Opinion ID: 361114
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sufficiency of Count I of Indictment

Text: 7 Relying on Hamner v. United States, 134 F.2d 592 (5th Cir. 1943), defendants first assert that Count I, the conspiracy count, is fatally defective because it proceeded to allege substantive crimes which had been committed (Br. 8). However, in Reno v. United States, 317 F.2d 499, 504 (5th Cir. 1963), certiorari denied, 375 U.S. 828, 84 S.Ct. 72, 11 L.Ed.2d 60, an indictment grammatically worded like the present one was sustained, with the court stating that if the Reno case cannot be validly distinguished from Hamner, then we think Hamner is no longer good law. As noted, Count I of the present indictment charges that defendants agreed to violate three provisions of the Criminal Code and a provision of the Warehouse Act and specifies numerous overt acts committed in furtherance of the conspiracy. Although paragraphs A through D of Count I inartfully set forth what the defendants agreed to do in the past tense rather than the future tense, under the Reno rationale this Count I was sufficient. It contained enough to apprise the defendants with certainty what allegations they must be prepared to meet and put them in a position to plead double jeopardy to any subsequent charge of the same offense. The use of the past tense in paragraphs A-D of Count I therefore will be deemed harmless error. See Rule 7(c)(3) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. 8