Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 3).pdf/175

examination was not such as is contemplated by the statute. The point is made that the complaint lodged with the magistrate omitted to state one or more averments of fact which are necessary to constitute the crime of “obtaining property under false pretenses.” Conceding this to be true, we cannot sustain the contention of counsel that the petitioner has not waived a preliminary examination, within the meaning of the statute. We know of no case or principle of law which requires that a complaint made as a basis for a mere preliminary examination should be drawn with the fullness and technical accuracy required in cases where the prisoner is put upon his trial in a court having authority to hear and determine the case and impose a final judgment. The system of criminal procedure which is established by the laws of this state contemplates that nonprofessional persons, and particularly justices of the peace, who, as a rule, are men unlearned in the abstruse rules of criminal pleading, may have frequent occasion to write out criminal complaints, to be filed as a basis for the arrest of offenders. To require of persons who are without professional training to frame criminal complaints with the same degree of technical accuracy which is required in indictments and informations would be to exact the impossible. No such tule has hitherto existed, and this court will not lend its sanction to such a notion. In cases of felony the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace does not extend beyond the mere initiation of the proceeding. At the utmost, he can only direct that the prisoner shall be put upon his trial before a court having competent jurisdiction. It is true that a preliminary examination, under Ch. 71, Laws 1890, has assumed a degree of importance which did not attach to it prior.to the enactment of the statute. Under the statute, with the exceptions named, an examination before a magistrate must antedate the filing of an information in the District Court. The statute, however, does not undertake to modify the system of examinations existing at the time of its passage. The sole requirement is that “no information shall be filed against arly person for any crime or offense until such person