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.
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