Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criminal accusation (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Withdrawn. Article development, merging, or redirection will proceed through normal editing and discussion. postdlf (talk) 16:18, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Criminal accusation

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Not a widely accepted term within the law. The topic is covered by Indictment and Information (formal criminal charge). No ascertainable definition from a reputable dictionary source. First and only search result which defines Criminal accusation as a specific term is Wikipedia.com WookieeV (talk) 01:00, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

*Withdrawn by nominator Apparent consensus that the article needs to be addressed in terms of redirection or merger, rather than deletion. WookieeV (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This should not be deleted. The term appears in hundreds of books in GBooks. Deacon and Starkie, for example, appear to suggest that it was a term of art in English law including indictment, presentment, information, inquisition and verdict. If this is the parent topic of five notable topics, it will itself be notable. At the very least this expression should be redirected as it is an obvious synonym for charge or complaint, which are definitely real. And I am far more interested in what is said by real law books written by experts than in what mere dictionaries have to say. James500 (talk) 10:25, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - appeared indeed in hundreds of Gbooks etc. --BabbaQ (talk) 10:59, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The Criminal Trial in Later Medieval England has a detailed history of the matter. A variety of technical terms are used in this such as presentment (which seems to need an article too, and I'll start one) but criminal accusation is the phrase used for the general concept. As legal jargon varies from place to place and time to time, we should prefer a summary in plain English for the general reader. Andrew D. (talk) 11:15, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Having read through the first 10 pages of search on GBooks, criminal accusation is hardly a parent topic for indictment, presentment, information etc. It is, at very best (based on one source), a vestigial term of art that no longer has use or bearing in the common law system of the UK and absolutely no presence in US jurisprudence. Aside from The Criminal Trial in Later Medieval England (where the term is used twice in total), the term is used as a general catch all. If the community feels the article should be kept, I propose that it be merged into one of the accepted terms- Indictment seems the most likely. A 'Historical Context' heading and brief discussion would suffice.WookieeV (talk) 17:27, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

At least two treatises say the expression is an umbrella term used in England at that time for indictment, presentment, information, inquisition and verdict. Unless you can find a source that contradicts them, or casts doubt on their reliability, we are going to accept that what they say is true. This source has the term being used in an almost identical sense in the United States as recently the 1970s, probably derived from the English usage. This source has the term as a synonym for charge, will preclude deletion as a plausible redirect. A merge to indictment would be innapropriate as this term is broader than that one. If we were going to merge this, it would be to an even broader topic, possibly to an article on criminal procedure in general. Looking through the first ten pages of results is not enough. You need to look at all of them (WP:BEFORE). James500 (talk) 01:38, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The first source you linked has criminal accusation under the indictment meta-heading and as a direct result of indictment; further supporting the merger into Indictment. Paralegal Studies: An Introduction also lists criminal accusation as a result of formal indictment. The synonym for charge, I agree with you completely, does preclude deletion. Thank you for finding that. Perhaps that is the best place for it, redirection to information (formal criminal charge). I guess my real issue with this term/article is that it's extremely amorphous- we aren't finding anything that actually lays out what it is. It's circular: ″a criminal accusation is an accusation that is criminal″... well, gee, that tells us a whole lot. Whereas inclusion as a historical reference point for the current process of indictment and charging of a crime makes it relevant and, more importantly, accurate. So, I am agreeing that it potentially needs to be merged into the big article on Crim Pro. In US law, the 6th amendment makes a reference to an accusation, in fact it is included as part of the phrase on information. This is the basis for our current system of indictment and information. But that's US centric and not of general significance on its own. WookieeV (talk) 03:00, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Summary of American Law" does not put criminal accusation under a heading of indictment, it puts it under a heading of "indictment and information" and says that an information is a criminal accusation. This does not support merger into Indictment, because an information is not an indictment. "Paralegal Studies" does not say that an indictment is the only type of criminal accusation, and is obviously about the United States, so it can't contradict the books by Deacon and Starkie so far as they relate to England. A redirect to our article on criminal informations has the same problems as a redirect to our article on indictments, as it excludes other things that are said to be criminal accusations. In any event, if we follow the "American Dictionary of Criminal Justice", the logical target would be Criminal charge, that being the term defined as a criminal accusation. We have several sources giving us lists of things that are criminal accusations, and, in a sense, those are definitions. Legal terms are often amorphous because they are regularly redefined, because the law changes over time, and changes in different ways in different jurisdictions, and old labels are (confusingly) applied to what are arguably new concepts. Whether there is support for turning the articles for such terms into disambiguation pages remains to be seen. If you agree this page should not be deleted because it is a plausible redirect (eg to Criminal charge), you should withdraw your nomination, because AfD isn't for merger proposals. James500 (talk) 09:24, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy keep per criteria 1 of WP:SK (the nominator has withdrawn and no one else has argued for deletion, as opposed to merger or redirection). James500 (talk) 14:19, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.