英文法律词典 I-37

INFIRM. Weak, feeble.

2. When a witness is infirm to an extent likely to destroy his life, or to prevent his attendauce at the trial, his testimony¹ de bene esge may be taken at any age. 1 P. Will. 117; see Aged² witness.; Going witness.

INFLUENCE. Authority, credit, ascendance.

2. Influence is proper or improper³. Proper influence is that which one person gains over another by acts of kindness and, attention, and by correct conduct. 3 Serg. & Rawle, 269. Improper influence is that dominion⁴ acquired by any person over a mind of sanity⁵ for general purposes, and of sufficient soundness and discretion⁶ to regulate his affairs in general, which prevents the exercise of his di scretion, and destroys his free will. 1 Cox's Cas. 355. When the former is used to induce a testator to make a will, it will not vitiate it; but when the latter is the moving cause, the will cannot stand. 1 Hagg. R. 581; 2 Hagg. 142; 5 Serg. & Rawle, 207; 13 Serg. & Rawle, 323; 4 Greenl. R. 220; 1 Paige, R. 171; 1 Dow. & Cl. 440; 1 Speers, 93.

3. A contract to use a party's influeuce to induce a person in authority to exercise his power in a particular way, is void, as being against public policy. 5 Watts⁷ & Serg. 315; 5 Penn. St. Rep. 452; 7 Watts, 152.

INFORMALITY. The waut of those forms required by law. Informality is a good ground for a plea in abatement⁸. Com. Dig. Abatement, H 1, 6; Lawes, Pl. 106; Gould, Pl. c. 5, part 1, 132.

INFORMATION. An accusation⁹ or complaint made in writing to a court of competent jurisdiction¹⁰, charging some person with a specific violation¹¹ of some public law. It differs in nothing from an indictment¹² in its form and substance, except that it is filed at the discretion of the proper law officer of the government, ex officio, without the intervention¹³ or approval of a grand jury. 4 Bl. Com. 308, 9.

2. In the French law, the term information is used to signify the act or instrument which contains the depositions¹⁴ of witnesses against the accused. Poth. Proc. Cr. sect¹⁵. 2, art. 5 .

3. Informations have for their object either to punish a crime or misdemeanor, and these have,.perhaps, never been resorted to in the United States or to recover penalties or forfeitures¹⁶, which are quite common. For the form and requisites¹⁷ of an information for a penalty, see 2 Chit. Pr. 155 to 171. Vide Blake's Ch. 49; 14 Vin. Ab. 407; 3 Story, Constitution, 1780 3 Bl. Com. 261.

4. In summary proceedings¹⁸ before justices of the peace, the complaint or accusation, at least when the proceedings relate to a penalty, is called an information, and it is then taken down in writing and sworn to. As the object is to limit the informer to a certain charge, in order that the defendant¹⁹ may know what he has to defend, and the justice may limit the evidence and his subsequent adjudication to the allegations in the information, it follows that the substance of the particular complaint must be stated and it must be sufficiently²⁰ formal to contain all material averments. 8 T. R. 286; 5 Barn. & Cres. 251; 11 E. C. L. R. 217; 2 Chit. Pr. 156. See 1 Wheat. R. 9.