Q: In this task, you will be shown a prompt from a judicial decision and multiple holding statements derived from citations following text in a legal decision. Holdings represent the governing legal rule when the law is applied to a particular set of facts. There are five answer choices for each citing text. The correct answer is the holding statement that corresponds to the citing text. The four incorrect answers are other holding statements. You should find the correct option. There is a <HOLDING> token in the position of the citing text prompt where the holding statement was extracted.
"at any time before the jury returns a verdict or the court finds the accused guilty or not guilty, provided the amendment does not change the nature or character of the offense charged." Code 19.2-231 (emphasis added). Code 19.2-231 "is remedial in nature and is to be liberally construed in order to achieve the laudable purpose of avoiding further unnecessary delay in the criminal justice process by allowing amendment, rather than requiring reindictment by a grand jury." Powell, 261 Va. at 533, 552 S.E.2d at 356. Nevertheless, "[t]he limitation on amendment to indictments in Code 19.2-231 to amendments that do not change the nature or character of the offense is clearly intended to protect the defendant from being deprived of notice of the offense charged." Rawls v. Comm 03, 704 (<HOLDING>). And, conversely, if the amendment changed the
Holding statements: (A) holding that the nature or character test set forth in code 192231 applies to both indictments and warrants and that since the amendment at issue in the case did not change the nature or character of the offense charged the trial court did not err in allowing the trial to proceed on the amended warrant (B) holding that in determining whether a crime is a continuing offense the court must focus on the nature of the substantive offense and not on the specific characteristics of the conduct in the case at issue (C) holding that the amendment of the indictment was permissible under the statutory predecessor to code 192231 because the amendment did not within the meaning of the statute change the nature of the offense charged in the original indictment (D) holding that the amendment made to the indictment in this case was not authorized by code 192231 because the amended indictment materially changed the nature of the offense originally charged (E) holding that issue is preserved if the objections at the trial were sufficiently specific to notify the trial court at the time of the nature and character of the objections and the reasons for them
A:
(A)