Duplicity is the error committed when the charge (known as a ''count'') on an

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concep ...

describes two different offences. An indictment may contain more than one count, but each count must allege only one offence, so that the

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...

(and the

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartiality, impartial verdict (a Question of fact, finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty o ...

) can know precisely what offences he or she is accused of. If a count is poorly drafted so that it alleges two offences, it is said to be "duplicitous". A duplicitous count is defective and must be

quashed Quashed (foaled 1932) was a British-bred and British-trained racehorse, winner of The Oaks in 1935. For many years, the Verdict family was not accepted into the British Stud Book because Quashed's dam was effectively a half-bred and it was n ...

by the

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

, unless the judge permits the count to be amended so that it only alleges one offence, 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 be

void Void may refer to: Science, engineering, and technology * Void (astronomy), the spaces between galaxy filaments that contain no galaxies * Void (composites), a pore that remains unoccupied in a composite material * Void, synonym for vacuum, a s ...

. Duplicity is a completely different situation from when two different counts each allege the same offence, which is known as

multiplicity Multiplicity may refer to: In science and the humanities * Multiplicity (mathematics), the number of times an element is repeated in a multiset * Multiplicity (philosophy), a philosophical concept * Multiplicity (psychology), having or using multi ...

, but sometimes wrongly referred to as duplicity.

References

*Archbold, ''Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice'' (Sweet & Maxwell: 2010), 1-135 to 1-146 Legal terminology Criminal law {{law-term-stub