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PART THREE

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

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LXXVI.

$$ 860-866

§§ 870-883

Preliminary Proceedings and Bail__§§ 885-892 LXXVII. Modes of Accusation and Indictment §§ 895-936 LXXVIII. Arraignment and Defendant's Pleas--§§ 940-956

LXXIX.

LXXX.

Trial

--

Proceedings After Verdict__.

--§§ 960-983

-§§ 990-997

Section

860. Generally. 861. Jurisdiction.

862. State courts.

863. Federal courts.

CHAPTER LXXIV

PRELIMINARY.

Section

864. Venue.

865. Change of venue.
866. Steps in trial.

§ 860. Generally.-Criminal procedure is the prescribed method of enforcing criminal law, and embraces all the steps for the apprehension and trial, and if guilty, conviction and punishment of persons believed to have committed crimes. It is the adjective branch of criminal law, which regulates its enforcement, as distinguished from the substantive branch treated in the preceding chapters, which prescribes rules forconduct.

Procedure includes pleading, which is the science or system of rules and principles applied to the written allegations

called pleadings, in a criminal prosecution, the object of which is to produce a proper issue for trial; evidence, the rules of law which determine the admissibility and weight of evidence to support the issues made by the pleadings; and practice, the steps taken to bring accused persons into court and the methods and course pursued in trials and enforcing judgments. In a broader sense practice includes something of pleading and evidence. Evidence is also used in reference to the actual testimony, pleading in reference to the arguments of counsel, but the subdivisions of the law known as evidence and pleading have no reference to such meanings. The law of procedure, like substantive law, comes largely from usage, partly from statute, in many instances usage being crystallized in form by statute.

§ 861. Jurisdiction.-By jurisdiction is meant the right to authority by which judicial officers investigate and decide cases. A criminal prosecution is not valid unless the court is legally created and constituted, and unless it has jurisdiction to try the offense1 and the person charged with the offense. Acts by the court outside of its jurisdiction are void. The defendant can not confer upon the court jurisdiction of an offense by his mere consent to be tried before it.* However, merely the fact that the accused was illegally arrested or illegally brought within the court's jurisdiction will not affect the legality of the trial. And if the court has jurisdiction of the offense charged, but the proof establishes a less offense, one of which the court would not originally have had jurisdiction, yet it can render a legal judgment of

1 Commonwealth v. Knowlton, 2 Mass. 580; State v. Cooper, 104 N. Car. 890, 10 S. E. 510.

2 Ledgerwood v. State, 134 Ind. 81, 33 N. E. 631.

8 Jackson v. Commonwealth, 13

Grat. (Va.) 795; State v. Bloom, 17
Wis. 521.

4 People v. Granice, 50 Cal. 447; People v. Campbell, 4 Parker Cr. (N. Y.) 386.

5 Cabell v. Arnold, 86 Tex. 102, 23 S. W. 645, 22 L. R. A. 87.

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