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NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS.

shall have had a preliminary examination therefor, as provided by law, before a committing magistrate, * * * unless such person shall waive his right to such examinations,” etc. The only new feature embraced in the statute under consideration is that the examination of the accused before the magistrate must have been based upon a complaint charging the same offense as that set out in the information filed against the accused by the state’s attorney. Such examination can be inaugurated only upon a complaint called an “information.” Comp. Laws, § 7117. “The information is the allegation in writing, made toa magistrate, that a person has been guilty of some designated public offense.” But how designated? We hold that a complaint, after stating time and place, which names or describes an offense in general terms, and which, in addition thereto, sets out such facts and circumstances of the offense as will fairly apprise a person of average intelligence of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, will be sufficient, as a basis of an examination, even in cases where other averments, not inserted in such complaint, would be essential to a valid information charging the same offense. Tested by this criterion, the complaint against the petitioner was sufficient as an accusation charging him with the same offense as that embodied in the information filed in the District Court. Hence the error assigned must be overruled.

Counsel for petitioner cites White v. State, (Neb.) 44 N. W. Rep. 443. The case is good law, but is not in point here. In that case the complaint on which White was arrested did not in any manner set out any criminal charge against the accused, and the Supreme Court held that the District Court was therefore without authority to put the accused on his trial upon an information filed by the states attorney. As has been seen, we fully concur in that construction of the statute, and Nebraska statute being identical with. ours. Counsel also cites the following cases: People v. Chapman, (Mich.) 28 N. W. Rep. 896; State v. Braithwaite, (Idaho,) 27 Pac. Rep. 731; People v. Wallace, (Cal.) 29 Pac. Rep. 950; People v. Parker, (Cal.) 27 Pac. Rep. 537. Some of the cases last