Opinion ID: 1839039
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: prosecution by county attorney's information

Text: XI. Use of the county attorney's information is said to be violative of the United States Constitution, Amendment 5, made applicable to the states by Amendment 14. This challenge has been made before in State v. Allnutt (Iowa) 158 N.W. 2d 715; Hoskins v. Bennett, 256 Iowa 1370, 1376, 131 N.W.2d 510; Kotek v. Bennett, 255 Iowa 984, 988, 124 N.W.2d 710, appeal dismissed and certiorari denied, 376 U.S. 188, 84 S.Ct. 637, 712, 11 L.Ed.2d 604. In the latter case we said:    County attorney informations, to be effective, must be approved by a judge of the district court (section 769.7) and the rights of an accused are amply protected by other provisions of chapter 769 of our Code. Also see 49 Iowa Law Rev. 14, at page 23. The United States Supreme Court's last definite pronouncement on this subject was Hurtado v. California (1884) 110 U.S. 516, 4 S.Ct. 111, 28 L.Ed. 232. The use of the California prosecutor's information was held not to violate the United States Constitution, Amendment 5. In Benton v. State of Maryland (1969) 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 the court said: Recently, however, this Court has `increasingly looked to the specific guarantees of the [Bill of Rights] to determine whether a state criminal trial was conducted with due process of law.' Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 18, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019, 1022 (1967).   .    Once it is decided that a particular Bill of Rights guarantee is `fundamental to the American scheme of justice.' Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, 391 U.S. 145 at 149, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 at 496, the same constitutional standards apply against both the State and Federal Governments.   . Prosecution by indictment has not been found to be so fundamental to the American scheme of justice as to come within the ambit of the Fourteenth Amendment. Prosecution by information has not been proscribed by federal edict. On the basis of both reason and authority we again hold the Iowa county attorney's information procedure valid.