Amendments to Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Effective Today: Victims, Warrants, and Housekeeping

It's December 1st, and you know what that means: a new batch of amendments to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure take effect.

Most of the changes implement the dictates of 18 U.S.C. § 3771, otherwise known as the Crime Victims' Rights Act, including a new Rule 60 enumerating various rights of victims along with an enforcement mechanism. Rule 41 now contains expanded authority for magistrates to issue certain kinds of warrants. And Rule 45(c) is the recipient of a technical amendment correcting the cross-reference to Rule 5 of the Civil Rules.

Documents you may be interested in:

• a more detailed summary of the amendments, courtesy of the Judical Conference's Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure
• a clean copy of the affected Rules with the amendments already incorporated (sorry, no redline)
• various other documents from the December 1, 2008 amendment cycle, for all you Rules wonks out there