State Cases VS. Federal Cases: the snail and the rocket dockets

One of the biggest differences between State and Federal cases is the timeline. In a State case, your client may be arrested by a law enforcement agency and it could be weeks before the case is filed with the D.A.'s office, weeks before the case is presented to the Grand Jury (in the case of a Felony), and a few weeks before the trial prosecutors get the case and the real negotiations begin. If your client can't make bond for whatever reason, they could be sitting in jail for quite a while, but as a defense attorney you have a little time to do your own investigation before taking your initial stance with the prosecutors, and a great deal of time before the case would actually go to jury trial (if that is required).

Federal cases are a completely different animal. Because Federal cases must go to trial withing 90 days of the indictment being returned (unless that is later waived), the Federal law enforcement agencies and the US Attorney's offices investigate for months and perhaps years before they present their case to the Federal Grand Jury. The first time your client finds out that they are even under investigation may be after they are arrested on a post indictment warrant. When this happens, the attorney is given the discovery by the US attorney, usually a massive amount of information, and must make some key decisions in consultation with their client very quickly.

Case in point. I get a call yesterday at about 11:45 to represent a guy in Federal Court on a case. I am told to show up at 1:00. When I get there, I meet briefly with my client and at 1:01 the chamber doors open and the magistrate comes in and does the initial appearance hearing, the appointment of the attorneys, the arraignment, and detention hearings, all in about 10 minutes. I met the US Attorney handling the case and she gives me the discovery consisting of 5 Cd's of information! Today the judge issues a scheduling order giving us a motion deadline in two weeks and a trial date in May!

While I would never recommend choosing someone inexperienced in criminal jurisprudence to handle any criminal case, your buddy or relative who is an attorney might be able to get up to speed in the pace of a State prosecution. In a Federal case however, you had better go with someone who already knows what their doing because it's a fasten your seat belts, peddle to the metal game of chicken with a freight train in Federal Court.