Duplicity is the

error An error (from the Latin , meaning 'to wander'Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “error (n.), Etymology,” September 2023, .) is an inaccurate or incorrect action, thought, or judgement. In statistics, "error" refers to the difference between t ...

committed when the charge (known as a ''count'') on an

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an ind ...

describes more than one offence. An indictment may contain more than one count, but each count must allege only one offence, so that the

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one juris ...

(and the

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make Question of fact, findings of fact, and render an impartiality, impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty or Judgmen ...

) can know precisely what offences he or she is accused of. If a count is poorly drafted so that it alleges two offences, it is said to be "duplicitous". A duplicitous count is defective and may be quashed by the

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

, unless the judge permits the count to be amended so that it only alleges one offence, or is split into two counts. If a duplicitous count is not noticed until after the defendant has been convicted on it, the

verdict In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. In England and Wales ...

may be

void Void may refer to: Science, engineering, and technology * Void (astronomy), the spaces between galaxy filaments that contain no galaxies * Void (composites), a pore that remains unoccupied in a composite material * Void, synonym for vacuum, a s ...

. Duplicity is not to be mistaken with multiplicity, which is similar to duplicity in law. While duplicity refers to multiple offences under the same count, multiplicity regards multiple counts that reflect the same offence.

Examples

In ''People v. Bauman'' (2008), Amber Bauman was facing two counts of assault according to 10 different offences that she committed. The 2 counts were dismissed by the New York

Supreme court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

on the basis that each count related to more than one offence, which is duplicitous.The

Appellate Court An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear a case upon appeal from a trial court or other lower tribunal. Appel ...

upheld this decision with the reasoning that each count of the indictment must relate to only one offence. In ''United States v. Shorter'' (1985), the defendant was indicted with one count of

felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "''félonie''") to describe an offense that r ...

tax evasion and 6 more counts of

misdemeanor A misdemeanor (American English, spelled misdemeanour elsewhere) is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than admi ...

tax-related offenses. The defendant argued that his indictment included 12 separate offenses, which meant that the felony count was duplicitous and carried more than one offense compared to one count. The motion to dismiss the felony count was denied on the basis that each offense was related and all the offenses fell under the one count.

References

*Archbold, ''Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice'' (Sweet & Maxwell: 2010), 1-135 to 1-146 Legal terminology Criminal law {{law-term-stub