292
Stevens, J., dissenting
In Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516 (1884), we decided that the Due Process Clause does not compel the States to proceed by way of grand jury indictment when they initiate a prosecution. In reaching that conclusion, however, we noted that the substance of the federal guarantee was preserved by California's requirement that a magistrate certify "to the probable guilt of the defendant." Id., at 538. In accord with Hurtado, I would hold that Illinois may dispense with the grand jury procedure only if the substance of the probable-cause requirement remains adequately protected.2
I
Assuming, as we must, that the allegations of petitioner's complaint are true, it is perfectly clear that the probable-cause requirement was not satisfied in this case. Indeed, it is plain that respondent Oliver, who attested to the criminal information against petitioner, either knew or should have known that he did not have probable cause to initiate criminal proceedings.
Oliver's only evidence against petitioner came from a paid informant who established her unreliability on more than 50 occasions, when her false accusations led to aborted and dismissed prosecutions.3 Nothing about her performance in
2 In Hurtado, 110 U. S., at 532, the Court made this comment on the traditions inherited from English law, with particular reference to the Magna Carta: "Applied in England only as guards against executive usurpation and tyranny, here they have become bulwarks also against arbitrary legislation; but, in that application, as it would be incongruous to measure and restrict them by the ancient customary English law, they must be held to guarantee not particular forms of procedure, but the very substance of individual rights to life, liberty, and property.
". . . Such regulations, to adopt a sentence of Burke's, 'may alter the mode and application but have no power over the substance of original justice.' "
3 According to the complaint, Oliver, a detective in the Macomb, Illinois, Police Department, agreed to provide Veda Moore with protection and money in exchange for her assistance in acting as a confidential inform-
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