Opinion ID: 2508333
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: gulbransen's request for a bill of particulars

Text: ¶ 22 The second issue we are asked to decide on appeal is whether the district court erred in denying Gulbransen's request for a bill of particulars from the State. Under Utah law, a defendant is permitted to make a written demand that the prosecutor specify in writing as particularly as is known to him the place, date and time of the commission of the offense charged. Utah Code Ann. § 77-14-1 (2003). ¶ 23 When the State filed its initial information in juvenile court on November 6, 2000, it charged Gulbransen with three counts of aggravated sexual assault, occurring on or about 6/2000, 7/1/00-8/31/00, and 7/24/00-8/31/00, respectively. The State also alleged in the same information that the three child sodomy counts occurred on or about 7/4/00-7/24/00, 7/1/00-8/31/00, and 7/24/00-8/31/00, respectively. However, when the State filed its May 11, 2001 amended information, dropping the three aggravated sexual assault charges and adding a fourth child sodomy charge, it amended the range of dates on which these offenses allegedly occurred. The amended information stated that the four child sodomy offenses occurred on or about the summer of 2000. ¶ 24 In his request for a bill of particulars, Gulbransen claimed that the allegation that the crimes occurred in the summer of 2000 was too broad and denied him a meaningful opportunity to respond to the allegations and to determine his whereabouts at the time of the alleged offenses. He also claimed that the State failed to provide the best information at its disposal as to when the alleged offenses occurred. ¶ 25 At a hearing four days before trial, the district court denied Gulbransen's request on the ground that the State had already provided him with all the information it had regarding the dates of the alleged offenses. Gulbransen now claims that the district court improperly denied his request for a bill of particulars, arguing that the State was required to define the dates of the alleged offenses more specifically than it had in the amended information.
¶ 26 We review a trial court's denial of a request for a bill of particulars for an abuse of discretion. State v. Allen, 839 P.2d 291, 298 (Utah 1992). ¶ 27 The requirement under Utah law that the prosecution specify in writing as particularly as is known to him the place, date and time of charged offenses, Utah Code Ann. § 77-14-1 is not a device to enable defendants to obtain a preview of the prosecution's evidence, State v. Robbins, 709 P.2d 771, 773 (Utah 1985). Rather, it is merely designed to give those charged sufficient notice to prepare a defense. State v. Wilcox, 808 P.2d 1028, 1031-32 (Utah 1991) (referring to the right of a criminal defendant under the Utah Constitution to demand the nature and cause of accusation against him, Utah Const. art. I, § 12). We have defined the particularity requirement as the best information the prosecution has, and whatever information the prosecutor has that may be useful in helping to fix a date, time or place of the alleged offenses. Robbins, 709 P.2d at 773. ¶ 28 In this case, the district court concluded that the State had provided Gulbransen the best information it had regarding the alleged dates of the offenses. We agree. The State's best information as to the dates of the offenses came from an October 4, 2000 videotaped interview of the victim. At trial, the State established approximate dates and times of the offenses by playing portions of the videotaped interviews of the victim, including the October 4, 2000 interview, wherein the victim gave his best guesses as to when the offenses occurred. Since Gulbransen had a copy of the October 4, 2000 videotaped interview before filing his request for a bill of particulars, and the interview provided the State's best information as to when the alleged offenses occurred, we hold that the prosecutor met his statutory burden to specify . . . as particularly as is known to him the place, date and time of the charged offenses. ¶ 29 Nonetheless, Gulbransen claims that once the State learned that he was going to present an alibi defense, it amended its information to cover a broader period of time for the offenses, making it more difficult to prove an alibi. He asserts that he could have presented an effective alibi defense regarding at least some of the counts as alleged in the original information. However, this argument is disingenuous at best, since the record clearly indicates that the State served its second amended information on Gulbransen two months before he notified the State of his intended alibi defense. ¶ 30 Furthermore, in cases involving sexual abuse of children, we have recognized that children are often not able to identify with a high degree of reliability, and sometimes not at all, when an event in the past took place. Robbins, 709 P.2d at 773. We have never allowed this unreliability as to precise date and time, by itself, to be fatal to the prosecution. Otherwise, [a]n abuser could escape prosecution merely by claiming that the child's inability to remember the exact dates and places of the abuse impaired the abuser's ability to prepare an alibi defense. Wilcox, 808 P.2d at 1033. ¶ 31 In addition, we have held that the mere assertion of an alibi defense does not impose on the prosecution the additional burden of proving the precise date of the act. The burden on the prosecution remains the same, i.e., to establish all elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Fulton, 742 P.2d 1208, 1213 (Utah 1987). In child sodomy cases, the specific date of the act is not an element of the crime. See Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-403.1. Given the foregoing, the district court properly denied Gulbransen's request for a bill of particulars.