Remanding

Remanding is the act of sending a case or a person back to a lower authority or to custody following a decision by a higher court or authority. In criminal procedure, remand commonly refers to detention in custody pending trial. A person may be remanded in custody, or released on bail with conditions. Remand may be ordered to ensure the defendant’s presence at proceedings, to protect the public, or to prevent interference with investigations.

In appellate and civil procedure, remand means returning a case to a lower court for further action. An appellate court may remand to develop the record, apply a different legal standard, or obtain additional findings or evidence. Remand preserves jurisdiction in the appellate court and is distinct from reversal, which terminates the case at the appellate level, or dismissal, which ends the case.

Variations exist by jurisdiction. In the United States, a federal appellate court may remand a case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with its ruling, or may remand after removal from state court to federal court. In other common law systems, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, remand is used both to describe detention before trial and to describe remittal of a case back to a lower court for further action.