United States v. Devine's Milk Laboratories, Inc.

• Decision Date: 07 January 1960
• Docket Number: Cr. No. 59-238-F.
• Citation: 179 F. Supp. 799
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. DEVINE'S MILK LABORATORIES, INC., Theodore J. Devine, Beatrice Devine and Robert A. Doherty.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

179 F. Supp. 799

UNITED STATES of America v. DEVINE'S MILK LABORATORIES, INC., Theodore J. Devine, Beatrice Devine and Robert A. Doherty.

Cr. No. 59-238-F.

United States District Court D. Massachusetts.

January 7, 1960.

Elliot L. Richardson, U. S. Atty., Edgar L. Kelly, Asst. U. S. Atty., Boston, Mass., for plaintiff.

B. L. Perry, Edmund Burke, Boston, Mass., Talbot T. Tweedy, Taunton, Mass., for defendants.

FRANCIS J. W. FORD, District Judge.

Defendants here, a corporation and three of its officers, are charged in a one-count indictment with having conspired "to commit certain offenses against the United States, that is to say, the offenses denounced by the provisions of Title 18 United States Code §§ 287 and 1001, to knowingly and wilfully make and use, and cause to be made and used, false, fraudulent and fictitious statements in matters within the jurisdiction of the Department of the Army, an agency of the United States, and to knowingly and wilfully make and present false, fictitious and fraudulent claims to the Department of the Army, an agency of the United States, all in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371." A list of twenty-six overt acts has been appended to the charge.

Defendants move that the indictment be dismissed as being so vague, general and indefinite that it does not apprise defendants of the offense charged so as to enable them to prepare any defense thereto and does not bar a second prosecution for the same offense. The government's contention is that the indictment is sufficient because it sets out all the elements of the alleged offense in the language of the applicable statutes.

An indictment in the language of the statute is not necessarily good. Where the statute defines a crime in broad and general language merely describing the general nature of the offense charged, the indictment should describe with greater particularity the offense charged. It is true, of course, that an indictment charging conspiracy to commit a crime need not set out that crime with all the particularity necessary in an indictment charging that crime as a substantive offense. But while the crime need not be described in all its details, it should at least be described with sufficient particularity to enable the defendants to know what specific offenses they are charged with conspiring to commit. The general language of the present indictment fails to do that. It does not indicate what specific false statements or claims were to be made or presented, or even indicate the transaction or even the general subject matter in connection with which any false statements or claims were to be made or presented. It closely resembles the language of the indictment held legally insufficient in United States v. Apex Distributing Company, D.C., 148 F.Supp. 365, 369, 370, and must equally be...