Hurtado v. California
United States Supreme Court
110 U.S. 516 (1884)
Relevant factsFree
Hurtado (plaintiff, in the sense of the party challenging his conviction) was charged by information rather than grand jury indictment, tried, and convicted of murder; he argued his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights were violated because no proceeding other than a grand jury indictment, in his view, could ever satisfy due process for a serious criminal charge.
IssueFree
Whether the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process requires that a state indict a defendant charged with a serious crime by grand jury, rather than by an alternative accusatory proceeding.