Duplicity (law)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses of "Duplicity", see Duplicity.

Duplicity is a legal term used to describe the error committed when the charge (known as a count) on an indictment describes two different offenses. An indictment may contain more than one count, but each count must allege only one offense, so that the defendant (and the jury) can know precisely what offenses he is accused of. If a count is poorly drafted so that it alleges two offenses, it is said to be duplicitous. A duplicitous count is defective and must be quashed by the judge, unless the judge permits the count to be amended so that it only alleges one offense, or is split into two counts. If a duplicitous count is not noticed until after the defendant has been convicted on it, the verdict may well be void.

This is a completely different situation from when two different counts each allege the same offense, which is sometimes wrongly referred to as duplicity. This may be due to confusing the word duplicity with duplicate.

 This legal term article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.