How Long Can Feds Hold You Without Charges

Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our mission here is to give you the truth about federal detention - not the sanitized version you find on government websites, not the reassuring fiction that "there are rules protecting you," but the actual reality of what happens when federal agents arrest you and you're sitting in a cell wondering when this nightmare ends.

The question everyone asks is "how long can they hold me?" And the answer most people find online is wrong. They cite state rules - 48 hours, 72 hours - numbers that sound comforting. But federal detention operates on an entirely different timeline, governed by entirely different laws. The system is not designed to get you to trial quickly. It is designed to hold you until you break.

That sounds harsh. It is harsh. The federal pretrial detention population has increased 433 percent since 1970 despite significantly lower crime rates. The United States has the highest pretrial detention rate in the world - 150 people per 100,000, which is 50 percent higher than Russia. These are not accidents. These are features of a system that uses detention as leverage.

The Number Everyone Gets Wrong

Here is the thing about federal detention that nobody explains properly. When people search "how long can feds hold you," they find answers referencing state law. 48 hours. 72 hours. These numbers come from state constitutional protections and they apply to state arrests.

Federal rules are completly different.

Under federal law, there is no hard 48-hour or 72-hour rule. The relevant statute is 18 U.S.C. Section 3161, the Speedy Trial Act. It says the government must file an information or indictment within 30 days of arrest. Then trial must commence within 70 days of the indictment. So basicly you are looking at 100 days maximum, right?

Wrong. The 70-day rule is Swiss cheese. It is full of exceptions called "excludable time" that can stretch your detention into months or years. Every pretrial motion you file - that time does not count. Every continuance the judge grants - does not count. Any delay the court finds serves "the ends of justice" - does not count. Todd Spodek has seen defendants sit for two, three years awaiting trial on complex federal cases. And technicaly, no speedy trial violation occurred because all that time was "excluded."

Think about what this means. You could be arrested today, sit in federal detention for two years, and the government could claim they met every deadline. Because the clock stops whenever they need it to stop. The protection that was supposed to guarantee you a speedy trial has become the mechanism that keeps you locked up indefinately.

What the Speedy Trial Act Actually Says

Let that sink in. The law that was supposedly passed to PROTECT defendants from languishing in jail is now the framework that keeps them there for years.

The Speedy Trial Act of 1974 was enacted after Congress recognized that defendants were sitting in pretrial detention for unreasonable periods. The solution seemed clear: establish strict time limits. But here is were it gets interesting - the Act contains so many exceptions that it actualy provides very little protection.

Section 3161(h) lists the excludable delays. Any delay resulting from pretrial motions. Any delay resulting from the removal of a defendant from another district. Any delay resulting from transportation of a defendant. Any delay resulting from examination of the defendant for competency. Any delay resulting from an interlocutory appeal. And critically - any period of delay resulting from a continuance granted by the court.

That last one is the killer. A judge can grant unlimited continuances if they find "the ends of justice served by taking such action outweigh the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial." That is the actual language from the statute. And courts grant these continuances routinly, often at the government's request, sometimes over the defendant's objection.

Consider how this plays out in practice. You are facing federal charges. You are sitting in a federal detention facility. Your lawyer files a motion to suppress evidence because the search was illegal. That motion does not get heard for two months. Those two months do not count toward the 70 days. The government responds. Another month. Does not count. The court schedules a hearing. Three more weeks. Does not count.

See the problem?

Every time you exercise your constitutional right to challenge the government's case, you extend your own detention. The system punishes you for fighting.

The Presumption That Works Against You

Maybe you are thinking - fine, the timeline is longer than I thought, but at least I can get bail and wait at home while this plays out.

Here is the part nobody talks about.

The Bail Reform Act of 1984 fundamentaly changed federal detention. Before 1984, the only question at a bail hearing was whether you would show up for trial. After 1984, prosecutors can also argue you are "dangerous to the community." And for most federal crimes - drug offenses, firearms charges, crimes of violence - the law PRESUMES you should be detained. You have to prove otherwise.

In United States v. Salerno, the Supreme Court upheld this in 1987. The government's interest in community safety can outweigh your liberty interest. The Court said "in our society, liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial is the carefully limited exception." But in practice, it is exactly backwards. At Spodek Law Group, we have seen the detention rate climb steadily over decades. Most federal defendants are now detained pretrial, not released.

The presumption works like this: if you are charged with a drug offense punishable by ten years or more, the law presumes you should be detained. If you are charged with a crime of violence, same thing. If you have two prior convictions for certain offenses, same thing. The burden shifts to you to prove you are not dangerous and will not flee. And you are proving this at a hearing where the government has all the evidence and you have barely had time to consult with your lawyer.

The statistics tell the story. Federal pretrial detention rates have climbed from around 24 percent in the 1980s to over 70 percent today. The presumption of detention has become the reality of detention. Liberty is no longer the norm.

Material Witnesses: Held Without Being Charged

But wait. There is a category of federal detention that is even more disturbing than what we have discussed so far.

Material witness warrants.

Under 18 U.S.C. Section 3144, the government can arrest and detain you as a "material witness" if they beleive your testimony is material to a criminal proceeding and that you might not be availible to testify if left free. You are not accused of any crime. You are just a witness. But you can be held in the same facilities as criminal defendants, under the same conditions, for an indefinate period.

Here is were it gets really troubling: there is no statutory maximum for how long you can be held as a material witness. The law says you can be detained for a "reasonable period of time" until your deposition can be taken. What is reasonable? Courts decide case by case. There is no hard limit. After September 11, the government used material witness warrants to detain scores of mostly Arab and Muslim men for months - some never testified before any court. The ACLU documented this extensively in a joint report with Human Rights Watch.

The only procedural requirement is that prosecutors must file biweekly reports on material witnesses held more than 10 days. But there is no consequence for keeping them longer. The reports exist. Nothing happens.

So to answer the question "how long can feds hold you without charges" - the honest answer for material witnesses is: potentially indefinately. If they are holding you as a witness rather than a defendant, the protections are even weaker.

Where You Will Wait: The Reality of Federal Detention

Understanding detention timelines means nothing if you do not understand what you are waiting IN.

Let me tell you about the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. MDC Brooklyn. This is where federal pretrial detainees in New York wait for their day in court. Federal judges across the city have called conditions there "barbaric" and "inhumane." Staff has been described as "contemptuous of human life and dignity."

Since 2020, 17 incarcerated people have died at MDC Brooklyn. Most were pretrial detainees - people who had not been convicted of anything. They died waiting. In August 2024, a federal judge summarized the violence: two apparent homicides, two gruesome stabbings, and an assault so severe it resulted in a fractured eye socket for the victim - all in five months. The judge described "a woeful lack of supervision over the facility, a breakdown of order and an environment of lawlessness."

In 2019, there was an eight-day blackout during a polar vortex. Inmates had no heat in freezing temperatures. Lawsuits describe maggot-infested food. Medical care is virtually nonexistent - there are documented cases of botched cancer diagnoses where inmates did not learn they had cancer until it was too late.

Here is what happened in September 2024: the Federal Bureau of Prisons stopped sending sentenced inmates to MDC Brooklyn. The conditions were so bad that one federal judge threatened to vacate a man's sentence if he was sent there. But you know who still gets sent to MDC Brooklyn? Pretrial detainees. People waiting for trial. People who are still presumed innocent.

Some federal judges now reduce sentences specificly to account for the torture of pretrial detention at MDC. Think about that - the system is punishing you during detention, then giving you credit for being punished, while still claiming you are "presumed innocent." The cognitive dissonance is staggering.

How Detention Destroys Your Defense

There is a cruel irony in federal pretrial detention that most people do not understand until they are living it.

The more you fight your case, the longer you are detained.

Remember those excludable time provisions in the Speedy Trial Act? Every motion your attorney files on your behalf - motions to suppress evidence, motions to dismiss, motions to compel discovery - excludes time from the 70-day clock. The more aggressively you defend yourself, the longer the process takes, and the longer you sit in a cell.

Prosecutors know this. They know that after six months, a year, eighteen months of pretrial detention, most defendants will accept any plea deal just to end the nightmare. Federal prosecutors have a 97 percent conviction rate. That number is not because the government only brings bulletproof cases. It is becuase detention breaks people. It grinds them down. It makes them desperate for any resolution, even a guilty plea to something they did not do.

At Spodek Law Group, Todd Spodek tells clients this directly: the pressure to plea will be enormous. You are going to want to make it stop. That is exactly what the system is designed to make you feel. Understanding this pressure is the first step to resisting it.

And consider what detention does to your ability to actually prepare a defense. You are locked up. You cannot investigate your own case. You cannot track down witnesses. You cannot work to pay for a private attorney - you are completely dependent on overworked public defenders who are handling hundreds of cases, or on family members who may be going broke trying to support you. Every hour your attorney spends traveling to visit you in detention is an hour they are not working on your case. The geography of detention makes defense difficult in ways that are hard to quantify but easy to feel.

Lawyers report waiting two to three hours just to see their clients at MDC Brooklyn. Sometimes they are turned away without seeing them at all. How do you prepare for trial under those conditions?

What Happens to Your Life While You Wait

Let us talk about the human cost of federal pretrial detention. Because this is what really matters, and it is what the legal websites never discuss.

You are the breadwinner in your family. You get arrested on federal charges. You lose your detention hearing - the presumption worked against you, you are deemed dangerous or a flight risk. Now you are in custody awaiting trial.

What happens next?

Your employer does not know where you are. You miss work. You get fired. Your spouse is now supporting the family alone while also trying to figure out what is happening to you, finding an attorney, explaining to your children why mommy or daddy is not coming home. Your mortgage payment is due. Then another. Then you are in foreclosure.

Maybe you are innocent. Maybe the case falls apart eighteen months later. The charges get dismissed. You walk out of MDC Brooklyn a free person.

What do you walk out to?

Your job is gone. Your house is gone. Your credit is destroyed. Your marriage may be over - the stress of this situation destroys marriages at alarming rates. Your children have spent eighteen months without a parent, traumatized by the experience. The community knows you were arrested on federal charges. "But the charges were dismissed" does not make headlines the way "local business owner arrested by FBI" does.

This is why we say detention IS the punishment. The government does not need to convict you to destroy your life. They just need to hold you long enough.

What a Federal Defense Attorney Actually Does

After reading all this, you might feel hopeless. That is understandable. The system is stacked against defendants in ways that most people do not realize until they are inside it.

But here is the thing - understanding the system is the first step to fighting it.

A federal defense attorney who knows these rules can make critical differences at every stage:

At the detention hearing: Fighting the presumption of detention requires specific evidence and arguments. It is not enough to say "my client is not dangerous." You need specific plans - where they will live, who will supervise them, what conditions they will accept. The difference between a skilled detention argument and a generic one can be the difference between waiting at home and waiting in MDC Brooklyn.

On the speedy trial clock: Strategic decisions about which motions to file and when can affect how long the process takes. Sometimes fighting hard is worth the extended timeline. Sometimes a faster resolution serves the client better. These are strategic choices that require experience to navigate.

On the plea calculus: Understanding when to fight and when to negotiate requires knowing the realistic outcomes. A lawyer who has handled hundreds of federal cases knows what sentences actually look like, what prosecutors will actually offer, and whether trial makes sense given the specific facts.

The federal system is designed to advantage the government. But it is not unbeatable. Every day, defendants win detention hearings. Cases get dismissed. Trials end in acquittal. The 97 percent conviction rate is not 100 percent.

What matters is having someone in your corner who understands how the game is played, who knows the prosecutors and the judges, who has been through this process hundreds of times.

The Clock Starts Now

If you are reading this because you or someone you love is facing federal detention, understand this: time matters more than you realize.

The decisions made in the first 48 hours after a federal arrest shape everything that follows. Whether to waive your initial appearance. What to say at the detention hearing. How to approach bail conditions. These choices cascade through the rest of the case.

Do not assume you have time to figure this out. The government has been building their case for months or years before you knew you were a target. They have unlimited resources and experienced prosecutors. The asymmetry is real and it is profound.

What you have is the ability to respond immediately. To get experienced federal defense counsel involved before the detention hearing. To start fighting the presumption of detention before it locks you away for months or years.

The federal system does not care about your job, your family, or your plans. It will grind forward on its own timeline, with its own priorities, indifferent to the wreckage it leaves behind. Your life is not the government's concern.

Make it your priority to level the playing field.

Call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196. That call costs nothing. Waiting costs everything.