An information is a formal

criminal charge A criminal charge is a formal accusation made by a governmental authority (usually a public prosecutor or the police) asserting that somebody has committed a crime. A charging document, which contains one or more criminal charges or counts, can t ...

which, depending upon the jurisdiction, either begins or continues a criminal proceeding in the courts. The information is one of the oldest

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

pleading In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of one party's claims or defenses in response to another party's complaint(s) in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define t ...

s (first appearing around the 13th century), and is nearly as old as the better-known

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

, with which it has always coexisted. Available via

HeinOnline HeinOnline (HOL) is a commercial internet database service launched in 2000 by William S. Hein & Co. (WSH Co), a Buffalo, New York publisher specializing in legal materials. The company was founded in Buffalo, New York, in 1961, and is currently ...

. Orfield cites Holdsworth as the source of this information. Available via

. Although the information has been abolished in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...

and

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

, it is still used in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

(at both the federal level and in some

states State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

) and various other common law jurisdictions.

Canada

Criminal charges

In Canada, charges under the

Criminal Code A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...

are either by summary process, or by

. Both types of charges begin with an information, except in the rare situation of a direct indictment by the Attorney General. The form of an information is prescribed by the Criminal Code. Informations are to be drafted using Form 2 for both indictable matters and summary matters. An information must be sworn by the informant, who is normally a peace officer. The informant then must lay the information before a justice of the peace. The information must contain an allegation that an offence has been committed, within the territorial jurisdiction of the justice of the peace. The justice of the peace then is required to review the information and determine if process should issue under the ''Criminal Code'' for the arrest of the individual. If the matter is a summary matter, the information is then laid before the court with jurisdiction to hear the charges, usually the Provincial Court, and the matter will proceed directly to trial. In indictable matters, the information is laid before a judge of the Provincial Court for the purposes of a preliminary inquiry, which is a hearing to determine if the

Crown prosecutor Crown prosecutor is the title given in a number of jurisdictions to the state prosecutor, the legal party responsible for presenting the case against an individual in a criminal trial. The title is commonly used in Commonwealth realms. Examples * ...

has demonstrated that there is evidence to support the charges in the information. If the preliminary inquiry judge rules that the Crown prosecutor has satisfied this standard, the Court commits the accused to stand trial. The Crown prosecutor then files an indictment, which is the formal charge to begin the trial, normally in the superior trial court. The indictment is based on the charges originally set out in the information. The Crown is entitled to add additional charges which were supported by the evidence led in the preliminary inquiry, even if those charges were not in the information. However, if the preliminary inquiry judge declined to commit the accused on a charge set out in the information, the Crown cannot include that charge in the indictment. The matter then proceeds to trial on the indictment.

Information to obtain a search warrant

The term "information" is also used for other purposes in the Criminal Code, such as applications to obtain a search warrant. A peace officer who is seeking a search warrant must file a sworn information before a justice of the peace, outlining the reasons in support of a search warrant. The justice of the peace then reviews the information to obtain, and decides whether the information supports the issuance of a search warrant.

United Kingdom

England and Wales

A criminal information was a proceeding in the

King's Bench Division The King's Bench Division (or Queen's Bench Division when the monarch is female) of the High Court of Justice deals with a wide range of common law cases and has supervisory responsibility over certain lower courts. It hears appeals on point ...

of the High Court brought at the suit of the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, parti ...

without a previous

. Criminal informations other than those filed

ex officio An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, or council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term '' ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the office', and the sense intended is 'by r ...

by the

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...

were abolished by section 12 of the Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1938. Any power to bring proceedings for an offence by criminal information in the High Court was abolished by section 6(6) of the

Criminal Law Act 1967 The Criminal Law Act 1967 (c. 58) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made some major changes to English criminal law, as part of wider liberal reforms by the Labour government elected in 1966. Most of it is still in force. ...

. The last occasion on which there was an ex officio information by a law officer was in 1911.

Northern Ireland

Any power to bring proceedings for an offence by criminal information in the High Court was abolished by section 6(6) of the

Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 The Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 (c. 18 (N.I.)) is an act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland. It makes similar provision to the Criminal Law Act 1967 for Northern Ireland. Section 2 This section was repealed barticle 90(2)of, and ...

United States

Because the

Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the United States Constitution creates several constitutional rights, limiting governmental powers focusing on United States constitutional criminal procedure, criminal procedures. It was ratified, along with ...

expressly creates a constitutional right to be indicted by a grand jury, the information is used in federal criminal procedure only when a defendant voluntarily pleads guilty (often as part of a

plea bargain A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a ...

) and waives the right to an indictment. However, the Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury indictment does not apply against the state governments because the grand jury provision has not been incorporated against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, the information has always been the dominant charging document in the

western states The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. ...

, where extremely dispersed population distribution during the

American frontier The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the Geography of the United States, geography, History of the United States, history, Folklore of the United States, folklore, and Cultur ...

era made it difficult to select and convene petit

juries A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make findings of fact, and render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Most trial juries are " petit juries", an ...

to hold trials. In that era, convening even larger grand juries just to indict criminals was seen as an unnecessary extravagance. In general,

district attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, county prosecutor, state attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or solicitor is the chief prosecutor or chief law enforcement officer represen ...

s initiate criminal actions against suspects by filing

complaint In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...

s. In eastern states and in federal courts, the prosecutor seeks to obtain an indictment from a grand jury, or strikes a plea bargain with the defendant, as part of which the defendant waives his right to be indicted, and then files an information as part of the process of reducing the plea bargain to judgment. In western states, the defendant is entitled to challenge the complaint at a

preliminary hearing In common law jurisdictions, a preliminary hearing, preliminary examination, preliminary inquiry, evidentiary hearing or probable cause hearing is a proceeding, after a criminal complaint has been filed by the prosecutor, to determine whether the ...

, during which the prosecution must establish to the satisfaction of a magistrate that

probable cause In United States criminal law, probable cause is the legal standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal and for a court's issuing of a search warrant. One definition of the standar ...

exists to bind over the defendant until trial. If the magistrate finds probable cause, the district attorney files an information, which supersedes the complaint and becomes the operative pleading against the defendant through trial, verdict, and judgment. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of this procedure in ''

Hurtado v. California ''Hurtado v. California'', 110 U.S. 516 (1884),. was a landmark case decided by the United States Supreme Court that allowed state governments, as distinguished from the federal government, to avoid using grand juries in criminal prosecutions. ...

'' (1886). The grand jury is still available in the states where informations are used, but it is usually used only for issuing indictments for certain types of crimes or for certain types of anti-corruption investigations.

References

{{English criminal law navbox Criminal procedure Prosecution