What is the current state of the law on pleading and procedure in criminal proceedings?

Only recently we had occasion to point out that 'The statutory rules of pleading and procedure in criminal actions today are not only different from, but in certain aspects are contraversions of, those which existed under the Practice Act of 1851 and even under the Penal Code prior to the amendments of 1915 and 1927.' (People v. Tideman (1962) 57 A.C. 619, 623(1), 21 Cal.Rptr. 207, 370 P.2d 1007.) In this century alone there have been many changes in the criminal law, both substantive and procedural, which give a force and effect to a charge of prior conviction, if found to be true, that could not have been foreseen by the framers of our two Constitutions and our first codes. This effect is now felt throughout the entire judicial process. To begin with, the charging of all known prior

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