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2014] CRIME VICTIMS' RIGHTS 89

felony offenses, broadly extending its protections to victims of any federal
offense.¹⁷¹ Thus, under OLC’s interpretation that the filing of a complaint
does not trigger the CVRA, many victims who are entitled to CVRA
protections—i.e., victims of misdemeanor offenses prosecuted by way of
complaint—will never have proper venue to assert those rights because,
according to OLC’s strained argument, no prosecution ever started in their
cases.

Even limiting the focus to felony cases, OLC misleadingly describes
the Sixth Amendment case law. It is not immediately clear why one would
look to the right to counsel to determine the breadth of the term
“prosecution” in the Sixth Amendment. The right to counsel is not the only
right found in that Amendment. The Amendment also extends, for
example, a right to a speedy trial in all criminal “prosecutions.”¹⁷² The case
law on the speedy trial right makes clear that the right “may attach before
an indictment and as early as the time of arrest and holding to answer a
criminal charge.”¹⁷³

In any event, the right to counsel cases are quite clear in providing that
a Sixth Amendment “prosecution” can (and often does) begin well before
an indictment.¹⁷⁴ The Supreme Court has directly held that the Sixth
Amendment’s right to counsel attaches “at or after the time that judicial
proceedings have been initiated against [a person]—‘whether by way of
formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or
arraignment.’”¹⁷⁵ Thus, under this controlling precedent, some earlier point
in time before indictment is the triggering point of a Sixth Amendment
“prosecution.”

The cases that OLC cites are not to the contrary. It is true that some
federal appeals courts have stated that the mere filing of a criminal
complaint does not trigger a Sixth Amendment right to counsel.¹⁷⁶ But
there is a split of authority on this question, as OLC acknowledges in a
footnote.¹⁷⁷ More importantly for purposes of this Article, the cases holding

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¹⁷¹ See 18 U.S.C. § 3771(e) (2012).
¹⁷² U.S. CONST. amend. VI.
¹⁷³ United States v. Gouveia, 467 U.S. 180, 190 (1984) (quoting United States v.
MacDonald, 456 U.S. 1, 6–7 (1982)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
¹⁷⁴ See, e.g., Texas v. Cobb, 532 U.S. 162, 172–73 (2001).
¹⁷⁵ Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 398 (1977) (quoting Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S.
682, 689 (1972)).
¹⁷⁶ See, e.g., United States v. Alvarado, 440 F.3d 191, 196 (4th Cir. 2006).
¹⁷⁷ OLC CVRA Rights Memo, supra note 2, at 14 n.15 (citing Hanrahan v. United
States, 348 F.2d 363, 366 n.6 (D.C. Cir. 1965)); see WAYNE R. LAFAVE ET AL., CRIMINAL
PROCEDURE § 6.4(e), at 670 (3d ed. 2007) (“There is an apparent split of authority on the
question of whether the filing of a complaint is alone enough to give rise to a Sixth
Amendment right to counsel, though the difference probably is explainable by the fact that

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