Eberhart v. United States
The Supreme Court ruled that the strict filing deadlines for new-trial motions in criminal cases are not a limit on a court's basic power to hear the case, but a procedural rule that the government can lose the right to enforce if it doesn't object in time.
Because prosecutors here argued the merits of the late-filed arguments instead of objecting to their timing, they gave up the right to complain about lateness later, so the appeals court was wrong to throw out the new trial on that basis alone.
“there is “a critical difference between a rule governing subject-matter jurisdiction and an inflexible claim-processing rule.””
The Court's central distinction between jurisdictional limits and rules that can be forfeited.
How it got here: The district court granted a new trial; the government first raised the lateness of the added arguments on appeal, and the Seventh Circuit reversed for lack of jurisdiction.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Ivan Eberhart was convicted of conspiring to distribute cocaine. He timely moved for a new trial on one ground, then months later filed a supplemental memo raising two new grounds. The government responded to the new arguments on their merits rather than objecting that they were late. The trial judge granted a new trial based on all three grounds combined.
The question before the Court
If prosecutors don't object when a defendant's new-trial motion is filed late, can an appeals court still throw out the case for being untimely?
Why it matters
Defendants and prosecutors both get clearer rules: missing a filing deadline doesn't automatically doom a case, but only if the other side fails to object promptly. Prosecutors nationwide now know they must raise timeliness objections right away or risk losing them, and defendants can no longer count on winning dismissal for lateness raised for the first time on appeal.
What changes now
The Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit and sent the case back for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. That means the appeals court must now consider the merits of the new-trial ruling itself, rather than dismissing it on timeliness grounds. The decision also guides other circuits on treating similar criminal-rule deadlines as forfeitable rather than jurisdictional.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the District Court was right to grant a new trial on the merits — only that the Seventh Circuit was wrong to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The case goes back for the Court of Appeals to actually evaluate the new-trial ruling.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court distinguished rules governing a court's basic subject-matter jurisdiction (its power to hear a case at all) from 'claim-processing rules,' which set deadlines but can be given up by a party who fails to object in time — a distinction it had drawn in Kontrick v. Ryan.
- The Court compared Rule 33's new-trial deadline and Rule 45(b)'s ban on extending it to nearly identical bankruptcy deadline rules it had already labeled non-jurisdictional in Kontrick, and found no good reason to treat the criminal rules differently.
- The Court reread its own earlier decisions, Smith and Robinson, and concluded that neither one actually held that Rule 33's deadline strips a court of subject-matter jurisdiction; those cases instead involved situations where the government properly objected to lateness, making dismissal mandatory once raised.
- Applying this framework, the Court held that because the deadline is a claim-processing rule rather than a jurisdictional one, a party's failure to object to a late filing can forfeit (give up) the right to complain about the lateness later.
- Because the government here responded to Eberhart's late arguments on their merits instead of objecting to their timeliness, the Court concluded the government had forfeited any objection to the delay.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Kontrick v. Ryan (540 U. S. 443)
Relied on to distinguish jurisdictional rules from forfeitable claim-processing deadlines.
Limits United States v. Robinson (361 U. S. 220)
Clarified as not holding that Rule 33/45 deadlines are truly jurisdictional, despite loose language.
Limits United States v. Smith (331 U. S. 469)
Clarified as resting on a different principle, not on subject-matter jurisdiction.