The Middle District of Louisiana is the smallest of the state’s three federal districts — nine parishes around Baton Rouge, one courthouse at 777 Florida Street, and a bench of three district judges — but a federal charge here carries the same weight as one filed anywhere in the country. The district wraps around Louisiana’s seat of government, and that gives its docket a particular flavor: fraud on public programs, federal money moving through state and local hands, and the investigations that follow both. Defending a case in this court starts with knowing its habits.
On this page we look at the court from a defense perspective: who sits on it, who prosecutes in it, which local deadlines actually bite, and what the sentencing data show. Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. defends federal criminal cases, appeals, and post-conviction matters nationwide and appears for clients in the Middle District of Louisiana through pro hac vice admission. Chambers USA 2026 ranks Elizabeth Franklin-Best for Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, and Best Lawyers in America 2026 lists her as a “Best Lawyer” in Appellate Practice — the two disciplines a fraud-tilted, low-volume district rewards most. This page is part of our federal courts directory.
If federal agents have contacted you in the capital region — or a Baton Rouge grand jury has returned an indictment with your name on it — a paid, one-hour initial consultation with us is the structured way to learn where you stand and what can still be shaped.
Table of Contents
Quick Answer: Middle District of Louisiana
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What does the Middle District of Louisiana cover? | Nine parishes around the state capital under 28 U.S.C. § 98(b) — including East Baton Rouge, Ascension, Livingston, and Iberville — making this Louisiana’s smallest federal district, with one courthouse at 777 Florida Street in Baton Rouge. |
| Who prosecutes federal cases there? | The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana, led by Kurt L. Wall, a thirty-year career prosecutor sworn in as the district’s twelfth U.S. Attorney on October 14, 2025 after Senate confirmation. |
| Which circuit hears appeals? | The Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, the appellate court for all three Louisiana districts as well as Mississippi and Texas. |
| Where are post-conviction motions filed? | Back in Baton Rouge — a Section 2255 motion belongs in the district that imposed the sentence. The court also adopted new procedures in April 2026 for Section 2241 petitions filed by people in ICE detention. |
| Can the firm appear in this court? | Yes. We take Middle District cases through pro hac vice admission, working with Louisiana local counsel. |
Key Takeaways
- Nine parishes, one statutory seat: 28 U.S.C. § 98(b) puts the Middle District’s court in Baton Rouge alone, at the courthouse on Florida Street downtown.
- The bench is Louisiana’s smallest — Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick and District Judges Brian A. Jackson and John W. deGravelles hold the three judgeships authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 133, supported by three magistrate judges, per the court’s own pages as of mid-2026.
- Kurt L. Wall, a career Louisiana prosecutor who directed the Criminal Division of the state Department of Justice, became the district’s twelfth U.S. Attorney on October 14, 2025 after Senate confirmation.
- USSC fiscal year 2024 data count just 95 people sentenced here — against 342 in the Eastern District and 285 in the Western — with drugs at 29.5%, firearms at 14.7%, immigration at 13.7%, and fraud at 11.6%, above the 8.6% national fraud share.
- Five of those 95 cases went to trial — a trial rate near double the national norm, in a district where 94.7% pleaded guilty.
- The local rules run sentencing on a fixed cadence: presentence report disclosed 35 days out, objections within 14 days, and sentencing memoranda and § 5K1.1 motions filed at least 14 days before the hearing.
- The Rule 4(b) appellate clock — fourteen days from judgment — runs faster than most clients expect, so we make the appeal decision before the sentencing hearing, not after it.
- Compassionate release faces headwinds in Baton Rouge: the district’s judges decided eleven motions in fiscal year 2025 and granted none, which makes ground-selection and record-building decisive.
The Middle District of Louisiana at a Glance
The United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana covers nine parishes under 28 U.S.C. § 98(b): Ascension, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, St. Helena, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana. Unlike its sibling districts, it has exactly one statutory seat — Baton Rouge — and the court sits at the federal courthouse at 777 Florida Street, within sight of the agencies and programs that generate much of its white-collar work.
Every federal prosecution here is brought by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana. Appellate review belongs to the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, the same court that reviews Louisiana’s Eastern District and Western District — so the controlling criminal law in Baton Rouge is identical to the law eighty miles downriver, even though the courthouse culture is its own.
The court’s Local Rules (effective June 30, 2022, with later amendments by general order) fold criminal motion practice into the civil rules’ format requirements (Local Criminal Rule 12) and require the pretrial services report to be filed under seal at or immediately after the initial appearance (Local Criminal Rule 5). The court also keeps reshaping its own machinery: on April 22, 2026 it issued General Orders revising how cases are assigned among its judicial officers and creating new procedures for habeas petitions under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 brought by people in ICE detention — a growing slice of the docket worth knowing about.
Baton Rouge’s Federal Bench: Three Judges, Nine Parishes
Congress gives the Middle District three district judgeships under 28 U.S.C. § 133 — the smallest allotment in Louisiana. As of mid-2026, the court’s own pages list Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick and District Judges Brian A. Jackson and John W. deGravelles, with Magistrate Judges Richard L. Bourgeois, Jr., Erin Wilder-Doomes, and Scott D. Johnson, and Michael L. McConnell serving as Clerk of Court. Magistrate judges here are designated to try misdemeanors under 18 U.S.C. § 3401 in addition to their pretrial responsibilities.
A three-judge bench changes the texture of practice. From the day a felony case is assigned, the universe of possible sentencing judges has three members, and the April 22, 2026 General Orders revised exactly how that assignment wheel operates. We study each judge’s published preferences and rulings the way any careful counsel must — but we do not pretend to forecast a sentence from a name. What a small bench really rewards is credibility: in a courthouse this size, the positions a lawyer takes in one case follow that lawyer into the next.
Federal Criminal Cases in the District
Ninety-five people were sentenced here in fiscal year 2024 — the lightest sentencing volume of Louisiana’s three districts, per the Sentencing Commission’s packet. Drug cases made up 29.5%, firearms 14.7%, immigration cases a striking 13.7% for a non-border district, and fraud 11.6% — above the national share, which fits a capital city where Medicaid, disaster, and pandemic-relief dollars all flow through local hands. The white-collar docket here punches above the district’s size.
Most cases begin with an investigation by a federal agency, sometimes signaled by a target letter or a grand jury subpoena. Formal charges follow, typically by indictment. After an initial appearance and arraignment, the case proceeds through pretrial litigation and discovery, and is then resolved either by a negotiated plea agreement or by trial. A conviction is followed by sentencing under the federal framework. Our federal criminal process hub walks through each stage in detail.
One number from the data deserves emphasis: five of the district’s ninety-five sentenced cases in fiscal year 2024 followed trials — roughly one in nineteen, about double the national rate. Juries actually hear cases in Baton Rouge, and the government knows it. We prepare every Middle District case as if it will be one of those five, because that preparation is also what produces the best negotiated outcomes for the other fourteen-in-fifteen.
Applied Insight: The Middle District runs sentencing on a fourteen-day drumbeat: objections to the presentence report are due within fourteen days of disclosure, and sentencing memoranda — and even the government’s § 5K1.1 substantial-assistance motions — must be filed at least fourteen days before the hearing under the local rules. That schedule quietly moves the real sentencing fight a month before the hearing date, which is exactly when we want the mitigation case already built.
Federal Enforcement in Louisiana’s Capital Region
Kurt L. Wall was sworn in as the district’s twelfth U.S. Attorney on October 14, 2025, after nomination by President Trump and confirmation by the Senate, per justice.gov. His background tells you something about the office’s instincts: more than thirty years as a state prosecutor, including running the Criminal Division of the Louisiana Department of Justice — a résumé built a few blocks from the federal courthouse. An office led from that vantage point knows the state agencies, contractors, and program pipelines of the capital region intimately.
The office’s recent results track the fraud tilt in the data. In August 2025, a Middle District judge sentenced three Baton Rouge defendants — one to 104 months — in a healthcare-fraud matter brought as part of the Department of Justice’s national healthcare-fraud enforcement action. Other recent prosecutions include a 132-month sentence for a financial-aid and COVID-relief fraud scheme with money laundering, an 82-month sentence for a former health-clinic executive convicted of Medicaid fraud, and a wire-fraud conviction returned by a federal jury after a three-day trial — a reminder that this office will try its cases.
For anyone facing a public-program or corruption theory in the shadow of the State Capitol, the post-2023 Supreme Court term matters. Snyder v. United States, 603 U.S. 1 (2024), confines 18 U.S.C. § 666 to true quid pro quo bribes and puts after-the-fact gratuities to state and local officials outside the statute — a directly useful line of defense in a district whose cases so often involve state money and state actors. On the firearms side of the docket, United States v. Diaz, 116 F.4th 458 (5th Cir. 2024), is the controlling Fifth Circuit word on post-Bruen challenges to § 922(g)(1), an area still moving quickly nationwide and worth preserving in every felon-in-possession case.
Appeals and Post-Conviction Matters
Every conviction and sentence out of Baton Rouge can be reviewed by the Fifth Circuit. The procedural margin is thin: Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b) allows just fourteen days from the entry of judgment for the notice of appeal, which is why the appeal decision in our cases is made — with the client, on the record we have built — before the sentencing hearing rather than in a scramble afterward. Issues that were never raised below face plain-error review on appeal, so preservation in the district court is half the appellate work.
When the direct appeal ends, post-conviction litigation begins where the case did: a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 attacking a Middle District conviction is filed in this court, before one of the same three judges. The district has also built specific machinery for custody litigation — its April 2026 General Orders set out procedures for § 2241 habeas petitions from people held in ICE detention, a docket this court now manages deliberately. This paper-driven work is the heart of our practice, and it does not depend on geography.
On compassionate release, candor serves clients better than optimism: Sentencing Commission data for fiscal year 2025 show Middle District judges decided eleven such motions and granted none, while courts across the Fifth Circuit granted 9.9% (18 of 182) and courts nationally granted 14.1%. The Supreme Court’s Rutherford decision in May 2026 closed the door on motions built from nonretroactive changes in the law, so what remains viable here is the rigorously documented case — terminal or serious medical condition, advanced age, or family-care emergency — supported by records the court can trust and § 3553(a) advocacy that takes the original sentence seriously.
Our Practice in the Middle District
Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. takes Middle District of Louisiana engagements through pro hac vice admission — the standard mechanism by which a federal court admits qualified out-of-district counsel for a particular case, on motion and in association with a member of the court’s own bar. It is how sophisticated federal defense is delivered in smaller districts across the country, where the deepest experience with a given charge may not reside locally.
Nothing about the substance changes at the parish line: the federal fraud statutes, the Sentencing Guidelines, and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure read the same in Baton Rouge as in New Orleans or Washington. What is local is rhythm — the fourteen-day sentencing cadence, the assignment wheel the court just revised, the way three judges and three magistrates remember every lawyer who appears before them. We pair our federal experience with Louisiana local counsel precisely so a client gets both.
Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to practice before the Fifth Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the remaining federal courts of appeals, and she wrote Reversing Your Criminal Conviction. Across a career spanning more than 330 federal proceedings, including over 100 appeals in all twelve federal circuits plus cert-stage work at the U.S. Supreme Court, she has appeared by pro hac vice admission in courts from Montana to Florida, so a Baton Rouge matter fits squarely within an established nationwide practice. In a district where eleven of eleven compassionate-release motions were denied last fiscal year, the value of counsel who lives in the appellate and post-conviction world — who builds the trial-level record with review in mind — is not abstract.
Frequently Asked Questions
What area does the Middle District of Louisiana cover?
Nine parishes named in 28 U.S.C. § 98(b): Ascension, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, St. Helena, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana. Baton Rouge is the district’s only statutory seat, and the court sits at the federal courthouse at 777 Florida Street downtown.
Who prosecutes federal crimes in the Middle District of Louisiana?
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana. Since October 14, 2025 it has been led by Kurt L. Wall, the district’s twelfth U.S. Attorney, a thirty-year career prosecutor confirmed by the Senate after directing the Criminal Division of the Louisiana Department of Justice. The office’s recent caseload leans hard into healthcare, pandemic-relief, and financial-aid fraud.
Which appeals court covers the Middle District of Louisiana?
Appeals from Baton Rouge go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans — the circuit covering Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The notice of appeal must generally be filed within fourteen days after judgment is entered, one of the shortest deadlines in the entire case.
How does a federal criminal case proceed in the Middle District of Louisiana?
The shape is investigation, indictment, arraignment, pretrial motions, then resolution by plea or trial, and sentencing. Middle District particulars worth knowing: the pretrial services report is filed under seal at the initial-appearance stage, criminal motions follow the formatting of the court’s civil rules, and the sentencing phase runs on fixed local deadlines — presentence report 35 days out, objections within 14 days, memoranda 14 days before the hearing.
Can an out-of-state lawyer represent me in the Middle District of Louisiana?
Yes. Pro hac vice admission lets a qualified out-of-district attorney appear in a specific Middle District case in association with local counsel, and courts grant it routinely. Because federal criminal law is national, clients in smaller districts like this one often combine local counsel with outside lawyers chosen for depth in the particular charge — fraud, appeals, or post-conviction work.
Does the firm handle federal cases in the Middle District of Louisiana?
Yes — trial-level defense, Fifth Circuit appeals, § 2255 motions, and compassionate-release litigation in the Middle District, through pro hac vice admission. Engagements begin with a paid, one-hour initial consultation; for Baton Rouge matters we use it to assess the charge, the assigned judge’s published procedures, and the local deadlines already running.
Who are the federal judges in the Middle District of Louisiana?
As of mid-2026 the court’s own pages list Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick and District Judges Brian A. Jackson and John W. deGravelles — the three judgeships authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 133 — along with Magistrate Judges Richard L. Bourgeois, Jr., Erin Wilder-Doomes, and Scott D. Johnson. General Orders issued April 22, 2026 revised how new cases are assigned among them.
What is the deadline for a sentencing memorandum in the Middle District of Louisiana?
At least fourteen days before the sentencing hearing, under the court’s local criminal rules. The same fourteen-day deadline applies to government motions under § 5K1.1, while the presentence report must be disclosed thirty-five days before sentencing and written objections are due within fourteen days of disclosure.
How busy is the federal court in Baton Rouge?
It is the smallest federal district in Louisiana. Sentencing Commission data for fiscal year 2024 show 95 people sentenced, compared with 342 in the Eastern District and 285 in the Western. The mix tilts toward drugs at 29.5%, firearms at 14.7%, immigration at 13.7%, and fraud at 11.6% — and five of those 95 cases were resolved by trial, a higher trial rate than the national norm.
Talk With a Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer
In a district that sentences fewer than a hundred people a year, every case gets the government’s full attention — yours should get the same from the defense. A paid, one-hour initial consultation with us covers the charge or investigation, the Middle District’s deadlines already in motion, and the strategy we would pursue, whether that is trial defense in Baton Rouge, a Fifth Circuit appeal, or post-conviction relief.