Summary offence
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] United States
In the law of many common law jurisdictions, a summary offence (or summary offense) is an offence which can be tried without an indictment. In practice, this often means a trial without a jury, jury trials being reserved for indictable offences. Summary offences are often "petty crimes" or crimes that are not considered very severe such as most driving offences.
Summary offences have a length of time which they are valid on a State's recordkeeping. In most states, summary offences last 5-7 years.
[edit] Canada
In Canada summary offences are referred to as summary conviction offences. As in other jurisdictions summary conviction offences are considered less serious than indictable offences because they are punishable by shorter prison sentences and smaller fines. These offences appear both in the federal laws of Canada and in the legislation of Canada's provinces and territories. For summary conviction offences that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government (which includes all criminal law), section 785 of the Criminal Code of Canada specifies that, unless another punishment is provided for by law, the maximum penalty for a summary conviction offence is a sentence of 6 months of imprisonment, a fine of $2000 or both. Section 786 of the Code then goes on to prohibit persons from being tried for a summary conviction offence more than 6 months after the offence was committed unless both the prosecutor and defendant agree otherwise.
