Opinion
No. 32,715-KW.
May 27, 1999.
APPEAL FROM TWENTY-SIXTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT, PARISH OF BOSSIER, NO. 90,477, STATE OF LOUISIANA. HONORABLE DEWEY E. BURCHETT, JR., JUDGE.
John Michael Lawrence, Indigent Defender Board, for Appellant.
Richard Ieyoub, Attorney General, James M. Bullers, District Attorney, Michael A. Pitman, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
Before: Brown, Stewart and Gaskins, JJ.
Defendant was charged with aggravated rape upon juvenile under age of twelve, and was denied defendant's motions for specificity and to quash. Defendant applied for supervisory writ. The Court of Appeal, Brown, J., held that state sufficiently answered defense motion for bill of particulars.
Writ denied.
This pretrial writ application seeks to invoke our supervisory power to overrule the denial of defendants's motions for specificity and to quash.
The indictment filed June 5, 1998, alleges that defendant/applicant committed "aggravated rape upon . . . ., a juvenile, under the age of twelve, DOB 1/14/88, in violation of the provisions of LRS (sic) 14:42, from February, 1994, through December, 1995." The state contends that multiple rapes were involved. The victim who is now eleven years old was defendant's stepdaughter.
The defense moved to quash the indictment, urging that although the defense had filed an application for bill of particulars which requested the specific date, time and location of the offenses, the state's discovery response had not provided that information.
The state responded that it was unable to provide more specificity. The victim remembered that she was between six and seven years old when the applicant raped her. "The victim simply cannot tell us a more narrow scope than the period of time that we have given to the defendant."
A trial court is vested with "wide discretion" in determining the sufficiency of the state's answer to bills of particulars," and its ruling will not be distrurbed unless a clear abuse of that discretion is shown." STATE v. HARRIS 627 So.2d 788, (La.App. 2d Cir. 1993), writ denied, 93-3188 (La. 03/18/97), 634 So.2d 851.
The victim could not name specific dates and times when the defendant raped her; however, she could and did give "time frames" within which the rapes occurred. Those time frames were within the time frame alleged in the indictment. Under these circumstances, the time frame stated in the indictment is specific enough to allow defendant to adequately prepare his defense. State v. Harris, supra.
The trial court did not abuse its wide discretion in finding the state's response to the defense motion for bill of particulars to be sufficient or in denying the defense motion to quash, both of which motions sought more specificity as to the dates of the aggravated rapes alleged in the underlying indictment.
WRIT DENIED.