PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
Applied in 10 court decisions — leading case People v. Carrington (2009)
Most recently applied in Safari Club Int'l v. Lawrence Rudolph (January 2017)
Amended by Stats. 1998, Ch. 931, Sec. 353
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Every public offense must be prosecuted by indictment or information, except:
1. Where proceedings are had for the removal of civil officers of the state;
2. Offenses arising in the militia when in actual service, and in the land and naval forces in the time of war, or which the state may keep, with the consent of Congress, in time of peace;
3. Misdemeanors and infractions;
4. A felony to which the defendant has pleaded guilty to the complaint before a magistrate, where permitted by law.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.