This is the index to everything we publish about the federal court process — what happens to a person in a federal criminal case, in order, from the first knock on the door to the day the sentence is over. Its job is to send you to the right page for where your case actually is, so start by finding your stage below.
If the case is already finished and the question is about a conviction, a sentence, or release from custody, the last two sections of this page route you out of the court process and into the parts of the site that cover appeals, collateral attack, and the Bureau of Prisons. Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a national federal practice with offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; we serve clients in federal courts across the country.
Federal Criminal Defense Resources
The federal court process, stage by stage
A federal criminal case moves through seven stages, and each one decides something different. Start with the federal court process overview if you want the whole sequence in one table, your constitutional rights set out amendment by amendment, and an explanation of how to work with a defense lawyer. Otherwise go straight to your stage.
- Investigation — decides whether you are charged at all, and with what. Affects anyone who has received a target letter, a grand jury subpoena, or a visit from federal agents. Nothing here is on a public docket, and this is the stage where a lawyer can change the most.
- Pretrial — decides whether you are released or detained, and what evidence the government has to hand over. Covers the initial appearance, the detention hearing, arraignment, the motions deadline, and Rule 16 discovery.
- Plea agreements — decides whether there is a trial, what you plead to, and how much of it binds the judge. Most federal cases end here, and the type of agreement matters more than the number in it.
- Trial — decides guilt or acquittal, count by count, before a jury of twelve that must be unanimous. Also covers suppression motions and the Jencks Act.
- Presentence report — decides the facts the judge sentences on, and produces a document that follows you into the Bureau of Prisons. This is where objections are won or lost, on a fourteen-day clock.
- Sentencing basics — decides the sentence: custody, supervised release, restitution and fines. Explains how the Guidelines fit among the seven statutory factors rather than replacing them.
- After sentencing — decides whether the conviction or sentence is reviewed, and how the sentence is served. The notice of appeal is due fourteen days after entry of judgment, which is the shortest and most-missed deadline in the whole case.
Terms, charges, and how federal differs from state
- Glossary of federal criminal terms — plain-English definitions of the words you will hear: information, arraignment, detention hearing, allocution, variance, departure, supervised release.
- Federal vs. state cases — why the two systems are not versions of each other. Different prosecutors, no bail schedule, no parole, different sentencing, different prisons.
- Federal offenses and charges — a guide to what the federal government actually prosecutes, and the elements of the most common charges.
- Perjury — the federal perjury statutes, what a false statement under oath actually requires, and why “literally true but misleading” is treated differently.
- Accessory — accessory liability in federal law, and how it differs from aiding and abetting and from conspiracy.
- The First Step Act — the 2018 reform that changed good conduct time, created earned time credits, and altered several mandatory minimums.
- Video center — short explainers on federal procedure and post-conviction relief.
- South Carolina — resources for federal cases in the District of South Carolina, where the firm’s offices are.
If someone you know is going to prison, or is already there
These pages are for the part of the case that begins when the sentence does. They are written by the firm’s federal prison consulting side.
- What families should know about federal prison and surviving federal prison as a first-time offender — the two pages most families read first.
- Medical care levels in federal prison — how the Bureau assigns care levels and what that means for placement.
- The federal inmate transfer process and the Designation and Sentence Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas, which decides where a federal sentence is served and computes its length.
- What rights do prisoners have? — the constitutional and statutory floor for conditions of confinement.
- Correctional officers and wardens — who runs a federal prison and who decides what.
- The Federal Prison Handbook — Christopher Zoukis’s reference work on how the Bureau of Prisons operates.
Education and programming in federal prison
- Inmate education levels · the prison library · vocational training in prison and why it is worth pursuing
- Prison education reduces recidivism · prison education outside the United States
- The Ohio University correctional education program · California Coast University · the federal prison scholarship
If the case is already over: appeals, § 2255, and early release
The court process ends at sentencing. What follows is a different set of proceedings with different courts, different standards, and different deadlines — and they are the core of this firm’s practice.
- Federal appeals — direct review in the court of appeals. Start with what an appeal is, the grounds for a federal appeal, and how long a federal appeal takes.
- § 2255 motions — collateral attack in the sentencing court, and the usual home for an ineffective-assistance claim. See what a § 2255 motion is, direct appeal versus § 2255, and post-conviction deadlines.
- Compassionate release — a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). See the overview and the request to the warden and exhaustion requirement.
- Early release from federal prison — First Step Act time credits, RDAP, the PATTERN risk score, halfway house and home confinement.
- Sentence mitigation — including mandatory minimum sentences and what can and cannot be done about them.
- Clemency — pardon and commutation petitions.
Bureau of Prisons policy and daily life inside
We maintain a large library of explainers on the Bureau’s own written policy, and a second on what prison is actually like. Both are more useful than they sound: BOP policy is where release dates, placement and programming are decided.
- BOP policy explainers — including good conduct time, First Step Act time credits, sentence computation, security designation and custody classification, and the inmate discipline program.
- Prison life — including how to prepare for prison, before you report, self-surrender, designation, the first day inside, visitation, supervised release basics, and a section for families.
- Federal prison directory — a record for every federal facility.
On this page
Government Resources
These are primary sources, free to the public, and worth bookmarking. They are the documents this site cites, not summaries of them.
- United States Courts — the federal judiciary’s own site, including an overview of how a criminal case proceeds and the district-by-district court locator.
- Current Federal Rules of Practice and Procedure — the official text of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, as amended. If a page anywhere states a deadline, this is where to check it.
- United States Sentencing Commission — the 2025 Guidelines Manual (courts generally apply the edition in effect on the date of sentencing), plus the Commission’s amendment history and sentencing data.
- The Justice Manual — the Department of Justice’s internal handbook for federal prosecutors, including the Principles of Federal Prosecution. Read it to understand how prosecutors are told to think. It is Department policy, not law: it creates no rights and a defendant cannot enforce it.
- U.S. Department of Justice — the agency that prosecutes federal crimes, and the parent of the FBI, DEA, ATF and the Bureau of Prisons.
- Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator — find where a federal prisoner is held, by name or register number.
- PACER — public access to federal court dockets and filings. Registration is free; documents are charged per page.
- Federal Judicial Center — the judiciary’s research and education agency, and a good source for how federal courts actually operate.
- Defender Services — the judiciary’s page on Federal Public Defender organizations and Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys, who provide representation to defendants the court finds financially unable to obtain counsel.
- USA.gov — the federal government’s general portal for agencies and public services.
Visit Our Federal Law Offices
Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. — Columbia, South Carolina 3710 Landmark Dr #113, Columbia, SC 29204
Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. — Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
Telephone: (843) 620-1100
Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, running a national practice on an intentionally small caseload. Elizabeth Franklin-Best has more than 20 years of federal and appellate criminal defense experience and is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit. Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, is the firm’s Managing Director and leads its federal prison consulting work; he holds a J.D. but is not the attorney of record, and legal representation is provided by Elizabeth Franklin-Best.
If you want to talk to someone about where a case stands and what the next deadlines are, use the contact page or call the number above. You can also read about the firm or book a consultation.
The pages in this section are general information about federal criminal procedure and federal prison policy. They are not legal advice, they do not create an attorney–client relationship, and they cannot account for the facts of any particular case. See our disclaimer.
Together they are recognized authorities on 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motions and federal post-conviction relief.
Frequently Asked Questions About Federal Criminal Defense Resources
Where do I start if I have just been contacted by federal agents?
Start with investigation. That page explains what a target letter, a subject designation, a grand jury subpoena and a search warrant each mean, and what changes depending on which one you have. If nothing has been filed yet, you are at the stage where the most is still decidable — and the stage where what you say has the longest consequences.
My family member was just arrested by federal agents. What happens in the next week?
Read pretrial. It covers the initial appearance before a magistrate judge, the detention hearing, and how federal release actually works — which is by conditions, not by a bail amount, and with no bail schedule and no bondsman. The federal vs. state page explains why the process will not look like anything you have seen in state court.
Is there a page that just defines the words?
Yes — the glossary. Federal procedure runs on terms of art that nobody explains in the courtroom: information, arraignment, allocution, variance, departure, acceptance of responsibility, supervised release.
How do I find out where someone is being held?
Use the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, which searches by name or by register number. Where a person is sent is decided by the Designation and Sentence Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas — not by the judge, who can only recommend. Our page on designation explains how that decision is made.
The case is over. Which page do I need — appeal or § 2255?
They are different proceedings with different courts and different clocks, and the comparison is on our page on direct appeal versus § 2255. In short: a direct appeal goes to the court of appeals and is due very quickly after judgment; a § 2255 motion goes back to the sentencing court and is the usual home for claims — such as ineffective assistance of counsel — that depend on facts outside the trial record. The deadlines for both are set out on after sentencing and on post-conviction deadlines.
Where can I read the actual rules, rather than someone’s summary?
The Government Resources section above links the primary sources directly: the Federal Rules of Criminal and Appellate Procedure, the United States Sentencing Commission’s 2025 Guidelines Manual, and the Justice Manual. Every legal statement on the pages in this section carries a link to the source it comes from, and our note on how we verify explains the process behind that.
Do you only take cases in South Carolina?
No. The firm’s offices are in South Carolina, and the practice is national — Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and to twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals, and has been admitted pro hac vice in federal district courts from Montana to Florida. The areas we serve page lists where the firm regularly appears.
What does the firm actually do?
Federal criminal defense and, above all, federal post-conviction work: appeals, § 2255 motions, § 2241 petitions, sentence reductions, compassionate release, First Step Act matters, Bureau of Prisons administrative proceedings, and clemency. The practice areas page is the full list, and the fees page explains how post-conviction work is priced.
Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026