Prejudice Versus Convenience

Prejudice Versus Convenience

Rule 21 gives the defendant two separate routes out of the district where the prosecution was filed, and the earlier sections taught each on its own terms. Both routes start from the same trigger, because each rule operates only upon the defendant's motion, so neither the prosecutor nor the court on its own initiative can set either one in motion.¹ Both also end in the same place, a trial somewhere other than the place the crime-committed rule fixed, which is why a successful motion is the only way the case ends up elsewhere.² With the trigger and the destination shared, the work on a fact pattern is choosing the right ground, and the rule texts make that choice through two devices: the verb each uses and the question each asks.

The verbs come first. Rule 21(a) says the court must transfer the proceeding against the defendant if the court is satisfied that prejudice in the transferring district is so great that the defendant cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial there.³ The question it asks concerns the district itself: whether the atmosphere around the case, most often adverse pretrial publicity that disposes prospective jurors to believe the defendant guilty before trial begins, has made an impartial jury unattainable.⁴ Once the court is satisfied on that point, the rule leaves nothing to weigh. Rule 21(b) says the court may transfer the proceeding, or one or more counts, for the convenience of the parties, any victim, and the witnesses, and in the interest of justice.⁵ Its question is whether another district would be the better place to try the case, and the defendant does not become entitled to a move by making any particular showing, since the decision lies in the trial court's discretion, subject only to the bar on arbitrary or capricious exercise.⁶

The two verbs track two different interests. A fair-trial transfer protects the integrity of the verdict: a conviction obtained in an atmosphere contaminated by prejudicial publicity will not stand, and Rule 21(a) exists so that the defendant is not forced to stand trial in that atmosphere and then depend on an appeal to secure basic rights.⁷ Because the harm is a verdict that cannot be trusted, the rule removes discretion once the court is satisfied. A convenience transfer protects efficiency and cost. Trying the case in the original district may be more expensive or awkward, but it does not corrupt the trial, so the rule leaves the decision to judgment, and concerns of judicial administration enter the balance alongside the convenience of the parties and witnesses.⁸ The ordering resembles one stated in another setting, where a dissenting opinion on joint trials observed that considerations of fairness normally outweigh administrative concerns.⁹

Because the grounds ask different questions, an argument has to be made under the right one. Under Rule 21(b) a court may not consider whether a jury in another location would be more favorably inclined toward either side, so it cannot treat sympathy for the defendant as a reason to transfer, and it cannot deny a transfer because the prosecution expects a jury elsewhere to be unsympathetic.¹⁰ The exclusion keeps the convenience balance from turning into a contest over verdict forecasts, which would reward whichever side predicts juries better and would say nothing about which district is the more suitable place to try the case. Rule 21(a) does not welcome the argument either, since it asks whether prejudice in the transferring district makes a fair trial impossible there, and a defendant who only hopes for friendlier jurors has shown no such prejudice. Students lose this issue when they offer a friendlier jury elsewhere as support for either ground.

The facts that moved the answer are the ones each rule asks about. In the first prosecution the problem lies in the community, and the court's satisfaction that a fair trial is impossible is the only precondition to a mandatory transfer. In the second the problem lies in where things and people are located, and the court may grant the motion or deny it after weighing the showing. Running a new fact pattern through those questions in a fixed order avoids misfiling the argument.

The last step returns the analysis to where this chapter began. Without a successful motion under either ground, nothing moves the case, and the prosecution stays where the crime was committed.¹⁶ A venue problem therefore resolves into two questions: where the crime occurred, and whether the defendant has moved to relocate the case on a ground the rules recognize.