Speedy Trial Act Violated; District Court Gets to Decide if Dismissal Should Be With Prejudice
US v. Williams, No. O6-5036 (12/20/07): Dismissal ordered for violation of Speedy Trial Act; case remanded for determination of whether dismissal should be with or without prejudice.
On October 10, 2004, the defendant was indicted on charges of possession of crack with intent, possession of a firearm in connection therewith, and felon in possession of the firearm. He was convicted following trial held a little more than a year later. Because of his three prior drug convictions, he was sentenced to life without parole.(I mention this to give you a sense of his chances on remand).
The speedy trial problems arose from the defendant’s demands for new counsel, continuances occasioned thereby, and his execution of an open-ended waiver of his speedy trial rights. He moved to continue his first trial setting to allow new counsel to prepare. The court granted the motion, reset the case, and ordered that the period from the first trial date to the second be excluded from the speedy trial calculation. The defendant changed counsel again, so the court sua sponte moved the trial back a week and excluded that time as well. On the new trial date, February 14, 2005, the defendant executed a waiver in which he agreed to another continuance of both a pretrial conference and the trial itself in order that new counsel enter the case and prepare for trial or seek another resolution of the pending charges. The waiver also stated that he had no objection “to the Court ordering that all delays resulting from the continuance be excluded under the Speedy Trial Act and that the ends of justice served by the continuance outweigh the interests of the public and Mr. Williams in a speedy trial.” On July 19, 2005, some five months later, the court entered a summary order resetting the trial for September 12, 2005, and stated that the entire period from February 14 to September 12 was excludable pursuant 18 USC § 3161(h)(8)(A). On September 9, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss for violation of the Speedy Trial Act, which was denied because of the waiver. The case finally went to trial on October 24, 2005.
The Tenth began by calculating the amount of time that was properly excludable from the total period of 370 days between first appearance and trial because of pretrial motions under § 3161(h)(1)(F) and (J). This came to a total of 160 days. Along the way, the Tenth sidestepped a conflict among several circuits about how to deal with “pro forma” requests for discovery that do no require action by the court (here a request for notice of government’s intent to introduce 404(b) and 609 evidence). It simply followed the premise common to the various approaches that such motions cannot indefinitely exclude time from the speedy trial clock. Thus, even if 30 days from the filing of the request were excluded under 18 USC § 3162(h)(1)(J) (the Ninth Circuit approach), this would not affect the ultimate determination here.
The Tenth then addressed the defendant’s waiver. Following Zedner v. US, 126 S.Ct. 1976 (2006), it held that the defendant could not validly waive the application of the Speedy Trial Act prospectively, and the district court erred in ruling that he had in fact done just that.
Finally, the Tenth addressed the periods associated with the ends-of-justice continuances arising from the several changes of defense counsel. A total of three had been granted, and all three suffered from the same speedy trial defect -wholly inadequate factfinding on the record to justify them, as required by § 3161(h)(8). This was especially true of the district court’s July 19th order, which was both retroactive and prospective. The district court erred in excluding the retroactive period from the date of the waiver to the entry of the order because Congress did not intend ends-of-justice continuances to be granted retroactively. Findings that justify such a continuance may be entered on the record after the fact, but they must be made at the time the continuance is granted. There was nothing in the record to indicate that the court had even considered the statutory factors set out in § 3161(h)(8)(B) when it granted a continuance based on the waiver. The prospective part of this order, like the other two orders granting continuance, was defective because it was not based on adequate, on-the-record findings; none of them even mentioned the ends-of-justice basis for granting them, much less address the public’s interest in the speedy resolution of criminal cases.
On October 10, 2004, the defendant was indicted on charges of possession of crack with intent, possession of a firearm in connection therewith, and felon in possession of the firearm. He was convicted following trial held a little more than a year later. Because of his three prior drug convictions, he was sentenced to life without parole.(I mention this to give you a sense of his chances on remand).
The speedy trial problems arose from the defendant’s demands for new counsel, continuances occasioned thereby, and his execution of an open-ended waiver of his speedy trial rights. He moved to continue his first trial setting to allow new counsel to prepare. The court granted the motion, reset the case, and ordered that the period from the first trial date to the second be excluded from the speedy trial calculation. The defendant changed counsel again, so the court sua sponte moved the trial back a week and excluded that time as well. On the new trial date, February 14, 2005, the defendant executed a waiver in which he agreed to another continuance of both a pretrial conference and the trial itself in order that new counsel enter the case and prepare for trial or seek another resolution of the pending charges. The waiver also stated that he had no objection “to the Court ordering that all delays resulting from the continuance be excluded under the Speedy Trial Act and that the ends of justice served by the continuance outweigh the interests of the public and Mr. Williams in a speedy trial.” On July 19, 2005, some five months later, the court entered a summary order resetting the trial for September 12, 2005, and stated that the entire period from February 14 to September 12 was excludable pursuant 18 USC § 3161(h)(8)(A). On September 9, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss for violation of the Speedy Trial Act, which was denied because of the waiver. The case finally went to trial on October 24, 2005.
The Tenth began by calculating the amount of time that was properly excludable from the total period of 370 days between first appearance and trial because of pretrial motions under § 3161(h)(1)(F) and (J). This came to a total of 160 days. Along the way, the Tenth sidestepped a conflict among several circuits about how to deal with “pro forma” requests for discovery that do no require action by the court (here a request for notice of government’s intent to introduce 404(b) and 609 evidence). It simply followed the premise common to the various approaches that such motions cannot indefinitely exclude time from the speedy trial clock. Thus, even if 30 days from the filing of the request were excluded under 18 USC § 3162(h)(1)(J) (the Ninth Circuit approach), this would not affect the ultimate determination here.
The Tenth then addressed the defendant’s waiver. Following Zedner v. US, 126 S.Ct. 1976 (2006), it held that the defendant could not validly waive the application of the Speedy Trial Act prospectively, and the district court erred in ruling that he had in fact done just that.
Finally, the Tenth addressed the periods associated with the ends-of-justice continuances arising from the several changes of defense counsel. A total of three had been granted, and all three suffered from the same speedy trial defect -wholly inadequate factfinding on the record to justify them, as required by § 3161(h)(8). This was especially true of the district court’s July 19th order, which was both retroactive and prospective. The district court erred in excluding the retroactive period from the date of the waiver to the entry of the order because Congress did not intend ends-of-justice continuances to be granted retroactively. Findings that justify such a continuance may be entered on the record after the fact, but they must be made at the time the continuance is granted. There was nothing in the record to indicate that the court had even considered the statutory factors set out in § 3161(h)(8)(B) when it granted a continuance based on the waiver. The prospective part of this order, like the other two orders granting continuance, was defective because it was not based on adequate, on-the-record findings; none of them even mentioned the ends-of-justice basis for granting them, much less address the public’s interest in the speedy resolution of criminal cases.
posted by Anonymous at 3:51 PM
<< Home