Vernon Presley, Elvis Presley's father, places a rose on his son's grave Nov. 24, 1977, as newspeople were permitted inside the grounds at Graceland in Memphis, Tenn., for the first time since Elvis' funeral.
3. Federal Criminal Appeals Are Generally Slow. If immediate results are your thing, you will probably be frustrated by the federal criminal appellate experience. Generally, federal criminal appeals take many months, if not a year or more. Why? The federal courts are crowded, and the process of an appeal is, by its nature, slow. The courts, for the most part, consider each case and each legal claim individually, which takes time. Technology has helped speed up parts of the process in recent years.
For this reason, most reconsideration appeals tend to be completed faster than initial claims, usually in under 60 days. The third step of the process is the request for hearing before an administrative law judge. This is the level of the system that comes into play if a person is denied on a reconsideration appeal.