Peretz V. United States

Peretz v. United States, 501 U.S. 923 (1991) was a Supreme Court of the United States case. The Court affirmed that a defendant in a federal criminal trial on a felony charge must affirmatively object to the supervising of jury selection by a magistrate judge, ruling that it is not enough that the defendant merely acquiesce to the magistrate's involvement in his case for a court to reverse a conviction for this reason.

The facts of the case are straightforward. Peretz and a co-defendant had been indicted on smuggling four kilograms of heroin into the United States. The district judge who oversaw the trial asked if there was any objection to a magistrate conducting the jury selection, and Peretz did not make an objection. The district judge conducted the actual trial. Peretz did not object to the magistrate conducting the jury selection until he reached the court of appeals. The court of appeals disagreed, reasoning that the Federal Magistrates Act required him to object specifically to the involvement of a magistrate judge in his case. Since Peretz had not objected in the district court to the magistrate's involvement in the jury selection, he had waived the objection.