Can a person be charged for a felony in the state of Missouri without a specific date ever being stated that the crime occurred?
Example: "Defendant committed a felony between the dates of Jan 1 2023 and Dec 31 2023 by beating the victim and causing serious bodily injury."
How can a defendant properly provide a defense if there is no specific date given that the crime occurred?
What would be legal arguments to dismiss such vague charges?
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3A course of conduct crime, for example sexual abuse of a child on multiple occasions over a period of time, is ordinarily charged with a starting and ending date, not one particular date.– MTACommented Nov 11 at 22:41
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3Fun (?) fact: French indictments used to have the formulation "committed in place X at time Y, or at a place within French jurisdiction and at a time within the statute of limitations". Prosecutors probably thought it was a smart way to go around specificity requirements. Nope, said the Cour de Cassation this April: X and Y are in fact binding on what the court can rule on. Hopefully this bit of legalese will fall away.– UJMCommented Nov 12 at 14:32
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3As they say on TV procedural shows, "on or about the time of...". If your credit card goes missing, and I am caught trying to use it, it is not necessary to prove exactly when it was removed from my wallet. It may be necessary to establish a rough date to show that statute of limitations has not expired, or to demonstrate to a jury how this may have happened; more precision maybe needed to overcome an alibi. But, at least in the us, the criterion for conviction is that the jury believes the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based upon the preponderance of evidence.– keshlamCommented Nov 12 at 16:16
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1Imagine if a specific date was required - it would always be a good idea to commit crimes near the stroke of midnight, allowing you to walk free after the prosecution finds themselves unable to determine the exact date of the crime. This, of course, does not work.– Nuclear HoagieCommented Nov 12 at 16:26
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The answers to 2 and 3 depend on the prosecution's case. In any event, the defendant isn't required to present an alibi. The prosecutor has to present evidence showing that the defendant committed the crime; the specific strategies for rebutting the evidence depend on what the evidence is.– phoogCommented Nov 12 at 22:16
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2 Answers
Assume that Olivia Owner returns to her holiday cottage after some months in the city. She finds it burgled and files a report. Through invoices and serial numbers, she can provide credible evidence that she owns certain items.
Some time later Barry Burglar is caught breaking into a different house. A search of Barry's house turns up a computer with the serial number from Olivia's report hidden in a closet.
So can Barry be charged with breaking into Olivia's cottage, even if nobody can say with any certainty when it happened? Probably. Barry could say that the prosecution did not prove their case because the charge is so vague, and hope for the jury to accept that. Or Barry could claim that he purchased the computer at a garage sale some weeks ago. The success of such a defense may get more likely if the prosecution cannot pin the date of the supposed burglary down and there are large gaps in the timeline.
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9It sounds like the prosecution's problem is proving that he actually committed the burglary, and the lack of a specific date is an almost negligible component of that.– BarmarCommented Nov 11 at 22:05
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1@Barmar I wouldn't call it almost negligible as the prosecution not having a specific date will be broadly used by the defence to sow doubt in the jury– HobbamokCommented Nov 12 at 16:58
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7@Hobbamok, depends very much on the details. In my example, the suspected thief had stolen goods. A few years after the theft, it should be plausible to argue that "it was from a garage sale, two or three years ago, I don't remember the details." A few weeks after the theft, less so.– o.m.Commented Nov 12 at 17:22
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@o.m.: I would tend to expect, in this example, for the defense to argue that the prosecution has failed to introduce evidence supporting all elements of the crime, and that Barry should have been charged with possession of stolen property or something along those lines instead of theft and/or burglary. The defense would likely also argue that, under the prosecutor's theory, any case in which there is evidence of possession would also be a case in which there is evidence of theft, effectively nullifying the requirement to prove all elements of the crime.– KevinCommented Nov 13 at 1:48
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2If Barry's fingerprints or DNA are found on the broken window lock in Olivia's cottage even though Barry claims never to have visited that location, then combined with Barry holding Olivia's reported missing property, the evidence may be more than sufficient to persuade a jury without a fixed date.– HenryCommented Nov 13 at 12:52
- Can a person be charged for a felony in the state of Missouri without a specific date ever being stated that the crime occurred.
Yes. Some time frame is necessary, but it need not be a specific date. For example, many murders that take place in remote places can be narrowed down to some time frame, but not a specific date. The answer from o.m. gives another good example.
- How can a defendant properly provide a defense if there is no specific date given that the crime occurred.
The same way that a defendant would in any other case.
- What would be legal means to dismiss such vague charges?
A legally insufficient indictment can be challenged in a pre-trial motion filed by the defense. The question doesn't identify a ground for a legally insufficient indictment, but a small percentage of indictments are dismissed every year on the grounds that they are legally insufficicent.
