Where Do You Handle Federal Cases?
By Dan Noll on August 29th, 2014 in
The Noll law office handles a number of federal cases throughout the Central District of Illinois. Central District of Illinois consists of 47 different counties. There are 4 different federal courts in Central District of Illinois. Of course, like any state capital, Springfield, where our office is located, has one of the federal courts. Also Champaign-Urbana where the University of Illinois is. Peoria has a federal court and also Rock Island. Each of these federal courts have sitting federal judges with magistrates who handle many of the preliminary matters.
I would say we probably do most of our cases out of Springfield. However, over the years we’ve done a number in Champaign and also in Peoria. We do trials throughout the district. The trials themselves take place wherever the court is located, be it Peoria, Champaign or Springfield.
The trials themselves can commence with the initiation of an indictment. An indictment has to be held in a federal court unless a criminal defendant waives the indictment. Sometimes as part of the plea negotiation before a person is charged, we’ll waive a preliminary, as you may, indictment and we will proceed forward on what is known as a complaint or information.
The proceedings themselves start with the formal charges. Let’s assume that an individual has been investigated by the federal authorities. The grand jury in the Central District of Illinois will meet in Springfield the first week of each month. They also meet in Peoria and I’m not sure exactly what day of the month they meet there.