Is a defendant's Fifth Amendment right to be tried only on charges presented in a grand jury indictment?

It is well settled that a defendant has a fifth amendment right to be tried only on charges presented in an indictment returned by a grand jury. Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 217, 80 S.Ct. 270, 273, 4 L.Ed.2d 252 (1960). However, narrowing the scope of an indictment, whether through proof of a lesser offense offered at trial, or by redaction, does not offend the notice and review functions served by a grand jury's issuance of an indictment. "As long as the crime and the elements of the offense that sustain the conviction are fully and clearly set out in the indictment, the right to a grand jury is not normally violated by the fact that the indictment alleges more crimes or other means of committing the same crime." United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130, 136, 105 S.Ct. 1811, 1815, 85 L.Ed.2d 99 (1985). Those sections which will not be part of the proof at trial are treated as "useless averment" that can be "ignored", or simply redacted. Id.

Of course narrowing the scope an indictment does not always guarantee its integrity, because the allegations therein can be intertwined in such a way that removing one or two may destroy the coherence of the offense charged. However, when charges stand independently of one another, removing one does not affect the integrity of the indictment charging the others. More specifically, when an indictment charges a fraud scheme with several objectives, if each objective constitutes a fraud separate from the others the removal of one does not disturb the indictment's validity in charging the other frauds. See United States v. Eckhardt, 843 F.2d 989, 996-98 (7th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 839, 109 S.Ct. 106, 102 L.Ed.2d 81 (1988), O'Leary v. United States, 856 F.2d 1142, 1143 (8th Cir.1988).