Information

Nature and Office of an Information

An information is the formal written accusation by which the State charges a person with a criminal offense in court. It is subscribed by the public prosecutor or other officer authorized by law and, unlike a complaint, it need not be sworn to by the offended party or a peace officer.

The information performs three connected functions: it informs the accused of the nature and cause of the accusation, fixes the offense for purposes of arraignment and trial, and gives the court a pleading on which it may enter judgment if guilt is proved. Its sufficiency is therefore measured by notice, jurisdiction, and adjudicability.

The charge is determined primarily by the factual allegations of the information, not by its title, caption, or the prosecutor's label. A wrong designation does not necessarily invalidate the information if the pleaded facts constitute an offense and fairly notify the accused of what must be met.

A valid information is also the usual pleading that commences the criminal action in court. The court's criminal jurisdiction over the person of the accused is acquired by arrest or voluntary appearance, but jurisdiction over the offense depends on law and on the allegations in the accusatory pleading.

Constitutional and Procedural Sufficiency

The Constitution gives the accused the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. In criminal procedure, this means the information must allege the elements of the offense in ordinary and concise language, without unnecessary evidentiary detail, and with enough certainty to allow the accused to prepare a defense and to plead the judgment as a bar to another prosecution for the same offense.

The controlling test is whether a person of common understanding can know from the information what offense is charged and whether the court can pronounce judgment according to law. The pleading need not narrate every item of proof, but it must allege every ultimate fact that the prosecution must establish to convict.

Conclusory labels are not substitutes for essential facts. If a statute punishes a person who acts with a particular intent, knowledge, relationship, status, amount, age, authority, or lack of license, the information must allege the fact that makes the conduct criminal or aggravates it to the charged offense.

Alleging the Offense Charged

Ultimate Facts, Not Evidence

The information should state the ultimate facts constituting the crime, not the evidentiary facts by which those ultimate facts will be proved. It is enough to allege the punishable act, the required mental element when material, the object or victim of the offense, and the circumstances that make the accused liable under the particular law.

For crimes defined by the Revised Penal Code, the information must show the act or omission, the felonious intent or legally relevant mode of committing the offense, and the result when the result is an element. For offenses under special penal laws, the information must allege the prohibited act and the facts that bring it within the statute; criminal intent is not alleged as an element unless the special law itself requires it.

Where the law uses technical words that have a settled legal meaning, those words may be used, but they should be accompanied by facts when the term alone does not give fair notice. Alleging that the accused acted "unlawfully" or "feloniously" is not enough if the information omits the act that the law punishes.

Designation and Recitals

The designation of the offense is useful but not conclusive. If the information is captioned as one offense but the body alleges all the elements of another, the body prevails for purposes of determining what the accused must answer and what judgment may be rendered.

A variance between the statutory label and the pleaded facts may be cured by amendment before plea, but after arraignment the amendment is restricted by the accused's right to due process and by the prohibition against substantial alteration of the charge.

The information should not plead alternative offenses in a way that leaves the accused uncertain about the charge. If a statute creates different modes of committing the same offense, the information may allege the mode relied on, or allege several modes conjunctively when they are merely different means of committing one offense.

Qualifying, Aggravating, and Special Circumstances

A qualifying circumstance changes the nature of the offense or raises it to a graver crime; an aggravating circumstance increases the imposable penalty within the range allowed by law; a special qualifying circumstance may produce a specific statutory consequence. These circumstances must be alleged in the information before they may be appreciated against the accused.

Proof cannot supply an omitted qualifying or aggravating allegation. A circumstance that appears in the evidence but not in the information cannot be used to convict the accused of a graver offense or to impose a higher penalty, because the accused was not formally called to answer that circumstance.

The information must plead the circumstance with sufficient factual basis. A bare conclusion may be inadequate when the legal term does not itself disclose the factual circumstance relied on. In homicide-related charges, for example, a qualifying circumstance such as treachery must appear in the accusatory averments, and the pleaded facts should show why the circumstance is being invoked.

Minority, relationship, dwelling, abuse of confidence, use of a weapon, value of property, amount of damage, public office, authority, habituality, and recidivist status matter only when the substantive law or penalty rule makes them material. When they are material, they belong in the information rather than being left to proof alone.

Accused, Offended Party, Time, and Place

Identity of the Accused

The information must name the accused by the name and surname by which the person is known. If the name is unknown, a fictitious name or sufficient description may be used. Once the true name is known, the information may be amended to reflect it, because the correction ordinarily concerns identity rather than the essence of the offense.

When liability is charged against a public officer, corporate officer, partner, or representative, the information should allege the official position, corporate relation, or legal status that makes the person criminally answerable. A corporation may be identified as an accused when the penal law allows corporate liability, but natural persons must still be charged when the law imposes personal criminal responsibility for acts done in a corporate setting.

Offended Party

The offended party is the person or entity directly injured by the offense. In crimes against persons, the victim's identity is ordinarily essential. In crimes against property, the information should allege the owner, possessor, or entity from whom property was taken, defrauded, damaged, or otherwise affected.

An erroneous name of the offended party may be formal if the identity of the transaction and injury is clear, but it may be substantial when identity is an element of the offense, when it affects civil liability, or when the mistake exposes the accused to a different accusation.

Time

The exact date of commission need not be alleged unless time is a material ingredient of the offense. The phrase "on or about" is generally sufficient when the prosecution is not bound to a precise date and the accused receives fair notice of the period involved.

Time becomes material when the age of the victim, prescription, a statutory period, the validity of an authority, the accused's defense, or the nature of the offense depends on it. If the information alleges a date materially different from the proof and the variance prejudices the defense, the defect may affect conviction.

Place

The place of commission must be alleged because venue in criminal cases is jurisdictional. The information should show that the offense was committed, or that one of its essential elements occurred, within the territorial jurisdiction of the court.

For transitory, continuing, or statutorily venue-specific offenses, the information should allege the facts that make the chosen venue proper. If the offense was begun in one place and consummated in another, or if material acts occurred in different places, venue may lie where the law recognizes any essential component of the offense as having occurred.

Stages of Execution in the Information

For felonies governed by the Revised Penal Code, the stage of execution affects the offense charged and the penalty. The information should allege facts showing whether the felony was consummated, frustrated, or attempted when the stage is material to liability.

A consummated felony is sufficiently charged when the information alleges all the elements of the offense and the result required by law. The word "consummated" is useful but not indispensable if the pleaded facts necessarily show completion.

A frustrated felony requires allegations that the offender performed all the acts of execution that would produce the felony as a consequence, but the felony was not produced by causes independent of the offender's will. The information should therefore show both completion of the acts of execution and non-production of the intended result.

An attempted felony requires allegations that the offender commenced the commission of the felony directly by overt acts, did not perform all acts of execution, and failed to produce the felony by reason of a cause or accident other than spontaneous desistance. The information should identify the overt acts and the interruption or failure that prevented completion.

Some offenses do not naturally admit of frustrated or attempted stages because of their statutory structure or the manner in which the prohibited act is defined. For such offenses, the information should follow the statutory definition rather than mechanically use the language of stages.

Duplicity and Joinder of Offenses

As a rule, one information should charge only one offense. This rule protects the accused from uncertainty, prevents confusion in the presentation of defenses, and preserves the clarity of the judgment.

The rule does not prohibit one information for a complex crime, a special complex crime, a composite offense, or a single offense that may be committed by several acts. When the law treats several acts as one punishable offense, the information may allege the component acts without becoming duplicitous.

An information becomes duplicitous when it charges two or more separate offenses that are not legally merged into one. The defect must generally be objected to before trial; if the accused proceeds without timely objection, conviction may be had for as many offenses as are properly charged and proved, subject to the court's jurisdiction and the accused's right to due process.

Multiplicity of accused is different from duplicity of offenses. Several accused may be charged in one information when they participated in the same offense, especially where conspiracy, common design, or joint participation is alleged.

Conspiracy and Mode of Participation

Conspiracy is not presumed from group accusation. If the prosecution seeks to hold each accused liable for the acts of the others, the information should allege that they conspired, confederated, and mutually helped one another in committing the offense, together with the acts constituting the crime.

The absence of a conspiracy allegation does not prevent conviction of an accused for acts personally and directly committed, but it limits the use of collective liability based solely on the acts of co-accused. Allegation and proof must meet: the information gives notice of the theory, while evidence establishes participation.

Principals, accomplices, and accessories need not always be labeled with technical precision when the facts alleged sufficiently show their participation. Still, where the degree of participation affects liability or penalty, the information should identify the acts that make the accused answerable.

Amendment Before and After Plea

Before the accused enters a plea, the information may generally be amended in form or substance because arraignment has not yet fixed the issue for trial. However, an amendment that downgrades the offense or excludes an accused requires prosecutorial motion, notice to the offended party, and leave of court.

After plea, only formal amendments may be allowed, and only with leave of court and without prejudice to the rights of the accused. A formal amendment corrects clerical, descriptive, or nonessential matters and does not change the nature of the offense, the theory of liability, the penalty exposure, or the defense that must be prepared.

A substantial amendment after plea is not allowed. An amendment is substantial when it adds an essential element, charges a different offense, introduces a qualifying circumstance, changes the theory of criminal liability, increases the penalty exposure, or otherwise surprises the accused in a way that affects substantial rights.

Correction of the name of the accused, spelling errors, clerical dates, or other descriptive details may be formal, but the same type of change may become substantial when the fact corrected is material to jurisdiction, prescription, alibi, identity, or the elements of the offense.

Substitution and Variance

Substitution differs from amendment. Amendment modifies the same information; substitution replaces it with a new information for a different offense when it appears before judgment that a mistake was made in charging the proper offense and the accused cannot be convicted of the offense charged or of any offense necessarily included in it.

Substitution requires dismissal of the original information upon filing of the new one and must respect the accused's rights to preliminary investigation when required, arraignment on the new charge, and protection against double jeopardy. It is not a device to evade the bar against substantial amendment after plea.

Variance occurs when the evidence proves an offense different from that charged. Conviction is proper only when the offense proved is included in the offense charged, or when the offense charged is included in the offense proved and conviction is for the offense properly embraced by the allegations. A person charged with murder may be convicted of homicide if the qualifying circumstance is not proved or cannot be appreciated, because homicide is included in murder.

The accused cannot be convicted of a graver or essentially different offense not alleged in the information. Due process requires that the offense of conviction be within the charge as pleaded, not merely within what the evidence happened to show.

Defects and Remedies

Defects apparent on the face of the information are ordinarily raised by a motion to quash before arraignment. Grounds include lack of conformity with the prescribed form, failure of the facts charged to constitute an offense, lack of jurisdiction, lack of authority of the officer filing the information, duplicity, extinction of criminal liability or of the action, legal excuse or justification apparent from the allegations, and a prior conviction, acquittal, or dismissal that bars another prosecution.

Most objections to form are waived if not raised before plea. The failure to charge an offense, lack of jurisdiction over the offense, extinction of criminal liability or of the action, and double jeopardy are not treated as ordinary waivable defects because they go to the power to convict or to the existence of a prosecutable offense.

When the defect is curable by amendment, the court should generally allow amendment instead of immediately terminating the prosecution. If the prosecution fails or refuses to amend when amendment is ordered, the information may be quashed.

A motion for bill of particulars may be used before arraignment when the information is valid but too general to enable the accused to prepare a defense. It is not a discovery device for the prosecution's evidence; it is a remedy to compel clarification of material details that should be known from the accusation itself.

An invalid preliminary investigation does not automatically void the information or remove the court's jurisdiction, but a timely objection may result in suspension of proceedings and the conduct or completion of the required preliminary investigation. The defect concerns the regularity of the process leading to the filing, not necessarily the facial sufficiency of the information.

Effect on Judgment and Civil Liability

The judgment must conform to the offense charged and proved, including any offense necessarily included in the information. The court may not punish an accused for an uncharged offense, even if the evidence suggests liability, because the information defines the permissible field of conviction.

The civil action for recovery of civil liability arising from the offense is generally deemed instituted with the criminal action unless waived, reserved, or previously instituted. For that reason, the information's identification of the offended party, property, amount, damage, or injury may affect both criminal liability and the civil relief adjudged in the same case.

An acquittal based on reasonable doubt may leave room for civil liability when the act or omission and the resulting damage are established by the required quantum of evidence for civil liability. An acquittal declaring that the act or omission did not exist, or that the accused did not commit it, ordinarily bars civil liability arising from the offense charged.