Department of Justice policy defines a target as a person the prosecutor has substantial evidence linking to the commission of an offense and who is a putative defendant, a subject as a person whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury's investigation, and a witness as everyone else. The definitions appear in the Justice Manual, create no rights, and can change as an investigation develops. What a designation signals is the government's present view, not a commitment.
The privilege against self-incrimination applies in the grand jury room, but it is asserted answer by answer rather than announced at the door. A blanket refusal is generally rejected, because the privilege reaches answers that would tend to incriminate rather than attendance itself. Counsel is excluded from the room, though a witness may leave to consult. A valid refusal is met either by dropping the subject or by a compulsion order backed by immunity.
A subpoena for documents can raise a Fifth Amendment problem even when nothing written in the documents is protected. Producing items implicitly asserts that they exist, that they are in the producer's control, and that they answer the description used. Where those assertions are incriminating and not already known, the act is testimonial. The foregone conclusion doctrine removes the protection where the government can independently establish what the production would concede.
A search warrant issues on a sworn affidavit establishing probable cause to believe that particular items connected to an offense will be found in a particular place. The affidavit must supply a nexus between the items and the premises, must rest on information that has not gone stale, and must be presented to a neutral and detached magistrate. Review is confined to the four corners of the affidavit together with any sworn oral supplement recorded by the judge.
Supplemental Rule G(5)(b) requires an answer or a Rule 12 motion within twenty-one days after a claim is filed, while 18 U.S.C. 983(a)(4)(B) states twenty days for the same step. Rule G(6) lets the government serve interrogatories limited to the claimant's identity and relationship to the property without leave, answerable within twenty-one days. A motion to strike under Rule G(8)(c) must be decided before any motion by the claimant to dismiss.
No appeal may be taken from the final order in a habeas proceeding or a proceeding attacking a federal sentence unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability, which requires a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right and must specify the issues satisfying that showing. Where relief was denied on a procedural ground, the applicant must satisfy a two-part version of the test.
Federal law permits commitment for examination for a reasonable period not exceeding thirty days, extendable by fifteen, and requires the report to state the history and present symptoms, the tests used, the findings and the examiner's opinion on the statutory question. States differ on the number of examiners, their qualifications and where the examination occurs, and New York designates two with a third if they disagree.
Counsel representing a non-citizen must advise on the immigration consequence of a contemplated plea before it is entered. Where the removal ground is clear on the face of the statute, the advice must say so plainly; where the category is contested, counsel must say that removal is a real risk. A missing or wrong warning supports a later ineffective assistance claim only if the client can show a different choice was rational.
A device examination proceeds in stages: the device is acquired at one of several levels, the acquisition is hashed so a working copy can be verified, and analysis software parses the resulting data into readable messages, contacts and locations. The report a reader sees is the output of that parsing, not the raw acquisition. Deleted content is recovered from unallocated space and from records marked free, often without the metadata that would place it in time.
Rule 11(b)(3) requires a court to determine that there is a factual basis for a plea before entering judgment. The basis must cover each element of the offense, and the court may draw on the defendant's own statement, a proffer by the government, the presentence report, or any reliable source in the record. The requirement is not satisfied by an admission of guilt in the abstract. The recitation then shapes the presentence report, the guideline calculation and any later collateral proceeding.
The Supreme Court confined asylum state review to whether the extradition documents are facially in order, whether the person has been charged with a crime in the demanding state, whether the person held is the one named, and whether the person is a fugitive. Guilt, the sufficiency of the evidence, the motives of the demanding state and the conditions awaiting the person are all outside the inquiry.
A rendition warrant is signed by the asylum state's governor, sealed, and directed to any peace officer. State enactments of the uniform act require it to substantially recite the facts necessary to the validity of its issuance. A facially valid warrant establishes a prima facie case for surrender, and the person held must then overcome it on one of a short list of grounds.
