federal prosecution
Criminal prosecution brought by the US federal government in a U.S. District Court
Federal prosecution is, in US law, a criminal prosecution brought by the United States federal government against a defendant for violating federal legislation — that is, not state law, but laws enacted by Congress and codified in the United States Code. The case is typically conducted by a U.S. Attorney's Office on behalf of the government and heard before a federal court, a U.S. District Court. Unlike state criminal cases, which are handled by the individual states' own prosecution services and courts, federal cases have jurisdiction when the crime crosses state lines, involves federal interests, or directly violates federal law.
This is precisely why cases involving organised drug trafficking, money laundering, racketeering, internet crime and sexual exploitation of children very often become federal cases: these offences are to a large extent also regulated at the federal level. A federal criminal case is normally initiated when a grand jury — a panel of citizens — assesses the evidence and issues a formal charge, known as an indictment, if there are sufficient grounds for prosecution. This is a central procedural difference from many state systems and from Danish law, where the prosecution service can itself bring charges without such a panel.
The specific statutory provisions applied in a federal prosecution vary according to the nature of the offence. Drug cases typically rely on the Controlled Substances Act, money laundering cases on 18 U.S.C. § 1956, RICO cases on 18 U.S.C. § 1962, cases of child sexual abuse material on 18 U.S.C. § 2252, and fraud cases on, for example, 18 U.S.C. § 1343 on wire fraud. The overall framework for federal crimes and criminal procedure is found in Title 18 of the United States Code.
In the cases Krimidex covers, federal prosecution is a recurring element: the reach of Falcon and Magluta's cocaine cartel across state lines made the case federal; Jared Fogle's conduct involved material distributed across state lines; and the Mafia Commission Trial was a RICO case brought by federal prosecutors in New York. Common to all of them is that it was the US federal government — not an individual state — that brought the prosecution.
