## Facts

- A federal grand jury indicted Simmie Horwitz in the Northern District of Illinois for criminal tax evasion.
- Horwitz moved for a bill of particulars containing 30 requests; the dispute narrowed to request no. 25, seeking details about any oral statements attributed to Horwitz on which the government relied.
- The district judge ordered the government to provide particulars, including the names and addresses of persons to whom statements were made, the time and place of the statements, whether the witnesses were government agents, and whether memoranda or transcripts existed and were provided to the government.
- The U.S. Attorney refused to comply, asserting the order effectively required an impermissible list of prosecution witnesses beyond the court’s authority under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 7(f).
- The district judge indicated that failure to comply would result in dismissal of the indictments.
- Before any dismissal, the government obtained an ex parte stay from the court of appeals and sought a writ of mandamus directing the district judge to vacate the portion of the order concerning request no. 25.
- The court of appeals initially denied mandamus, then granted it on reconsideration without new briefing, oral argument, or an opinion, ordering the district judge to vacate the challenged portion of the order.
- The district judge petitioned for Supreme Court review; certiorari was granted to assess the propriety of mandamus.

## Issues

1. Whether a court of appeals may use mandamus to compel a district judge to vacate a routine pretrial order granting particulars in a pending federal criminal case.
2. Whether mandamus may function as a substitute for an interlocutory government appeal to correct an alleged legal error in a Rule 7(f) ruling.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court vacated the writ of mandamus and remanded for further proceedings.
- The Court held that the record did not justify use of mandamus, an extraordinary remedy limited to confining a lower court to lawful jurisdiction or compelling it to exercise jurisdiction it must exercise.
- The district court’s handling of a bill of particulars was within its assigned authority under Rule 7(f), and the case did not present exceptional circumstances or a judicial usurpation of power.
- The Court declined to decide definitively whether the district court’s order was correct under Rule 7(f), focusing instead on the impropriety of extraordinary interlocutory intervention.
- The Court emphasized that interlocutory review is generally disfavored in criminal cases and that mandamus cannot be used to circumvent statutory limits on government appeals.

## Legal Principles

- Mandamus is an extraordinary writ, available only in exceptional circumstances, typically to confine a court to lawful jurisdiction or to compel exercise of required jurisdiction.
- “Judicial usurpation of power,” not ordinary legal error within jurisdiction, is the usual threshold for mandamus.
- Appellate review should ordinarily await final judgment, with special force in criminal cases to avoid undue delay and related fairness concerns.
- Government interlocutory appeals in federal criminal cases are narrowly limited; mandamus may not be used as a substitute for an unauthorized appeal.
- Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 7(f), district courts have broad discretion to order a bill of particulars, and appellate interference through extraordinary writs is correspondingly limited.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court held that mandamus could not be used to obtain interlocutory appellate correction of a district court’s pretrial particulars order in an ongoing criminal prosecution absent exceptional circumstances showing a clear usurpation of judicial power, and it therefore vacated the court of appeals’ writ.


Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90 (1967)