Criminal procedure

Severance

Severance is splitting a case so that defendants are tried separately, or so that certain counts are tried apart from others.

Charges and defendants are joined for efficiency, but joinder can prejudice someone. A defendant may seek severance when a co-defendant's confession implicates them, when the evidence against one is far uglier than the evidence against another, or when defenses are truly irreconcilable.

The standard is demanding: courts prefer joint trials and usually try to cure prejudice with limiting instructions or redactions before splitting a case in two.

Severance decisions reshape the docket. Separate trials mean separate dates, separate juries, and separate verdicts, and the first trial often functions as a preview that pushes the remaining defendants toward pleas. Judges also sever counts rather than defendants, for instance trying a felon-in-possession charge separately so the jury deciding the other counts never hears about the prior conviction.