Previously, an indictment was handed up by a grand jury, which returned a "true bill" if it found cause to make the charge, or "no bill" if it did not find cause. Most common-law jurisdictions (except much of the United States) have abolished grand juries.
The denúncia for most offenses is exclusively issued by the public prosecutor. However, some offenses (like rape or threatening) require the victim to sign a permission (called representação) in order to allow the prosecutor to file the indictment.
The indictment for lesser offenses (notably those against the victim's honor, such as defamation or calumny) can be filed only by the victims themselves (represented by a lawyer), in which case it is called queixa-crime.
All proceedings on indictment must be brought before the Crown Court. By virtue of practice directions issued under section 75(1) of the Supreme Court Act 1981, an indictment must be tried by a High Court judge, a Circuit judge or a recorder (which of these depends on the offence).
The Indictments Act 1915 and the Indictment Rules 1971 were made thereunder.
In many, but not all, United States jurisdictions that use grand juries, prosecutors often have a choice between seeking an indictment from a grand jury and filing a charging document directly with the court. Such a document is usually called an information, accusation, or complaint, to distinguish it from a grand-jury indictment. To protect the suspect's due-process rights in felony cases (where the suspect's interest in liberty is at stake), there is usually a preliminary hearing, at which a judge determines whether there was probable cause to arrest the suspect who is in custody. If the judge finds such probable cause, he or she binds, or holds over, the suspect for trial.
The substance of an indictment or other charging instrument is usually the same, regardless of the jurisdiction: it consists of a short and plain statement of where, when, and how the defendant allegedly committed the offense. Each offense usually is set out in a separate count. Some indictments for complex crimes, particularly those involving conspiracy or numerous counts, can run to hundreds of pages; but many an indictment, including one for a crime as serious as murder, consists of a single sheet of paper.
Indictable offenses are normally tried by jury, unless the accused waives the right to a jury trial. Although the Sixth Amendment mandates the right to a jury trial in any criminal prosecution, the vast majority of criminal cases in the United States are resolved by the plea-bargaining process.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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