Charging Instruments
In a criminal case, the government generally brings charges in one of two ways: either by accusing a suspect directly in a "bill of information" or other similar document, or by bringing evidence before a grand jury to allow that body to determine whether the case should proceed. If the grand jury determines that there is enough evidence to justify the bringing of charges, then the defendant is indicted. In the federal system, a case must always be brought before a grand jury for indictment if it is punishable by death or more than one year in prison; some states, however, do not require indictment.
Read more about this topic: United States Criminal Procedure
Famous quotes containing the words charging and/or instruments:
“You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the LORD your God with which I am charging you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 4:2.
“Whilst Marx turned the Hegelian dialectic outwards, making it an instrument with which he could interpret the facts of history and so arrive at an objective science which insists on the translation of theory into action, Kierkegaard, on the other hand, turned the same instruments inwards, for the examination of his own soul or psychology, arriving at a subjective philosophy which involved him in the deepest pessimism and despair of action.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)