Definition
To arraign a defendant is to bring that person formally before the court to hear the charges against them and to enter a plea. The proceeding itself is called an arraignment. In modern practice, arraignment involves three core steps: the defendant is called by name, the charge or indictment is read or summarized aloud, and the defendant is asked to enter a plea of guilty, not guilty, or — in jurisdictions that permit it — nolo contendere.
Arraignment is a distinct stage of criminal procedure, occurring after charging but before trial. It is not a hearing on the merits of the case and is not the same as a preliminary hearing or a bail hearing, though these proceedings are sometimes consolidated in practice.
In older English law, the verb carried a broader sense: to set in order, to arrange, or to call to account. An assize could be arraigned — that is, formally convened and organized. This secondary meaning has no practical survival in modern American criminal practice.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Wiktionary redirects arraign to arraignment, reflecting the near-exclusive legal association of the word in contemporary English.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's captures both the legal sense — calling a prisoner before the bar to answer a charge — and a broader figurative use: "to call to account, or accuse, before the bar of reason, taste, or any other tribunal." The quotations illustrate its currency in general prose.
The gap worth noting: In literary and rhetorical English, one could arraign a policy, a person's character, or an institution — meaning to subject it to formal criticism or condemnation. That figurative meaning is entirely absent from legal usage. In a legal research context, encountering arraign or arraigned in historical non-legal texts should not be read as a reference to criminal procedure.
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Common Confusion
ARRAIGN vs. INDICT vs. CHARGE: These three terms mark different stages and actors. An indictment is the grand jury's formal accusation; charging encompasses all mechanisms by which the state initiates prosecution (indictment, information, complaint). Arraignment is what happens after charging — it is the defendant's first formal court appearance in response to those charges. A defendant is indicted before being arraigned, not the reverse.
ARRAIGNMENT vs. PRELIMINARY HEARING: A preliminary hearing tests whether probable cause supports the charges; arraignment does not. In many jurisdictions and in federal practice, both proceedings occur, but they serve entirely different functions. In some lower courts, these proceedings are collapsed into a single appearance, which can create confusion in older transcripts and records.
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Why It Matters in Research
Arraignment is a procedural checkpoint, and its precise meaning and timing affect how researchers interpret primary sources across several contexts.
First, timing matters for constitutional rights analysis. The right to counsel, speedy trial calculations, and the voluntariness of statements all have attachment points tied to when formal proceedings begin — which in many doctrinal frameworks is measured from arraignment or its equivalent. Researchers working on Sixth Amendment issues, ineffective assistance claims, or post-indictment interrogation cases need to track when arraignment occurred relative to other events.
Second, historical sources use the term more broadly. In English legal materials predating the nineteenth century, arraign and arraignment appear in contexts having nothing to do with the modern criminal procedure step — including the arraignment of assizes and other procedural arrangements. Bouvier notes this directly, and Burrill's entry shows the Old French and Latin roots pointing toward the sense of "calling to account" or "putting to reason," not a narrow plea-entry ceremony. Researchers in pre-modern English law or early American practice should not assume the modern procedural meaning.
Third, military practice uses the term with specific procedural content that differs from civilian courts-martial. The arraignment in a court-martial context is governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Manual for Courts-Martial, not the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The sequence and consequences of arraignment in military proceedings — including the timing of motions and the entry of pleas — operate under distinct rules.
Fourth, in jurisdictions with high-volume misdemeanor courts, arraignment is often the only meaningful court appearance before a plea or disposition. Researchers studying access to justice, public defender workloads, or plea bargaining dynamics need to understand that in these contexts arraignment is doing substantially more procedural work than the formal definition suggests.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The core definition is stable across all five source dictionaries: arraign means to bring a defendant to the bar to hear the charge and enter a plea. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, and Anderson's agree closely on this formulation, with Black's 2nd Edition citing Crain v. United States as authority for the procedural elements.
Bouvier's adds the secondary English meaning — that an assize may be arraigned — and cites Littleton and Termes de la Ley, signaling that the broader usage was still legally relevant at the time of writing, even if purely historical.
Burrill's is the most linguistically detailed, tracing the Old French and Law Latin lineage and quoting Parliament rolls and Selden. This entry is useful primarily for researchers working in early English legal history or needing to trace the word's doctrinal origins. It does not add to modern practice but reminds the researcher that the word's original sense — ad rationem ponere, to put to account — was broader than the modern procedural moment.
What the historical dictionaries collectively underemphasize: the constitutional dimensions of arraignment that emerged in American law through the twentieth century. None of the source dictionaries address right-to-counsel requirements at arraignment, the significance of arraignment for speedy trial purposes, or the procedural consolidations common in modern practice. These developments require consultation of modern sources alongside the historical entries.
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Jurisdictional Note
Federal practice under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (Rule 10) defines arraignment with specificity: the defendant must be brought before the court, the indictment or information read, and a plea entered. State practice varies, particularly in how arraignment interacts with bail hearings, preliminary hearings, and initial appearances — some states treat these as a single proceeding, others keep them strictly separate. Researchers should not assume uniformity across state systems when using arraignment as a procedural marker.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Arraignment and Entry of Plea — The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia
Courts-Martial Procedure: Investigation (Article 32), Arraignment, Trial, and Sentencing — The Law Mind Military, Veterans & Admiralty Law Encyclopedia
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