Rule 13 Trial Together of Complaints, Indictments and Informations

If someone is facing more than one set of criminal charges filed in separate documents, the court can decide to combine them into one trial. This is allowed as long as the charges (or the defendants, if there's more than one person involved) could have legally been included together in a single charging document from the start.

Once the court combines the cases, the trial moves forward just like it would if everything had been filed together in the first place. This means the same rules and procedures apply, even though the charges started out in separate paperwork.

For someone involved in a case, this matters because it affects how their trial will be handled. If charges are combined, a person could face multiple accusations at once in front of the same jury, rather than dealing with each case separately in its own trial.