Sufficient to Allege: Short-circuiting Short-forms in State v. Singleton and State v. Crowder

Statutes prescribing simplified charging language were intended to alleviate the burdensome pleading requirements of the common law.  See Wayne R. LaFave, et al., Criminal Procedure § 19.1(c).  Indeed, where a short-form pleading is statutorily authorized, it is not necessary to allege all the elements of the offense.  See State v. Jerrett, 309 N.C. 239, 259, 307 S.E.2d 339, 350 (1983).  But how closely must a short form track the language prescribed by statute?  The Court of Appeals recently decided a couple of cases that address the issue.  This post considers those cases. State v. Singleton In State v. Singleton, 285 N.C. App. 630, 631, 878 S.E.2d 653, 654 (2022), disc. review allowed, __ N.C. __, 883 S.E.2d 445 (2023), the Court of Appeals dealt with an indictment that neither alleged all the elements of the offense charged nor strictly complied with the short-form statute.  My colleague Shea Denning previously posted about Singleton here. By statute, a person commits second-degree rape when he engages in vaginal intercourse with a person who is physically helpless, and he knows or reasonably should know the other person is physically helpless.  G.S. 14-27.22.  In an indictment for rape of such a person, “it is sufficient to allege that the defendant unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously did carnally know and abuse” a person who was physically helpless.  G.S. 15-144.1.  In Singleton, the indictment alleged that the defendant “unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously did engage in vaginal intercourse with [Jane], who was at the time, physically helpless.”  Singleton, 285 N.C. [...]