VENUE FOR FEDERAL CONSPIRACY CASES
Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress
Federal law promises criminal defendants a proper venue, i.e., trial in the district in which the
federal crime was committed. A crime is committed in any district in which any of its “conduct”
elements are committed. Some offenses are committed entirely within a single district; there they
must be tried. Others begin in one district and are completed in another. They may be tried where
they occur unless Congress has limited the choice of venue for the particular offense. Conspiracy
may be tried in any district in which an overt act in its furtherance is committed, at least when the
commission of an overt act is an element of the conspiracy statute at issue. Crimes committed
beyond the territorial confines of the United States are usually tried in the district into which the
accused is first brought. The court may grant a change of venue at the behest of the defendant to
avoid undue prejudice, for the convenience of the parties, or for sentencing purposes. This report
is an abridged version of CRS Report RL33223, Venue: A Legal Analysis of Where a Federal
Crime May Be Tried, by Charles Doyle