Opinion ID: 2162363
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Deadly Weapon Count Expanded Superior Court Amends Indictment

Text: After the State had completed its case-in-chief, the Superior Court sua sponte raised an issue regarding the deadly weapon charge. The trial judge noted that most of the State's evidence at trial had demonstrated that Johnson possessed a metal table during the assault upon Woodward. [4] The State moved to amend the deadly weapon count in the grand jury's indictment to include the table. Over the objection of Johnson's trial attorney, the Superior Court permitted the weapon count in the indictment to be amended to describe the deadly weapon allegedly possessed by Johnson to be a chair and/or a table. At the close of all the evidence, the jury was instructed that it could find Johnson guilty of the deadly weapon count if it unanimously found that Johnson possessed a chair, or if it unanimously found that Johnson possessed a table, during the assault on Woodward. The jury found Johnson guilty of the deadly weapon offense. The jury's verdict did not specify which deadly weapon the jury found Johnson had used during the assault. Consequently, the record does not reflect whether the trial jury found Johnson guilty as charged in the grand jury's indictment of possessing a chair, or guilty of possessing a table pursuant to the indictment as amended by the Superior Court. Johnson argues that the instrumentality described in the weapon count of the grand jury indictment is an essential and material element of the alleged crime. Therefore, Johnson submits that the addition of the term and/or a table constituted a substantive amendment by the Superior Court. Accordingly, Johnson contends that the Superior Court violated his right to be proceeded against in a felony prosecution only upon an indictment by a grand jury. [5]