The Department of Justice (DOJ) has proposed amending Rule 29 to preserve the government's right to appeal a trial court's decision to grant a motion for judgment of acquittal. DOJ argues, "Rule 29 as currently constituted represents an anomaly within the Rules and indeed within the judicial system." 

To help inform the debate, the Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States asked the Federal Judicial Center to conduct a study of state laws that allow the trial judge to grant a motion for a judgment of acquittal prior to the case's submission to the jury. Specifically, the Committee wanted to know (1) whether a state judge may enter a judgment of acquittal before a jury verdict, and (2) whether the prosecution may appeal from judgments of acquittal directed by the trial judge prior to submission of the case to the jury.

Case records generally are public records and all documents filed with a court are available to the public for inspection upon request unless a statute, rule, or order provides otherwise. This report summarizes federal and state court rules on sealing documents in trial courts files. It also describes early stages of research on sealed settlement agreements in federal district court. The research was conducted at the request of the Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rules.

For the completed 2004 report on federal sealed settlement agreements, see Sealed Settlement Agreements in Federal District Court.

The Advisory Committee on Civil Rules has been considering a proposal to revise Fed. R. Civil P. 23 to create new certification standards that would apply only to settlement class actions. The Committee sought empirical research from the Center to help it decide how to proceed. The Center conducted the research in two phases during 2002-2004. This report is the first phase. For the second phase see Attorney Reports on the Impact of Amchem and Ortiz on Choice of a Federal or State Forum in Class Action Litigation: A Report to the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules Regarding a Case-based Survey of Attorneys (2004).

The Class Action Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules asked the Federal Judicial Center to examine the impact, if any, of the Supreme Court decisions in Amchem and Ortiz on the rate at which plaintiffs file class actions in federal courts. The resulting report describes trends in federal class action filings, removals, settlements, and dismissals during the period from January 1994 through June 2001 and identifies certain discernible changes after the two decisions. The report discusses the results of a time-series analysis that tested whether there were any statistically significant relationships between the two decisions and the filing/disposition patterns found. Certain of the changes observed were not likely to have occurred by chance; however, many factors might have affected filings.

This article describes some of the advantages, disadvantages, potential benefits, and limitations of conducting empirical research to inform the civil rulemaking process. The article documents and analyzes the impact of fourteen Center studies during the last fourteen years in response to specific requests from rulemakers who wished to examine empirical data relevant to contemplated changes in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. From 77 Notre Dame Law Review 1121 (April 2002).