts of raping and molesting her on a number of occasions, some prior to her sixteenth birthday on March 18, 1991, and some thereafter. [9] Count One of the indictment (carnal knowledge) states that Roberts carnally knew K.L.W. [b]etween on or about March 18, 1990, and on or about March 17, 1991. Count Three of the indictment states that Roberts raped K.L.W. [b]etween on or about March 18, 1991 and on or about October 31, 1992. Although the indictment in this case does not use a phrase such as on divers dates or repeatedly, [10] its language, structure, and context belie the notion that the grand jury was seeking to accuse Roberts of only a single act of carnal knowledge during the one-year period covered by Count One and of only a single act of rape during the even longer period embraced by Count Three. To be sure, the word repeatedly was not expressly used in either count, but it was surely implied by the lengthy periods to which each count refers, especially where the end of the period described in Count One and the beginning of the period reflected in Count Three are both defined by K.L.W.'s sixteenth birthday, rather than by any alleged act of rape or molestation. The most reasonable interpretation of the indictment, in our view, is that each count accuses Roberts of engaging in a continuing series of individual criminal acts between the dates set forth in that count. If that were not what the drafter intended, then the long periods covered by each count would make very little sense. [11] Although Roberts now invokes the government's bill of particulars to contest this common sense construction, his argument is undermined by the position he took, persuasively and unequivocally, in the trial court. In her initial motion to dismiss the indictment as duplicitous, filed on November 15, 1994, Roberts' trial attorney argued as follows: Logic dictates that each of these counts is not intended to allege that there was a single act of intercourse lasting an entire year. Further, if the government were pursuing only one distinct incident, the date in the indictment would be tailored specifically to that incident, rather than solely to the birthdate of the complainant. Counsel's reasoning is as compelling today as it was when the above-quoted passage was written, and the meaning of the indictment has not changed since then. [12] We recognize that, after the fact, the government treated the indictment as though each count involved only a single incident of carnal knowledge or rape. Read literally, the bill of particulars supports that interpretation. Moreover, the government requested the trial court to allow it to introduce evidence of sexual assaults not specified in the bill of particulars as other crimes evidence, see Drew v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 11, 331 F.2d 85 (1964), thus arguably implying that such offenses were not within the scope of the indictment. [13] Each party has thus taken a position in this court which is less than faithful to the position which that party took in the trial court. Nevertheless, giving the indictment its most reasonable construction, we conclude that the grand jury charged a series of individual acts, i.e., a course of conduct, in each count, and that the government was entitled, at trial, to present evidence of offenses which fell within that course of conduct. [14]