Can prosecutors get an automatic 6 month extension under the statute of limitations for any reason they want?

 That's the issue in United States v. B.G.G., which I will be arguing in the 11th Circuit in January.  I will be defending Judge Middlebrooks' order, which Jay Weaver covers in this lengthy Herald article.  The Herald is covering the issue again because since B.G.G. was decided, Judges Ruiz and Altman have issued orders coming out the other way.  From the Herald:

When the coronavirus pandemic gripped the nation, the federal court system also largely ground to a halt. Not only did trials get postponed but grand juries could no longer meet to consider indicting criminal defendants. In South Florida, as idle criminal cases ranging from healthcare to financial fraud piled up, prosecutors did what some critics called an end-run around the grand jury process — normally a critical step before charging defendants. They filed a document known as an “information” to avoid missing the five-year deadline to bring charges under the statute of limitations — but without obtaining the constitutionally required consent of defendants to give up their right to be charged by a grand jury indictment. This story is a subscriber exclusive Now, a federal appeals court is going to hear oral arguments in January that will spotlight conflicting decisions on this crucial matter by U.S. district court judges in South Florida: Two found that prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office acted lawfully, but one concluded they did not when they filed an information as a place keeper to stay within the statute of limitations without the approval of the defendant. Much is riding on the outcome in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — which covers the states of Florida, Georgia and Alabama — because a ruling could decide whether about 10 defendants will still face charges for crimes that both sides acknowledge happened more than five years ago. “Three judges in our district have written thoughtful opinions addressing an issue brought about by the pandemic and caused by the absence of grand juries,” prominent Miami white-collar defense attorney Jon Sale told the Miami Herald. “These decisions are a law professor’s delight,” said Sale, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern Districts of New York and Florida. “They look to the meaning of words going all the way back to the times of our Founding Fathers. It is up to the Eleventh Circuit to resolve the relationship between the plain meaning of a statute and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to be charged by a grand jury within the statute of limitations.”