ARRAIGNMENT
A criminal proceeding at which the defendant is
officially called before a court of competent juris-
diction, informed of the offense charged in the
complaint, information, indictment, or other
charging document, and asked to enter a plea of
guilty, not guilty, or as otherwise permitted by law.
Depending on the jurisdiction, arraignment may
also be the proceeding at which the court deter-
mines whether to set bail for the defendant or
release the defendant on his or her own recogni-
zance.
Although the initial appearance of the
arrested person before a magistrate is sometimes
referred to as an arraignment, it is not a true
arraignment, which only comes after the defen-
dant has been both arrested and formally
charged. In all but extremely rare cases, arraign-
ment also takes place before any suppression
hearings and the trial itself. The interests at issue
in an arraignment are the defendant’s right to
know of the charges against him or her and the
defendant’s right to have adequate information
from which to prepare a defense. The state also
has an interest in having the defendant make a
plea so it can prepare accordingly.
The SIXTH AMENDMENT to U.S. Constitu-
tion guarantees that defendants shall “be
informed of the nature and cause of the accusa-
tion against them.” But the Sixth Amendment
does not guarantee defendants the right to be
informed of the charged offense at an arraign-
ment. Although the Supreme Court has ruled
that arraignments are a necessary pre-condition
to trial under federal law, the Court has also
ruled that failure to arraign a defendant is not a
reversible error where the failure is inadvertent,
the defendant knows that he is the accused, the
defendant is apprised of the charged offense, the
defendant is able to assist in preparing a defense,
and the defendant is not otherwise prejudiced
by the lack of an arraignment. Thus the impor-
tance and necessity of being arraigned before
trial varies from case to case and from jurisdic-
tion to jurisdiction. The law governing arraign-
ment procedures is spelled out by statutes and
court rules at both the state and federal levels.
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure
provide that during the arraignment federal
courts must read the indictment or information
to the defendant or state the substance of the
charge to the defendant and ask him or her to
enter a plea thereto. FR Crim P, Rule 10. The
defendant must also be given a copy of the
indictment or information before he or she is
called upon to plead. Generally speaking, the
federal rules require defendants to be present at
the arraignment. However, in prosecutions for
offenses punishable by fine or imprisonment for
not more than one year, the court, with the writ-
ten consent of the defendant, may permit
arraignment in the defendant’s absence.
The court rules in some states only require
that arraignments be held for felony-level
charges, but not for misdemeanor-level offenses.
Other states require arraignments for felonies,
gross misdemeanors, and misdemeanors pun-
ishable by incarceration or a fine greater than a
certain amount. In addition to requiring that
defendants be called before the court, informed
of the charged offense, and asked to enter a plea,
several state jurisdictions also require that
defendants be informed of certain constitu-
tional rights during arraignment, including the
right to trial by jury, the right to assistance of
counsel, and the PRIVILEGE AGAINST SELF-
INCRIMINATION. If the law of a particular state
makes the arraignment a critical stage of the
prosecution, such as when the court rules
require the defendant to raise any defenses to the
charged offense at the arraignment or waive
them, then the defendant must be afforded the
RIGHT TO COUNSEL under the Sixth Amend-
ment.Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U.S. 52, 82 S.Ct.
157, 7 L.Ed.2d 114 (U.S.Ala. 1961).
Defendants in both state and federal courts
must be arraigned in a timely fashion. Ordinar-
ily the accused must be arraigned before the
impaneling of the jury or at least before the
introduction of evidence. If an unreasonable
delay occurs between the time a defendant is
arrested and charged with an offense and the
time the defendant is arraigned, state and federal
courts will dismiss the criminal proceedings as
having violated the defendant’s Sixth Amend-
ment right to a speedy trial.
Many jurisdictions require that defendants
be arraigned within seventy-two hours of arrest.
As a result, defendants arrested over the week-
end are usually arraigned on Mondays, which
can make for a packed courtroom. To speed up
the arraignment process on busy days, defen-
dants are often arraigned in groups, which is
constitutionally permissible so long as each per-
son being arraigned identifies himself or herself
to the court and the court advises all defendants
in attendance that the remarks of the court
apply to each person individually. Courts con-
ducting group arraignments must also ascertain
on the record that each defendant was present
throughout the entire course of the arraign-
ment, heard the remarks, and understood them.
The right to be arraigned may ordinarily be
waived, even when the charge is for a felony-
level offense, provided the accused knows the
nature of the charge offense and has a full
opportunity to present a defense. The power to
waive an arraignment must usually be exercised
by the accused in person.Where the right of the
accused to waive an arraignment is recognized,
an express waiver in open court is sufficient. An
arraignment may also be waived in a less formal
manner, such as by the voluntary entry of a plea,
by failing to call the court’s attention to a defect
in the proceedings at the proper time, by
announcing readiness for trial, by going to trial
without objection, or by filing motions and
obtaining rulings on issues of law in the case.
CROSS-REFERENCES
