The Courtroom is my Theater

Expired

Program Number

3059

Program Date

2020-03-24

CLE Credits

Trial Lawyers Need to Understand the Doctrine of Constructive Amendment of an Indictment and How the Failure to Do so May Result in the Conviction of Violation of a Defendants Fifth Amendment Rights. The Fifth Amendment guarantees defendant the right to be tried for only those offenses presented in the indictment returned by a grand jury. One must be careful to recognize when the evidence presented at trial proves a crime different from any one charged in the indictment. Do the jury instructions broaden the scope of the indictment by permitting conviction for an uncharged offense? Jury instructions may cure an allegedly amended indictment by limiting the charges on which the defendant may be convicted. A variance occurs when the evidence at trial proves facts other than those alleged in the indictment. How does one distinguish an amendment from a variance? Fifth Amendment rights are at issue.