Studer v. State

Article 1, § 10, Bill of Rights, Constitution of the State of Texas, guarantees that “no person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense, unless on an indictment of a grand jury, except in cases in which the punishment is by fine or imprisonment, otherwise than in the penitentiary,” and with certain other exceptions not pertinent here.1 In the latter cases the prosecution is usually on an information, as here.

Reduced to its simplest form, the controlling question in this cause is what constitutes an “information” purporting to charge a misdemeanor offense.

I

In this jurisdiction our first…