Describing the pre-indictment stage
One of the good things about a pre-indictment stage — which simply means there’s an investigation that’s ongoing, but yet the target or the person who’s being looked at is not indicted yet or not formally charged by the court or by the district attorney’s office or the U.S. attorney’s office. The pre-indictment stage, the good thing about that, the positive thing is that if you know there’s an investigation that’s ongoing, you can hire counsel, you can get in for two or three different reasons that could be — that could assist you in your defense, one, to simply find out what the allegations are and to try to get as many specifics about that as you can to find out what’s coming down the pike, so to speak, or what you’re looking at. Secondly, you usually have some time pre-indictment, especially in a federal case, because those are larger, take a longer time to investigate and prepare for a grand jury presentation. So you have time to get in not only to find out what the allegations are but to get in and see if there’s something that you can go back through your attorney and present to the prosecutor to either head off a prosecution or mitigate it. Or if it is a good case for the government, truly a good case, and it’s coming at you, then usually if there’s some concessions to be made where you can — you can get the best deal you can, so to speak, under the circumstances, then that’s usually going to be done pre-indictment.
Categories: Criminal Law, Pretrial Procedures