Before an information is filed there must be a preliminary examination of the case against the defendant and an order holding him to answer made under Section 872. The proceeding for a preliminary examination must be commenced by written complaint, as provided elsewhere in this code.
Cal. Penal Code § 738
MODE OF PROSECUTION
Applied in 20 court decisions — leading case 14 Cal. 3d 433 - Crockett v. Superior Court (1975)
Most recently applied in Naidu v. Superior Court of Riverside Cnty. (February 2018)
Added by Stats. 1951, Ch. 1674.
How often courts cite this section
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.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.