Initiation of Federal Criminal Proceeding In Long Island

Complaint Filed In Long Island

A federal criminal proceeding in Long Island is initiated by a complaint. A federal complaint is an accusation that charges the accused with commission of a crime based on probable cause. The complaint will also state the essential facts constituting the offense charged. It must mention specific facts that constitute the offense. Often, the complaint serves as the application for the arrest warrant. The defendant still must be indicted to be tried.

The complaint must be sworn before a federal magistrate judge in Long Island. If the government bases a sworn, signed complaint to arrest a defendant on inaccurate information and the arresting federal officer uses this misleading complaint in his subsequent grand jury testimony, leading to the defendant’s indictment, the indictment should be dismissed.

The magistrate judge must investigate whether a complaint alleges probable cause for the commission of an offense, that is whether the defendant has committed the crime he is accused of.

Arrest Warrant and Summons In Long Island

The Fourth Amendment forbids unreasonable searches and seizures, and requires probable cause for an arrest or for a search of a suspect’s real or personal property. The Fourth Amendment further provides that no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause. This requires a neutral and detached judicial officer to determine the existence of probable cause. When seeking a warrant, an officer must present sufficient facts to allow the judicial officer to weigh the evidence in a non-technical, common sense and realistic manner, and to make an independent judgment as to the existence of probable cause.

Arrest warrants must be very specific. Under Federal Rules, this means that the warrant must contain the defendant’s name or, if it is unknown, a name or description by which the defendant can be identified with reasonable certainty. If an arrest warrant is issued for a specific, named person, the law enforcement may not use it to arrest another person, even if the person arrested was actually the intended subject of the warrant.

Federal Rules require the following for a valid arrest warrant:

• The warrant must describe the offense charged in the complaint;
• The warrant must command that the defendant be arrested and brought without unnecessary delay before a magistrate judge or, if none is reasonably available, before a state or local judicial officer; and
• The warrant must be signed by a judge.

In some situations, state police may arrest a person on a state warrant for a federal offense. If no federal agents participated in obtaining the state warrant or in the actual arrest, it is not a federal arrest that must conform to the federal rules.
Only a U.S. marshal or ”other authorized officer” may execute a federal arrest warrant. That includes:

• Any federal judge or magistrate judge;
• Any state judicial officer of a state where the offender may be found;
• The mayor of any city in a state where the offender may be found;
• The officers, inspectors, and agents of the FBI;
• Special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives;
• The officers, inspectors, and agents of the Secret Service;
• Postal Inspectors;
• Law enforcement officers of the Environmental Protection Agency.

A warrant may be executed throughout the United States, wherever the defendant is, regardless of where the offense occurred.

To arrest a suspect at home, a valid arrest warrant is usually required, unless there are some exigent circumstances that justifying a warrantless arrest in home. Exigent circumstances exist when there is a need for arrest and no time to obtain a warrant, for example, where the officers have a reasonable belief that there is a threat to live or that a suspect will escape or destroy evidence. Also, the warrantless arrest of a suspect in his or her home is justified when the arrest is made as part of a ”hot pursuit” of the suspect.

An arrest warrant does not allow entry into a third party’s home in which the subject of the warrant is merely visiting. An arrest warrant only allows the agents to enter a home in which the suspect lives when there is reason to believe the suspect is at home and that means only the suspect’s home, not as it does not provide sufficient protection for a third party’s right to privacy in his or her own home. However, only the third-party home owner has standing to challenge the warrantless search of the home. This right is personal to the home owner and may not be asserted by the person named in the warrant and arrested in another’s home.

The warrantless arrest of a felony suspect in a public place is a completely different story. When the arrest is based on probable cause, it does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

A violation of the Fourth Amendment will result in suppression of the evidence gained from the illegal search or seizure but will not stop the government from pursuing the case. It will also not invalidate subsequent conviction.
In most cases, under the exclusionary rule, any evidence that is either the direct or indirect result of illegal government conduct must be suppressed. However, these ”fruits of the poisonous tree” will be admitted if the prosecutor establishes that:

(1) the evidence was obtained from a source independent of the primary illegality

(2) the evidence inevitably would have been discovered in the course of the investigation

(3) the connection between the challenged evidence and the illegal conduct is so attenuated that it dissipates the taint of the illegal action

There are some exceptions to the exclusionary rules, such as where the evidence was obtained from an independent source, or where discovery of the evidence was inevitable, or where there was an attenuated connection between evidence and illegal conduct.