Pearlman v. State

Bruñe, C. J., filed the following dissenting opinion. I regret being in disagreement with my colleagues in this case. The basis of my disagreement is not any question as to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the convictions, but my belief that the defendants were not adequately apprised of the nature of the charges against them. The opinion of the Court upholds the sufficiency of each count of the indictment as stating an offense, and in support of its holding cites prior decisions of this Court which have upheld indictments charging conspiracies that were also lacking in specific statements as to the object of the conspiracy or the means of its accomplishment or both.

The Court recognizes that the indictment does not adequately inform the defendants of the charges against them by stating that the demand for a bill of particulars should have been granted (at least in part). The Court then holds that the defendants were not prejudiced in their defense by the denial of particulars because of the large number of witnesses and extensive testimony which they were able to produce even without particulars being furnished. This seems to me to amount to a holding that because the defendants knew of their own conduct and misdeeds, they were not prejudiced by not being told specifically what charges they would have to answer. That ²⁶⁵ may well be true of the guilty, but it would not be true of the innocent.

Such a rule would greatly hamper the innocent in the preparation and presentation of their defense and would facilitate their conviction, even if they were in fact innocent. In the event of conviction under such circumstances they would then come to an appellate court with a finding of guilt against them and with serious difficulty in showing prejudice. Because I think that the affirmance of the conviction here on the ground that no prejudice resulted to these defendants from the refusal of a statement of the particulars of the offense with which they were charged undermines an essential of criminal pleading and the fairness which it seeks to assure for the innocent and the guilty alike, I respectfully dissent from the holding of the Court.