holding that whether the charging document “gives the defendant notice of the charges against him and apprises him of what he must defend against at trial ... will be made on a case-by-case basis” in which the court “will look to the ‘four corners’ of the Information together with all material that was made available to a defendant at preliminary hearing or through discovery to determine whether the defendant received notice to satisfy due process requirements”
How later courts described this case
- holding that whether the charging document “gives the defendant notice of the charges against him and apprises him of what he must defend against at trial ... will be made on a case-by-case basis” in which the court “will look to the ‘four corners’ of the Information together with all material that was made available to a defendant at preliminary hearing or through discovery to determine whether the defendant received notice to satisfy due process requirements”
- holding that “a trial court's jurisdiction is triggered by the filing of an information alleging the commission of a public offense with appropriate venue” and that “any failure to allege facts constituting the offense . . . does not affect the trial court's jurisdiction.”
- concluding that an indictment’s failure to allege element of crime was cured by the defendant’s actual notice of facts constituting the element at preliminary hearing
- overruling earlier -3- cases holding that to confer jurisdiction on a trial court, information must allege all elements of crime charged
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
CHAPEL, Vice Presiding Judge,
specially concurring:
I have come to the conclusion that while Miller v. State 1 was correctly decided under existing caselaw, the rationale underlying our older cases is flawed. The emphasis of the analysis in Miller and our older eases is on the jurisdictional issue. The District Courts in Oklahoma have subject matter jurisdiction over alleged violations of penal statutes. The fact that there may be a defect in the Information relative to the allegation does not deprive the District Court of jurisdiction. If a public offense is alleged in a verified Information the District Court has subject matter jurisdiction.
That an Information may be sufficient to invoke the District Court’s jurisdiction does not mean that the Information is sufficient to *990 put a defendant on notice of the charges against him. Our Federal and State Constitutions both require the State advise a person of the charges against him in order that an accused may defend against the charge. Issues relating to adequacy of the charging allegations are due process problems. Such problems can be raised by defendants and resolved by trial courts or by this court on appeal.
In Tiger v. State 2 we reversed a felony murder conviction from a guilty plea because the Information did not allege each element of the crime, including each element of the underlying felony. The Information in Tiger is essentially the same as the Information in the case before us today. If we follow Tiger, this case must also be reversed. Tiger relied upon Miller and a line of eases dating to before statehood which held that the failure to allege all of the elements of the crime in an Information deprived the trial court of “jurisdiction” to hear the case. If the trial court had no jurisdiction the Judgment and Sentence was void and reversal was required. Tiger was decided correctly under the law. I voted to concur-in-result in Tiger because while I believe in stare decisis, I could not agree with the legal analysis concerning the jurisdiction issue. Consistency in our law is important, but upon reflection I have determined that consistency should give way to reason. Therefore, I agree Miller and that line of cases should be overruled.
Absent the jurisdiction issue, the only question is whether or not the Information properly advised Parker of the charge against him. In this case there is no doubt Parker had clear notice of the charge and knew what he had to defend against. There is no due process violation here.
It is worthwhile to distinguish the ease of Pickens v. State 3 as it shows the importance of proper pleading of allegations in an Information even under the rule we adopt today. In Pickens, the Information had language suggesting malice aforethought murder along with language appearing to allege felony murder (although elements of the underlying felony were not alleged). Taken as a whole, the language was similar to the outdated language found in the previous first degree murder statute, 21 O.S.1973, § 701.1, which was repealed in 1976. The Pickens Information was ambiguous. Looking at the Information, no defendant could know what crime he was charged with, or what he had to defend against. In Pickens, we applied the Miller rule and reversed. Pickens was correctly decided under the law at that time, and that decision would be correct under our current analysis.
. 827 P.2d 875 (Okl.Cr.1992).
. 900 P.2d 406 (OU.Cr.1995).
. 885 P.2d 678, 683 (Okl.Cr.1994).