Court Opinion

ID: 9792154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:24:13.703666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:40.798959
License: Public Domain

Justice BENDER
dissenting:
This case raises the difficult issue of the degree of factual particularity required in a bill of particulars by the due process clause when a child accuses a resident care-giving adult of committing multiple acts of sexual abuse.1 A delicate balance must be achieved between the prosecution’s need to secure a conviction in such cases and the defendant’s right to be informed of the charges with sufficient factual detail to enable the defendant to prepare and present a defense.
Here, the amended information charged the defendant with one count of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust based on events that occurred some time during a seven-year time period. The district court ordered the prosecution to provide “a bill of particulars in some narrative form that will describe the events or the evidence which will be presented through the child victim including to the best of his ability the place, dates, and particular conduct.” In response, the prosecution filed a bill of particulars stating that the defendant sexually molested the victim by either fondling the victim’s penis or having the victim fondle the defendant’s penis on approximately thirty to forty occasions starting when the victim was six years old and ending when the victim was twelve.2 At the time of the filing of the bill the victim was fourteen, less than one month from his fifteenth birthday.
*924The majority concludes that this bill of particulars passes constitutional muster because it gave the defendant early notice of the allegations “as well as a description of the acts upon which the prosecution would rely.” Maj. op. at 920. According to the majority, the defense case turned solely on the issue of credibility, and any difficulty experienced by the defendant in “defending the charges was a result of a lack of specificity in the prosecution’s evidence, not in the bill of particulars.” Id. at 922. The unusual combination of factors present in this case — a seven-year time frame to prove one criminal act, generic allegations not tied to time, place, or event, and a child victim who was almost fifteen years old at the time that the prosecution filed the bill — lead me to conclude that this bill of particulars is insufficient. In my view, this bill of particulars fails to provide the accused an opportunity to prepare a defense and thus violates his right to due process of law. Hence, I respectfully dissent.
Defendants in criminal cases possess the right to be “informed of the nature and cause of the accusation” in order to prepare a defense. Colo. Const. art. II, § 16. A bill of particulars serves this function by providing factual details omitted from the charging document that are necessary to afford the accused a fair opportunity to secure witnesses in his or her defense and to prepare for trial. See People v. District Court, 198 Colo. 501, 503-04, 608 P.2d 127, 129 (1979).3 These factual details allow defense attorneys to fulfill their duty of conducting prompt investigation, which in turn enables the effective cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. See ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Prosecution Function and Defense Function, § 4-4.1(a) & cmt. (3d ed.1993) (“without adequate investigation the lawyer is not in a position to make the best use of such mechanisms as cross examination or impeachment of adverse witnesses at trial”).
Details of the alleged acts provide the accused with the opportunity to show that the charges were highly unlikely, impossible or incredible. However, generic descriptions of indistinguishable acts deprive the accused of this opportunity and limit the defense to a general credibility attack against the victim. Such a strategy has persuasive force in cases involving adult victims but little effectiveness with child victims because adults, unlike children, are expected to recall events with some degree of detail.4 For this reason, factual particularity is especially important in cases involving the alleged sexual abuse of a child.
Young children victimized by sexual abuse over a long period of time have great difficulty recalling the specific dates of their abuse and it is unreasonable to require exactitude from such victims. See maj. op. at 922. Therefore, this court and other courts have relaxed specificity requirements in child molestation cases involving a child of tender years who has been the subject of abuse for a prolonged period of time, or in cases when the accused has had unsupervised access to the child on a regular basis. See id. at 922-923 (and cases cited therein). The reason for this relaxed standard is to acknowledge the serious societal need to prosecute child molesters and the fact that sexual assault on a child is:
‘different from any other type of crime. For example, you have a rape against an adult woman. She calls the police immediately. We know when that rape happened. ... With children, more often than not they do not tell right away that they’ve been sexually abused for a variety of reasons. And under the law as it stands now, if we are charging a particular crime, we have to be specific as to the specific incident that occurred. Most of the cases that
*925I prosecute in our unit are cases ... [in which] the abuse has gone on for a long period of time. It is virtually impossible, particularly in young children ... to come up with a particular incident.... [F]or a child who’s being abused every afternoon, one afternoon is no different from any other afternoon.’
People v. Longoria, 862 P.2d 266, 271 (Colo.1993) (quoting Hearing on H.B. 1076 Before the House and Senate Judiciary Committee, 67th Gen. Assembly, 1st Reg. Sess. (1989) (statement of former Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Steinhauser)).
As the child matures, however, more detailed information and a narrowed time frame should be required. As the New York Court of Appeals case aptly observed:
Here ... time is not an essential element of the crimes charged. However, as indicated above, various counts of sodomy and sexual abuse that we are dismissing span periods of time extending for 10,12 and 16 months, periods so excessive on their face that they are unreasonable. Moreover, unlike the children in Morris, the victims here were between 8 and 13 years old during the time of the offenses and thus more capable than the Morris children of discerning, if not exact dates, at least seasons, school holidays, birthdays, or other events which could establish a frame of reference to assist them in narrowing the time spans alleged. Indeed, two counts allege exact dates on which the offenses occurred because the child was able to place the time of the alleged act by reference to the day furniture was delivered to the home.
People v. Keindl, 68 N.Y.2d 410, 509 N.Y.S.2d 790, 794, 502 N.E.2d 577, 581 (1986); see also State v. Hass, 218 N.J.Super. 133, 526 A.2d 1156, 1158 (1987) (child victims between the áges of thirteen and sixteen were “not of such a young age as to be entitled to the samé deference as would be accorded to children of ‘tender years’ ”).
The competing interests inherent in child molestation cases between the prosecution’s need to obtain a conviction and the defendant’s rights should be determined on an ad hoc basis considering all the relevant circumstances of each case. As the New York Court of Appeals stated:
The test for adequacy embraces good faith. Reasonableness and fairness demand that the indictment state the date and time of the offense to the best of the People’s knowledge, after a reasonably thorough investigation has been undertaken to ascertain such information. In evaluating the possibility that a more specific date could have been obtained through diligent efforts, the court must consider, among other things: (1) the age and intelligence of the victim and other witnesses; (2) the surrounding circumstances; and (3) the nature of the offense, including whether it is likely to occur at a specific time or is likely to be discovered immediately.
People v. Morris, 61 N.Y.2d 290, 473 N.Y.S.2d 769, 774, 461 N.E.2d 1256, 1261 (1984). The court further stated:
It may be the- interval ascribed for a particular crime is so excessive that, on its face, it is unreasonable and dismissal should follow.
Id., 473 N.Y.S.2d at 773-74, 461 N.E.2d at 1260-61.
Turning to the facts of this case, the seven-year time span during which the jury had to find one of thirty to forty acts is excessive. No other reported ease in Colorado involved such a lengthy time period.5 See, e.g., People *926v. Aldrich, 849 P.2d 821, 823 (Colo.App.1992) (two weeks); Roelker v. People, 804 P.2d 1336, 1338 (Colo.1991) (three months); Woertman v. People, 804 P.2d 188, 191 (Colo.1991) (one month, two months, and five months); Kogan v. People, 756 P.2d 945, 957 (Colo.1988) (nine-month period rejected as overly broad); Thomas v. People, 803 P.2d 144, 146 (Colo.1990) (one year; fifteen months). Coupled with this excessively broad time span, the allegations contained in the bill of particulars — that the defendant sexually molested the victim by either fondling the victim’s penis or having the victim fondle the defendant’s penis on approximately thirty to forty occasions — do not convey sufficient detail to enable the accused to prepare a meaningful defense.
The final key factor in this case is the age of the victim. While the alleged abuse started when the victim was six years old, it continued until he was twelve. At the time that the prosecution supplied the bill of particulars, the victim was fourteen, nearly fifteen. The right of an accused to be informed of “the nature and cause of the accusation” demands more detail for the events that occurred when the victim was twelve years old than for the events occurring when he was six. Yet the bill of particulars contains fungible, generic, and non-distinguishable descriptions for all of the acts occurring while the victim was between the ages of six and twelve.
I conclude because of the unique set of circumstances present in this case — the seven-year time span covered in the charging documents, the generic nature of the allegations, and the age of the victim — the majority’s holding upsets the delicate but necessary balance between the needs of the prosecution and rights of the accused. The majority paints with too broad a brush, and thereby overlooks the specific circumstances presented by this case. Therefore, I would hold that the bill of particulars is insufficient and constitutes plain error.

. The issue on certiorari was framed as follows:
Wheffier the court of appeals erred by concluding that Mr. Erickson's due process rights to notice of the charges against him and to present a defense were not violated when, after the trial court allowed the prosecution to amend the information to allege abuse over a seven-year period rather than three months as initially charged, the trial court then failed to require the prosecution to produce a bill of particulars sufficient to give Mr. Erickson notice of the charges against him and to prepare a defense.

. The specific language contained in the bill of particulars is reproduced in the majority opinion at pages 920-921.

. The bill of particulars also serves to guard the defendant against prejudicial surprise. See District Court, 198 Colo. at 503-04, 603 P.2d at 129. The issue of defense surprise does not exist in this case because the victim's general allegations covering the broad time frame were provided to defense counsel in pretrial statements and through the victim's testimony at the pretrial competency hearing.

. See generally Stephen J. Ceci, Ph.D. & Maggie Bruck, Ph.D. Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children’s Testimony (1995) (discussing the extent of false reports of child sexual abuse and calling for a scientific approach to evaluating child credibility).

. "The rules governing variance between proof and pleading apply to the bill of particulars just as they do to an indictment or information.” 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Criminal Procedure § 19.2(f) (1984). While not raised in any of the proceedings, I seriously question whether any charge requiring for a finding of guilty, one specific act that contains approximately thirty to forty separate crimes is not defective because of duplicity. See Leyba v. People, 174 Colo. 1, 4, 481 P.2d 417, 419 (1971) (" 'Duplicity in an indictment means the charging of two or more separate and distinct offenses in one count (quoting Frankfort Distilleries, Inc. v. United States, 144 F.2d 824, 832 (10th Cir.1944), rev'd on other grounds, 324 U.S. 293, 65 S.Ct. 661, 89 L.Ed. 951 (1945)); see also Keindl, 509 N.Y.S.2d 790, 502 N.E.2d at 582 ("Here, however, there is such a multiplicity of acts encompassed in single counts as to make it virtually impossible to determine the particular act of sodomy or sexual abuse as to which the jury reached a unanimous *926verdict. The resulting prejudice to the defendant is manifest.”).