The New Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure: I

Abstract

ON March 21, 1946, a new set of rules of criminal procedure for the federal courts went into effect. Hailed by former Attorney General Homer Cummings as "a triumph of the democratic process," this body of rules is the non-legislative product of a laborious, eight-year enterprise which required the participation of a great many individuals and groups throughout the United States, including judges, lawyers, government officers, legal scholars, and committees of bench and bar. In contrast with the unwieldy legislative codes of criminal procedure of many of the states, these rules occupy but sixty small pages of large print. In a pocket edition, as the late Judge George Z. Medalie once remarked, they would take up no more space than a box of matches.