I know I'm missing the answer to this, but it's out there somewhere.

A couple of attorneys -- admittedly, very sporactically -- have been including in their usual littany of pretrial motions a request that the State list on the indictment the names of the witnesses who testified at the Grand Jury when the case was indicted.

A quick look at Lexis for the cases involving this provision show only a handful of cases, and none that are after 1978 or so.

I'm deducing that there's an overarching answer to this issue and why such action isn't taken as a routine matter of course, but I can't seem to find it. If this were really a "thing," (a) I'd have had to deal with it more frequently, (b) there'd be more caselaw on it.

Thoughts, suggestions, comments?

I have not seen it discussed often. That said, I have an indictment on my desk that has one witness's name typed on it and another written on.

It is probably less important today, given increasing amounts of criminal discovery and the prevalence of indictments with minimal (no?) witnesses.

I just received one of these Motions. Has anyone had a indictment dismissed for failing to attach the witnesses to the indictment?

Old Whine, New Bottle

Article 21.02 sets for the requisites of an indictment. A list of witnesses that testified before the grand jury is not among those requirements. It follows that an indictment is not subject to being dismissed as inadequate merely because it fails to list witnesses.

Article 20.20 merely directs the prosecutor to list witneses, it is not a "mandatory" statute the fulfillment of which is necessary to invoke the trial court's jurisdiction. See Reed v. State, 456 S.W.2d 393, 394 (Tex. Crim. App. 1973); [/i]Hackathorn v. State[/i], 422 S.W.2d 920, 921 (Tex. Crim. App. 1964) (regarding predecessor statute Art. 392); Tate v. State, 141 S.W. 351, 352 (Tex. Crim. App. 1940) (the Jersey cow theft case).

Tell the defense attorneys to moooo-ve along.

Thank you. I knew this had to have come up before.