Rules of the Court

The Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) govern the admission of facts by which parties in the federal courts of the United States may prove their cases. The Rules were enacted in 1975, with subsequent amendments.

The Rules were the product of protracted academic, legislative, and judicial examination before they were formally promulgated in 1975. U.S. states are free to adopt different rules of evidence, but a substantial majority has adopted codes in whole or part based on the Federal Rules of Evidence.

The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are the procedural rules that govern how federal criminal prosecutions are conducted in United States district courts, the general trial courts of the U.S. government.  For the first 150 years of the federal judiciary, there was no uniform federal criminal procedure. The Judiciary Act of 1789 directed federal courts to apply the law of the state in which the court sat regarding jury selection and the process for arrests, bail, and preliminary hearings. The result was an incomplete patchwork of state and federal law that both the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts did little to fill in, despite seeming authorization under the Judiciary Act to do so. With the Sumners Courts Act, the first Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure were subsequently adopted by order of the Court on December 26, 1944, and took effect on March 21, 1946.

The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA or Board) is the highest administrative body for interpreting and applying immigration laws. It is authorized up to 15 Board Members, including the Chairman and Vice Chairman who share responsibility for Board management. The Board is located at EOIR headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia. Generally, the Board does not conduct courtroom proceedings - it decides appeals by conducting a "paper review" of cases. On rare occasions, however, the Board does hear oral arguments of appealed cases, predominately at headquarters.