RIGHTS OF PERSONS.
CHAPTER 79.
AN ACT TO DEFINE THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WHO ARE ACCUSED OF CRIMES AND OFFENCES.
Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Dakota:
Section 1. No person shall be held to answer for criminal offence, unless on the presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases of impeachment, or in cases cognizable by justices of the peace, or arising in the army, or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public danger.
Sect. 2. In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to be heard by himself and counsel; to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him; to meet the witnesses face to face; to have compulsory process to compel the attendance of witnesses in his behalf, and in prosecutions by indictment or information, to a speedy public trial by an impartial jury of the county or district wherein the offence shall have been committed, which county or district shall have been previously ascertained by law.
Sect. 3. No person indicted for an offence shall be convicted thereof, unless by confession of his guilt in open court, or by admitting the truth of the charge against him by his plea or demurrer, or by the verdict of a jury accepted and recorded by the court.
Sect. 4. No person shall be held to answer on a second indictment for an offence of which he has been acquitted by for came offence, the jury, upon the facts and merits, upon a former trial; but such acquittal may be pleaded by him in bar of any subsequent prosecution for the same offence, notwithstanding any defect in the form or in the substance of the indictment on which he was acquitted.
