Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.610

In DuBoise v. State, 520 So. 2d 260 (Fla. 1988), the defendant, after trial, in a motion for arrest of judgment pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.610, raised for the first time the failure of the indictment for sexual battery to include an essential element of the offense, physical force. After observing that rule 3.610 provides that a motion for arrest of judgment shall not be granted unless the indictment is so defective that it will not support a conviction, our supreme court stated: The reason for this provision is to discourage defendants from waiting until after a trial is over before contesting deficiencies in charging documents which could have easily been corrected if they had been pointed out before trial. See Sinclair v. State, 46 So. 2d 453 (Fla.1950); State v. Cadieu, 353 So. 2d 150 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977). Hence a charging document which is subject to pre-trial dismissal can nevertheless withstand a post-trial motion for arrest of judgment.