Opinion ID: 501760
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Charging in the Disjunctive

Text: 54 The section 843(b) counts violate in the extreme the constitutional prohibition against charging a defendant disjunctively. For these counts charge Zavala in the disjunctive with over two thousand different acts through which the offense therein described may be committed. The indictment thus deprived Zavala of the fundamental rights that the fifth amendment guarantees him. 55 If an offense can be committed in more than one way, an indictment is insufficient if it charges in the disjunctive. As noted in a leading treatise, if the indictment or information alleges the several acts in the disjunctive it fails to inform the defendant which of the acts he is charged with having committed, and it is insufficient. 1C. Wright, supra, Sec. 125 at 373-74 (footnote omitted). In other words, a court must invalidate an indictment containing a count that states that the defendant committed the offense in one manner or that he committed it in a different manner. 56 Even when the underlying statute lists disjunctively the different means through which an offense may be committed, the indictment must list them conjunctively. 4 Once it is determined that the statute defines but a single offense, we stated in United States v. UCO Oil Co., it becomes proper to charge the different means, denounced disjunctively in the statute, conjunctively in each count of the indictment. 546 F.2d 833, 838 (9th Cir.1976) (citing United States v. Alsop, 479 F.2d 65, 66 (9th Cir.1973)), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 966, 97 S.Ct. 1646, 52 L.Ed.2d 357 (1977). As explained in Wharton's Criminal Procedure, it is fatal for an indictment or information to charge disjunctively in the words of the statute, if the disjunctive renders it uncertain as to which alternative is intended. 2 Wharton's Criminal Procedure Sec. 291 (12th ed. 1975) (footnote omitted). Wharton's reports that even the use of and/or is inadequate. Id. (footnote omitted). 57 It appears to me that the indictment in this case impermissibly charges in the disjunctive. A violation of section 843(b) can be accomplished in many different ways. The indictment does no more than refer to sections 841(a)(1) and 846. Thus, one must read it as incorporating the words of sections 841(a)(1) and 846 by reference. Sections 841(a)(1) and 846, however, are written in the disjunctive: The defendant conspired to commit, or attempted to commit; the defendant manufactured, or distributed, or dispensed, etc. The section 843(b) counts, hence, charge Zavala disjunctively with over two thousand acts. The counts thus represent a flagrant violation of the constitutional prohibition against charging in the disjunctive. 58