How Criminal Charges Work: From Filing to Dismissal

A criminal charge is a formal accusation by the government that a person has committed a crime, and understanding how criminal charges work matters because a charge is only the start of a legal process, not proof of guilt. The person charged is presumed innocent, and the government still has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt before any conviction can follow. Between the charge and that outcome sits an entire sequence of hearings, deadlines, and decisions, and many cases end somewhere along the way without a conviction at all.

How Charges Get Filed

Most criminal cases begin with either an arrest or a citation. Police may take a person into custody if they witness a crime, have probable cause to believe one occurred, or hold a valid arrest warrant. For minor offenses, an officer may instead issue a citation ordering the person to appear in court on a later date.

An arrest is not the same as a charge. After the arrest, a prosecutor reviews the evidence and decides whether to file formal charges, and that decision carries real discretion. Prosecutors weigh the strength of the evidence, the circumstances of the offense, and available resources, and they can increase, reduce, or drop the charges police initially recommended.¹

When the prosecutor moves forward, the charges take one of three forms:

An indictment is a formal accusation voted on by a grand jury of 16 to 23 citizens who review the prosecutor’s evidence in a closed proceeding. At least 12 grand jurors must agree that sufficient evidence exists to charge the defendant. In federal court, felonies must generally be prosecuted by indictment, a requirement rooted in the Fifth Amendment.²
An information is filed directly by a prosecutor without grand jury involvement. In federal court it is typically used for misdemeanors, though a defendant facing a felony may be charged by information if they waive their right to a grand jury indictment in open court, which often happens once a plea agreement is in place.²
A citation is issued by police for minor matters like traffic offenses or petty misdemeanors and requires a court appearance without an arrest.³

Whatever form the document takes, it must identify the accused, describe the alleged offense, state where and roughly when it occurred, and explain the defendant’s alleged involvement.³

Probable Cause

Before an arrest or a charge, the government must have probable cause: facts and circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to believe a crime has been committed and that the suspect committed it. The Fourth Amendment provides that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.”⁴

The Supreme Court’s decision in Illinois v. Gates (1983) set the modern framework, replacing an older rigid two-part test with a “totality of the circumstances” approach in which a judge makes a practical, common-sense assessment of whether there is a fair probability that a crime occurred or that evidence will be found in a particular place.⁵ Probable cause is a lower bar than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard needed for conviction, but higher than the “reasonable suspicion” that justifies a brief investigative stop. Evidence obtained without probable cause can be suppressed under the exclusionary rule established in Mapp v. Ohio (1961).⁴

What Happens After Charges Are Filed

Arraignment

Once a charge is filed, the defendant is brought before a judge for an arraignment, typically the same day or the day after an arrest in federal cases.⁶ The judge reads the charges, informs the defendant of their constitutional rights, confirms they have an attorney or arranges for one to be appointed, and asks for a plea, usually guilty, not guilty, or no contest.⁷

The court also decides whether the defendant will stay in custody or be released before trial. Possibilities include release on the defendant’s own recognizance, supervised release, bail, or in some cases no release. Judges weigh community ties, prior record, flight risk, and any danger to the public.⁶

Preliminary Hearing

In felony cases, a defendant may be entitled to a preliminary hearing, sometimes called a mini-trial, where a judge decides whether the prosecution has enough evidence to proceed. The prosecutor presents evidence and calls witnesses, the defense cross-examines them, and the rules of evidence are looser than at trial.⁸ If the judge finds probable cause, the defendant is “bound over” for trial. If not, the charges are dismissed.⁹

Rights That Attach When You Are Charged

The filing of formal charges triggers a set of constitutional protections. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is one of the most consequential. In Rothgery v. Gillespie County (2008), the Supreme Court held 8-1 that the right attaches at the defendant’s initial appearance before a judicial officer, when they are told of the charges and their liberty is restricted, whether or not a prosecutor is personally involved in that hearing.¹⁰

Other protections that apply through the Constitution and, in state cases, through the Fourteenth Amendment, include the right to a speedy and public trial, the presumption of innocence, the requirement that guilt be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and protections against cruel and unusual punishment.¹¹

The Deadlines the Government Must Meet

Federal law sets concrete deadlines so a defendant does not sit in limbo after being charged. Under the Speedy Trial Act, an indictment or information must be filed within 30 days of arrest or service of a summons. Once charges are filed, trial must begin within 70 days of the filing date or the defendant’s first court appearance, whichever is later.¹²

Some delays are excluded from the clock: pretrial motions, mental competency evaluations, plea negotiations, and continuances a judge grants when the “ends of justice” outweigh the interest in speed. The defendant is also guaranteed at least 30 days to prepare from the first appearance with counsel.¹² States set their own timelines. In California, for example, a misdemeanor trial must begin within 30 to 45 days of arraignment depending on custody status, and a felony preliminary hearing must occur within 10 court days.⁷

Statutes of Limitations

A separate clock governs how long prosecutors have to file charges in the first place. If that limitation period runs out, charges generally cannot be brought, even where the evidence is strong. The reasoning is practical: witnesses forget, documents disappear, and it becomes unfair to defend against very old accusations.¹³

The clock usually starts when the crime is committed, though for some offenses, particularly fraud and other white-collar crimes, it may not start until the crime is discovered. It can be paused, or “tolled,” if a suspect flees the jurisdiction, hides, or conceals the wrongdoing.¹³ Most states impose no limitation on murder, and many have removed limits for sex crimes against children and other serious violent felonies. A growing number of states allow late charges when DNA evidence identifies a suspect.¹⁴ Otherwise, the periods vary by state and by the severity of the charge, with more serious felonies generally carrying longer windows.

Prosecutor Power and Its Limits

Prosecutors hold enormous influence over what a charged case looks like. American Bar Association standards describe the prosecutor as an “administrator of justice” whose duty is to seek justice rather than convictions, a duty that includes declining to prosecute when circumstances warrant.¹⁵

Critics say discretion can tip into “charge stacking,” filing overlapping or duplicative charges for a single incident to maximize potential sentences and push defendants toward plea deals. The ABA has warned against the practice, and legal scholars have described it as a way to “divide crime and multiply punishment.” Empirical research has found that defendants facing multiple charges have odds of conviction at trial that increase by more than 10 percent, and the practice is more common in state courts.¹⁶ Because plea bargaining resolves an estimated 94 to 97 percent of criminal cases, stacked charges give prosecutors significant leverage.¹

Prosecutors also have a constitutional obligation under Brady v. Maryland to disclose exculpatory evidence, meaning anything favorable to the defense, whether or not the defense asks for it. That covers evidence pointing to innocence, evidence that could reduce a sentence, and evidence that would undermine a prosecution witness. Violations can lead to reversed convictions, mistrials, and sanctions.¹⁷

Ways a Charged Case Can End Without a Conviction

Pretrial Diversion

Not every arrest ends in a charge, and not every charge ends in prosecution. Diversion programs redirect certain defendants, often first-time offenders, veterans, and people with substance use or mental health conditions, into supervised rehabilitation. If the participant completes the program, charges may be declined, dismissed, or reduced.¹⁸

Federal diversion remains uncommon, accounting for less than one percent of federal pretrial cases over the past decade, though several district-level programs report success rates ranging from roughly 54 to 89 percent.¹⁹ Federal diversion is generally unavailable for offenses involving child exploitation, serious bodily injury, firearms, national security, or violations of public trust.¹⁸

Dismissal

Charges can be dismissed for many reasons: insufficient evidence, procedural errors, a violation of the right to a speedy trial, or a prosecutor’s decision that the case is not worth pursuing. Whether the dismissal is “with prejudice” or “without prejudice” changes what comes next. A dismissal with prejudice is permanent and blocks the same charges from being refiled. A dismissal without prejudice leaves the prosecution free to refile, typically within one year or whatever time remains under the statute of limitations.²⁰

Clearing the Record

Even when a case ends without conviction, the arrest and the charge itself can linger on a criminal record and affect employment, housing, and more. Most states offer some form of expungement or record sealing for people who were charged but not convicted, though eligibility and procedures vary widely by state.²¹²² A person who believes charges were brought maliciously and without probable cause may also have a civil claim for malicious prosecution, which requires showing that the case ended in their favor and that no reasonable person would have believed there were grounds for the charges.²³

Charged Is Not Convicted

The gap between a charge and a conviction is the whole point of criminal procedure. A charge is an allegation, a formal statement that the government believes a crime occurred. A conviction is a legal finding of guilt, either by plea or by verdict, resting on the highest standard of proof in American law. Many charged cases never reach that point: they are dismissed, resolved through diversion, end in acquittal, or settle in a plea to a lesser offense. A charge by itself proves nothing.

1
Vera Institute of Justice. The Discretionary Power of Prosecutors
2
Cornell Law Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 7
3
American Bar Association. How Courts Work: Bringing the Charge
4
Cornell Law Institute. Probable Cause
5
Justia US Supreme Court Center. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213
6
U.S. Department of Justice. Justice 101: Initial Hearing
7
California Courts Self-Help. Arraignment
8
U.S. Department of Justice. Justice 101: Preliminary Hearing
9
American Bar Association. How Courts Work: Pretrial Appearances
10
Oyez/SCOTUSblog. Opinion Recap: Rothgery v. Gillespie County
11
Constitution Annotated (Congress.gov). Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Incorporation
12
Cornell Law Institute. 18 U.S.C. § 3161
13
FindLaw. Time Limits for Charges: State Criminal Statutes of Limitations
14
Justia. Criminal Statutes of Limitations: 50-State Survey
15
American Bar Association. Criminal Justice Standards: Prosecution Function
16
Harvard Law Review. Stacked: Where Criminal Charge Stacking Happens and Where It Doesn’t
17
Cornell Law Institute. Brady Rule
18
U.S. Department of Justice. Pretrial Diversion Program
19
American College of Trial Lawyers. Effective Use of Pretrial Diversion in Criminal Cases
20
Cornell Law Institute. Dismissal Without Prejudice
21
Georgia.gov. File a Request to Expunge Criminal Record
22
Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Seal and Expunge Process
23
Cornell Law Institute. Malicious Prosecution