St. Louis Federal Appeals Attorney

St. Louis meeting location – by appointment only: We do NOT accept mail or service at this location.
4818 Washington Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108
314-309-3313

**Attorney Linda Julin McNamara**
Federal Appeals Team Lead
Former Deputy Chief, Appellate Division

Elizabeth Stepp — **Attorney Elizabeth K. Stepp**
Federal Appeals Team Lead
Partner & Yale Graduate

**Attorney Nick Oberheiden**
Federal Appeals Team Lead
Contact Nick

envelope icon — **Attorney Nick Oberheiden**
Federal Appeals Team Lead
Contact Nick

Why consider a St. Louis federal appeals attorney from our team for your case?

Our team has been involved in over 500 federal appeals cases.
Over 50 years of combined frontline experience.
You will work directly with a senior attorney from day one — no junior attorneys or assistants.

If you get convicted for a federal offense in St. Louis, Missouri, your sentence can change the course of your life. You could be imprisoned for decades, be forced to pay substantial fines and other monetary penalties, and deal with the collateral consequences of having a blemish on your criminal background.

By appealing your conviction or your sentence you can continue to fight for your rights and your future.

You have a right to do so.

At Oberheiden P.C., our federal criminal appeals attorneys have helped numerous defendants continue to challenge the charges against them. In many of these cases, we have drastically improved the outcome by advocating for our clients in a federal appellate court, including by securing a new trial for them.

How Appeals Work in the Federal Criminal Justice System

An appeal is a core component of the federal criminal justice system. Without it, life-tenured trial judges would wield excessive power and would have little to no oversight. However, appeals also come at the very end of a long and drawn-out court process.

That process often begins without you even knowing about it. Law enforcement agents often investigate you or your company for signs of a federal crime without notifying you. In many cases, you will only learn about a potential criminal charge when you are called to testify before a Missouri grand jury. If that grand jury is presented with the evidence against you and develops a probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, it will indict you and you will be arrested.

For arrests on federal charges that happen in St. Louis, you will be brought to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri at the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse at 111 South 10th Street in downtown St. Louis for your arraignment. There, you will be informed of the particular charges that have been filed against you and you will make your initial plea.

After you plead not guilty, a trial date will be set and your defense counsel and the prosecutor will begin putting together their cases. Plea negotiations will commence and can continue right up to the eve of your trial. Taking a plea deal can reduce the charges or the sanctions for your conviction, but you generally have to give up your right to appeal in order to accept the plea bargain.

If you take your case to trial and the jury finds you guilty, the next step is sentencing. This is where the judge will impose the sentence for your conviction.

At this point, you have the right to appeal. You can appeal the fact that you were convicted, the severity of your sentence, or you can appeal both at the same time.

Importantly, you have to file a Notice of Appeal with the Eastern District of Missouri within 14 days to invoke this right. Filing this Notice will make the district court forward your trial record to the appellate court and will notify the prosecutor that the case is not over.

For cases in St. Louis, Missouri, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals will have jurisdiction to hear your appeal. This appellate court has courthouses in both St. Paul, Minnesota, and St. Louis, Missouri. Generally, your case will be heard in the St. Louis courthouse, which is located in the same building as the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

If the Eighth Circuit’s ruling is still not to your liking, you can request a rehearing in front of a larger panel of judges or can appeal your case to the Supreme Court of the United States. While the Supreme Court only agrees to hear a small percentage of cases that get petitioned to it, Oberheiden P.C. is more than willing to advocate for your rights in the highest court in the country.

Dr. Nick Oberheiden

Founder

Attorney-at-Law

Lynette S. Byrd

Former DOJ Trial Attorney

Partner

Brian J. Kuester

Former U.S. Attorney

Hon. Kevin McCarthy

55th Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives (ret.)

Government Consultant

Mike Pompeo

Of Counsel

Former U.S. Secretary of State

John W. Sellers

Former Senior DOJ Trial Attorney

Linda Julin McNamara

Federal Appeals Attorney

Nicholas B. Johnson

Former Prosecutor

Roger Bach

Former Special Agent (DOJ)

Chris J. Quick

Former Special Agent (FBI & IRS-CI)

Michael S. Koslow

Former Supervisory Special Agent (DOD-OIG)

Ray Yuen

Former Supervisory Special Agent (FBI)

What to Expect During a Federal Criminal Appeal

Your appeal will not lead to a new trial being held in the Eighth Circuit and no new evidence will be presented. Instead, it is up to you and your St. Louis federal appeals lawyer to point to a particular mistake or error that was made by the district court that led to your conviction. This can take a lot of forms, such as judge or juror misconduct or a misapplication of the law.

Once isolated, the grounds for appeal will be the focus of the entire appellate case. Your appeals lawyer will research and write a legal brief of dozens of pages to persuade the judges on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that mistakes were made and that they led to your wrongful conviction. The prosecutor will write one, as well, arguing the opposite.

Typically, the judges will make their ruling based on the briefs, alone. However, if they have questions about the finer points of the arguments being presented, an oral argument will be scheduled during which the attorneys will have an opportunity to explain their side of the case and answer any questions that the judges have.

If the Eighth Circuit agrees with the prosecutors, then your conviction and sentence will be affirmed and upheld. If they agree with your St. Louis federal appeals lawyer, then your case will generally be remanded back to the district court with further instructions on how to proceed. You may get a new trial, then.

Not Appealing a Conviction Lets Your Sentence Stand

One of the most important things about the complex appeals process is that your sentence becomes final if you do not invoke your right to appeal. Whatever penalties were imposed by the judge at your sentencing hearing will go into effect. Once the window for appealing your case passes, there are no more chances to overturn it or challenge the outcome.

By not appealing, you are accepting your:

Prison sentence
Probation terms
Criminal fine
Restitution payments
Disgorgement amounts

You are also subjecting yourself to the collateral consequences of a conviction that come from non-governmental parties, like banks, landlords, and the members of the public. That stigmatization and discrimination can be difficult to deal with, and can last for decades after your conviction.

Frequently Asked Questions About Federal Appeals in St. Louis and Oberheiden P.C.

Why Do I Need an Appeals Lawyer? Can’t My Trial Lawyer Handle It?

Appeals and trials are very different. As a result, it is generally wise to hire different lawyers who bring their unique experience and talent to the particular stage of the process that best suits them.

At trial, your case will focus on the facts and whether what happened violated the federal law that prosecutors are claiming was broken. Your case will also be presented to a handful of jurors – people who have likely never heard a case from start to finish, before, and who do not deal with the law on a daily basis.

On appeal, your case shifts its focus to the law or to something that the judge or jury did. The facts of the case are no longer in dispute, and the appellate court will often refuse to entertain any challenges to the factual findings made by the district court. Additionally, your case will be presented to experienced federal judges – people who deal with the law every day, have dealt with it daily for well over a decade, and who work in the courtroom.

Why Should I Hire Oberheiden P.C.?

Oberheiden P.C.’s strong track record of success in appellate courts across the country, including in the Eighth Circuit, owes a lot to our experienced team of attorneys and our practice’s focus on federal criminal defense cases.

All of the attorneys on Oberheiden P.C.’s staff are senior-level lawyers with extensive experience representing clients. Furthermore, many of our attorneys came to our firm only after completing long and illustrious careers within some of the same federal law enforcement agencies that will be prosecuting your case in St. Louis, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Unlike other lawyers, our experienced attorneys have spent most of their time in federal courts rather than state courts. Federal courts present different challenges than their state counterparts, including facing the formidable resources that federal law enforcement agencies can muster in their pursuit of a criminal conviction. The St. Louis federal appeal lawyers at Oberheiden P.C. are used to battling against these opponents on behalf of our clients.

Why Don’t You Call Oberheiden P.C. the Best Appeals Firm in St. Louis?

Because we would rather let the testimonials of our prior clients say those sorts of things about the legal services that we can provide.

The St. Louis Federal Appeals Lawyers at Oberheiden P.C. Handle a Wide Variety of Cases

If you have been convicted of a federal offense in St. Louis, you need strong legal representation for your appeal if you want to continue to fight for your rights and seek a favorable outcome. The St. Louis federal appeal attorneys at Oberheiden P.C. have a strong track record of succeeding in appeals cases across the country. They have appealed numerous criminal convictions, including those for:

White collar crimes
Drug crimes
Fraud, including healthcare fraud, mail and wire fraud, and securities fraud
Bribery

Our firm offers a free initial consultation. Reach out to a St. Louis federal appeals attorney by calling us at (888) 680-1745 or by contacting us online as soon as you can so we can file your Notice of Appeal before the 14-day window passes you by.