MEMO
TO: Joint Procedure Committee
FROM: Mike Hagburg
RE: Rule 2, N.D.R.Crim.P., Purpose and Construction
Amendments to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure went into effect December 1, 2002. Anticipating this event, the Committee agreed at its September 2002 meeting to begin a review of the North Dakota Rules of Criminal Procedure. N.D.R.Crim.P. 2 is presented first for consideration because the federal revision of Rule 1 was quite extensive, incorporating Fed.R.Crim.P. 54 as well as a set of definitions. The Committee may wish to review the criminal rules leading up to N.D.R.Crim.P. 54 before it decides to make a similar revision to N.D.R.Crim.P. 1.
Staff will have the assistance of an intern during Summer 2003 in reviewing and proposing revisions to the criminal rules. The Committee, therefore, can expect to see many more proposed criminal rule revisions on the agenda beginning in September.
The proposed amendments to Rule 2 generally track the form and style of the 2002 amendments to Fed.R.Crim.P. 2. The language and organization of the rule are amended to make the rule more easily understood and to make style and terminology consistent throughout the rules. The proposed amendments are intended to be stylistic only.
Several proposed deletions are made in the explanatory note of Rule 2 to eliminate material that is outdated and inconsistent with current rule style.