Being told you are indicted in federal court is frightening, and the word sounds final. It is not final. "When a person is indicted, they are given formal notice that it is believed that they committed a crime." Notice is the key word. The paper tells you what the government claims you did and which laws it says you broke. "The indictment contains the basic information that informs the person of the charges against them." It does not decide guilt. You are presumed innocent, and the government must still prove each count beyond a reasonable doubt.
The full mechanics of how grand juries vote, what each count must say, and how indictments can be challenged are covered on our federal indictment process page. This page answers a narrower question. You are charged in California. What does a defense lawyer actually do for you at this stage, how does California change the answer, and what should you do right now.
What a defense lawyer does after indictment
The Justice Department describes the defense role in plain terms: "The defendant's attorney assists the defendant in understanding the law and the facts of the case, and represents the defendant just as the prosecutor will represent the Government." In the days after an indictment, that general duty breaks into five concrete jobs, each tied to a deadline.
First, arraignment. "An arraignment must be conducted in open court." The court confirms you have a copy of the indictment, states what it charges, and asks for your plea. Most defendants plead not guilty at this point so counsel has time to obtain discovery, file motions, and talk with the government. If you were arrested before any indictment existed, the earlier steps are described on the federal grand jury page, and the California version of that stage is covered by our California federal grand jury lawyer page.
Second, release or detention. Around the same time as arraignment, the court decides whether you remain in custody or return home under conditions while the case moves forward. Counsel argues for release and proposes conditions the judge can trust, such as supervision, travel limits, or secured bond. The mechanics of that hearing are covered on the federal detention hearing page.
Third, discovery. Counsel demands the government's evidence: the reports, recordings, records, and statements the rules require the prosecution to turn over, plus any material that tends to show innocence. Here California practice starts to differ by district. In the Northern District of California, for example, the local criminal rules provide that "Within 14 days after a defendant's plea of not guilty, the attorney for the government and the defendant's attorney shall confer with respect to a schedule for disclosure of the information as required by Fed. R. Crim. P. 16 or any other applicable rule, statute or case authority." Other districts handle the discovery schedule through the judge's scheduling order instead of a fixed local deadline. Either way, the conference happens early, and what counsel learns there shapes every later decision.
Fourth, pretrial motions. Most attacks on the case must be raised by motion before trial, including claims that the paper fails to state an offense, that counts are improperly joined or duplicated, that venue is wrong, or that evidence was gathered unlawfully. One tool belongs specifically to this stage. "The court may direct the government to file a bill of particulars," a detailed statement spelling out what the government claims happened so the defense can prepare. A vague indictment can sometimes be clarified this way even when it cannot be dismissed. None of these motions file themselves, and missing the court's motion deadline can forfeit the issue, which is why counsel calendars the schedule set at or soon after arraignment.
Fifth, the clocks. Counsel checks three time limits from day one: whether the indictment came soon enough after arrest, whether too much time passed between the alleged conduct and the charge, and whether trial is moving fast enough after the plea. The details are below. If any clock ran out, that becomes a motion. If the clocks are running, they set the pace of everything else.
Why California changes the answer
Federal criminal cases in California do not float in some national pool. Each case belongs to one of four federal districts, and the district controls the courthouse, the prosecutors, the local rules, and the appeals court. The statute puts it in one sentence: "California is divided into four judicial districts to be known as the Northern, Eastern, Central, and Southern Districts of California."
Each district has its own geography and courthouses. The Northern District covers the Bay Area and the north coast, and the statute provides that "Court for the Northern District shall be held at Eureka, Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose." The Southern District covers San Diego and Imperial Counties, and "Court for the Southern District shall be held at San Diego." The Central District covers Los Angeles, Orange County, and the Inland Empire north to San Luis Obispo, with divisions sitting in Los Angeles, Riverside, and Santa Ana, as described on our Central District page. The Eastern District covers the great inland corridor from the Oregon border to Bakersfield, with court in Sacramento, Fresno, and Bakersfield. Your papers name the district and usually the division. Go to the courthouse named in your papers, not the one closest to your home, and plan for federal security screening and an early arrival.
Each district also has its own United States Attorney's Office, and that office is your adversary, not the court. The Central District's office describes itself as serving seven counties and nearly 20 million people, calling it the largest of any federal judicial district in the country. The Southern District's office covers San Diego and Imperial Counties, with its main office in San Diego and a branch office in El Centro near the border. The Northern District's office stretches from Del Norte County in the north to Monterey County in the south, serving nearly 9 million people across the San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose metro areas. The Eastern District's office covers 34 counties and more than 87,000 square miles, nearly half of it federal land, across urban areas including Sacramento, Fresno, and Bakersfield. Border districts carry heavy immigration and narcotics dockets shaped by the ports of entry. Northern California carries heavy technology and Silicon Valley fraud work. The charges look different by district, the judges' scheduling orders differ, and local discovery practice differs, as the Northern District conferral rule above shows. A lawyer working your case needs to know the habits of your courthouse, not just the federal rules in the abstract.
One California constant runs through every district: the appeals court. California sits in the Ninth Circuit, the federal appeals court that hears challenges from all four California districts. That matters at the indictment stage for a practical reason. The Ninth Circuit's model criminal jury instructions tell trial judges to instruct jurors that "The indictment simply describes the charge[s] the government brings against the defendant. The indictment is not evidence and does not prove anything." Your lawyer can remind you of that line whenever the paper starts to feel like a verdict. It is not a verdict. It is the government's opening claim, and the jury will be told to treat it that way.
For the statewide map of districts, courthouses, and offices, start with our California federal defense hub. If your case is still at the warning stage with no charges filed, read our California target letter lawyer page instead, because the options before indictment are wider than the options after it.
How the grand jury reached this point
A short version, because the full version lives on the federal indictment process page. For serious federal charges, a prosecutor presents evidence to a group of citizens called a grand jury. "The grand jury listens to the prosecutor and witnesses, and then votes in secret on whether they believe that enough evidence exists to charge the person with a crime." The numbers are fixed: a federal grand jury has 16 to 23 members, and "At least twelve jurors must concur in order to issue an indictment." The foreperson signs the paper, and the grand jury returns it to a judge in open court.
Two features of that process surprise people. First, the standard is low. The Justice Manual describes "the grand jury's principal function" as deciding "whether or not there is probable cause to believe that one or more persons committed a certain Federal offense within the venue of the district court." Probable cause is a reasonable basis to believe, far below proof beyond a reasonable doubt. An indictment says the case may go forward, not that it is proven. Second, the proceeding is secret. "All proceedings and statements made before a grand jury are sealed, meaning that only the people in the room have knowledge about who said what about whom." Your lawyer was not in the room, you usually did not testify, and no judge refereed the evidence the way a trial judge would.
The same Justice Manual reminds prosecutors that the grand jury is "an independent body" whose work includes "the protection of the citizenry from unfounded criminal charges," and that in presenting evidence the prosecutor "must be scrupulously fair to all witnesses and must do nothing to inflame or otherwise improperly influence the grand jurors." A grand jury can refuse to indict. Yours did not, so the task now is to defend the case in court, not to relitigate the secret vote.
Indictment, information, and complaint
Three charging papers appear in federal cases, and the name on yours matters. A complaint is a sworn statement of facts supporting an arrest, made before any grand jury has voted. An indictment is the grand jury's charge, required for every federal felony unless the defendant waives it in open court after being told what that right means. An information is the prosecutor's charge without a grand jury vote, used for misdemeanors and for felonies only where the defendant knowingly gives up the grand jury step, sometimes as part of a negotiated resolution.
The paper itself must be readable and specific. "The indictment or information must be a plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged and must be signed by an attorney for the government." Each count stands on its own and "must give the official or customary citation of the statute" the defendant is said to have violated. Read every count separately with counsel, because the facts, the possible penalty, and the defenses can differ from one count to the next within a single indictment.
The time limits around your indictment
Three clocks matter, and each comes from a statute.
First, the Speedy Trial Act pushes the government to charge quickly after arrest: "Any information or indictment charging an individual with the commission of an offense shall be filed within thirty days from the date on which such individual was arrested or served with a summons in connection with such charges." Where no grand jury was in session during those 30 days, the law allows one extra 30 days. This is why lawyers check the arrest date against the date the grand jury voted.
Second, once the indictment is filed and a not guilty plea is entered, trial must generally begin within 70 days of the later of the filing or your appearance before the court. Many kinds of delay pause that clock, including pretrial motions and continuances the judge finds justified, so real cases often run longer than 70 days. The clock still matters, because every continuance needs a reason on the record, and counsel should make sure the record protects you rather than just the calendar.
Third, there is an outer limit on how long the government can wait before charging at all. As a default rule, "no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years next after such offense shall have been committed." Many specific offenses carry their own longer or shorter limits set by other laws, so the five year default is the starting point, not the whole answer. If your indictment reaches back years, ask counsel to check the exact limitations period for each count.
What to do now
Read the indictment count by count with a lawyer before you discuss the case with anyone else. Write down the dates of your arrest, your first court appearance, and the day you received the paper. Do not contact witnesses, do not move or delete records, and do not try to explain yourself to agents, because new charges can grow out of conduct after the indictment. Bring every paper you were given, including the warrant or summons and any release conditions, to the first meeting with counsel. If the case involves a company, a professional license, immigration status, or custody of children, say so at that first meeting, because those consequences run on separate tracks with their own deadlines.
What this page does not promise
Penalties named in an indictment are statutory maximums, not predictions of what any person will receive. The actual sentence, if there is a conviction, comes from the guideline calculation and the judge's decision at a later stage, and the facts of a case change everything. This page describes the indictment stage as written in the rules and statutes. It does not predict what will happen in any case.