Clerk's Transfer of the File

Clerk's Transfer of the File

The first two conditions of Rule 20(a) each produce a document, and Rule 20(b) says what happens once those documents are in hand. After the clerk where the indictment, information, or complaint is pending has received the defendant's statement and the required approvals, that clerk must send the file, or a certified copy of it, to the clerk in the transferee district.¹ This is the step that carries the prosecution from one district to the other. Everything before it consists of consents and agreements, and the clerk's transmission is the act that puts the case papers before the court that will take the plea.

The sequence has three links, and each depends on the one before it. The defendant first files the written statement described in Rule 20(a)(1). The United States attorney in each district then approves the transfer in writing under Rule 20(a)(2).² Only when the clerk in the charging district has received both the statement and the approvals does the duty to send the file arise. The rule uses mandatory language, so once the clerk holds everything the rule requires, sending the file is required. The clerk's role therefore comes last, because the decisions that matter were already made by the defendant and the two prosecutors.

The ordering has a reason that can be read off the structure of the rule. The statement and the approvals are the evidence that every person who holds a veto has agreed, and the clerk's duty is keyed to receiving them. That is why the previous section stressed that each approval must be in writing: a written approval is something a clerk can receive, while a telephone understanding between prosecutors leaves nothing to receive. Tying the duty to receipt means the court record does not leave the charging district on the strength of a rumor of agreement, and the receiving court is handed a case that the charging office has actually agreed to release. The second feature of the rule, the file or a certified copy, serves the receiving court's own needs. A court asked to take a guilty or nolo contendere plea must have the charging papers in front of it, and the rule accepts either the file itself or a certified copy as the means of delivering them.

On an exam problem, the usual mistake is to treat a filed statement without both approvals as enough to move the file. The clerk's duty has two prerequisites, and the two sections before this one taught them: the defendant's written statement and the written approval of the United States attorney in each district. Missing either one leaves the duty unborn. It also helps to keep the clerks straight. The clerk in the district where the charges are pending sends the file, and the clerk in the transferee district receives it. Once the file arrives, the receiving court takes the defendant's plea, and the next section turns to what happens if that plea is not guilty.