Case Title: The People v. Anthony Romeo

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-york

Court: New York Appellate Court

Date: 2009-02-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 7  
The People &c., 
            Appellant, 
        v. 
Anthony Romeo, 
            Respondent.
Michael Blakey, for appellant.
Barry A. Bohrer, for respondent.
CIPARICK, Acting Chief Judge:
The question raised by this appeal is whether the
People’s lengthy post-indictment delay occasioned by delaying
their prosecution in favor of a Canadian prosecution violated
defendant’s constitutional right to a speedy trial.  Applying the
five-factor speedy trial analysis articulated in People v
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Taranovich (37 NY2d 442 [1975]), we conclude that it did and
therefore affirm. 
 
I
In November 1985, a fatal shooting occurred in the
victim's Fire Island home, in Suffolk County.  Ballistics
evidence taken over a year later indicated that a gun belonging
to defendant was the murder weapon.  In February 1987, Suffolk
County Court ordered defendant to provide a DNA sample to compare
with DNA obtained from hair the victim had in his hand when he
died.  Defendant’s attorney scheduled a date for his client to
surrender to Suffolk County law enforcement officials and to
provide a sample of his DNA for comparative testing.  
On the scheduled date, March 5, defendant, armed with a
gun, absconded to Canada in his car.  On March 8, a Canadian
constable pulled the car over for speeding.  Defendant pulled his
gun, and shot and killed the officer.  He then discarded the
firearm and reentered the United States, making his way to
Boston, where he was arrested at Logan International Airport
while attempting to board a plane to Florida.  He was arraigned
on the Canadian warrant before a federal magistrate and held
without bail pending extradition to Canada.  Pursuant to court
order, Suffolk County law enforcement authorities came to Boston
and obtained hair and blood samples from defendant that matched
the hair strands found in the victim's hand.  
On March 27, a Suffolk County grand jury indicted
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defendant on two counts of murder in the second degree (Penal Law
§§ 125.25 [1], 125.25 [2]) and the People filed a warrant to
detain him in the United States.  On April 1, while defendant was
still in federal custody, he made the first of a series of formal
demands to the People for an immediate arraignment and trial on
the Suffolk County indictment.  He made a similar demand to the
United States Department of Justice, asserting his constitutional
right to a speedy trial.
On May 15, a Canadian official wrote a letter to the
Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office stating options
available under the existing extradition treaty between the
United States and Canada that would enable defendant’s return to
the United States after a Canadian conviction.  The letter was
encouraging in tone, but did not offer assurance that a prompt
return would be arranged.
On May 29, defendant, still in federal custody, but now
in Missouri, filed an order to show cause in Suffolk County Court
demanding a writ of habeas corpus to be produced for arraignment
in Suffolk County before his extradition to Canada.  The People
argued that defendant would suffer no unusual delay in facing
trial in Suffolk County by being tried in Canada first -- 
apparently under the mistaken belief that defendant would
immediately be brought back to Suffolk County after his trial in
Canada.  On June 17, Suffolk County Court denied defendant’s
application, holding that the People could defer prosecution on
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the Suffolk County murder charges.  The court cautioned the
People, however, that any delay caused by allowing the Canadian
prosecution to proceed first could result in a violation of
defendant’s rights to a speedy trial, redress for which defendant
would be free to pursue at a later time. 
The People still elected to defer prosecution. 
Defendant was extradited to Canada, where he was tried and
convicted of the constable’s murder.  He received a sentence of
imprisonment of twenty-five years to life with parole eligibility
in 2011.  The People never sought extradition to Suffolk County.  
On July 23, 1999, twelve years after having been
indicted for the Fire Island murder, defendant moved in Suffolk
County Court to dismiss the murder indictment on constitutional
and statutory speedy trial grounds.  The court denied the
application.  Six years later, in November 2005, defendant was
brought back to Suffolk County following amendments to the
Canadian-United States Extradition Treaty that allowed for the
“borrowing” of defendant from Canada.  Defendant was arraigned on
the Suffolk County indictment and, in February 2006, entered a
guilty plea to manslaughter in the first degree and was sentenced
to a term of imprisonment of seven to twenty-one years to be
served concurrently with the Canadian sentence.  Defendant
appealed, asserting that the nineteen-year post-indictment delay
deprived him of his constitutional right to a speedy trial. 
The Appellate Division reversed the conviction and
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dismissed the indictment, holding that the People’s delay
violated defendant’s right to a speedy trial.  The court took
into consideration only the twelve-year delay in prosecution,
from 1987 until 1999, when defendant filed his speedy trial
motion.  The Appellate Division reasoned that the People’s
decision to defer their prosecution in favor of the Canadian
prosecution and failure to make an extradition request to Canada,
even though it was unclear that Canada would have denied the
request, caused the extended delay in prosecution.  A Judge of
this Court granted the People leave to appeal and we now affirm. 
  II 
A criminal defendant’s right to a speedy trial is 
guaranteed both by the Sixth Amendment to the United States
Constitution (US Const, 6th, 14th Amends) and by statute (CPL
30.20; Civil Rights Law, § 12).  Violation of this right results
in dismissal of an indictment (see Strunk v United States, 412 US
434, 439-440 [1973]); People v Taranovich, 37 NY2d 442, 444
[1975]).  
The term “speedy trial” must be evaluated in the
context of a sensitive balancing of several factors, with no one
factor being dispositive of a violation, and with no formalistic
precepts by which a deprivation of the right can be assessed (see
Doggett v United States, 505 US 647, 651 [1992]; Taranovich, 37
NY2d at 445-445).  The five factors to be considered are: (1) the
extent of the delay; (2) the reason for the delay; (3) the nature
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of the underlying charges; (4) any extended period of pretrial
incarceration; and (5) any impairment of defendant’s defense (see
Taranovich, 37 NY2d at 445).  The balancing of these factors must
be performed carefully in light of the particular facts in each
case (see People v Vernace, 96 NY2d 886, 887 [2001]). 
 
The first factor, the extent of the delay, is of
critical importance because “all other factors being equal, the
greater the delay the more probable it is that the accused will
be harmed thereby” (Taranovich, 37 NY2d at 445).  There is no
specific temporal period by which a delay may be evaluated or
considered “presumptively prejudicial” (see Doggett, 505 US at
652).  Where the delay is lengthy, an examination of the other
factors is triggered, and the length of delay becomes one factor
in that inquiry (see id.).  
Here, the delay between the indictment and the filing
of the speedy trial motion was an extraordinary period of twelve
years (see Doggett, 505 US at 658 [8½-year delay was
“extraordinary”] [internal quotation omitted]; Barker v Wingo,
407 US 514, 527 [1972] [5½-year delay was “extraordinary”])
People v White, 32 NY2d 393, 398 [1973] [4-year delay violated
the defendant’s right to a speedy trial]; People v Winfrey, 20
NY2d 138 [1967] [4½-year delay].  Although not in itself
decisive, the twelve-year delay requires close scrutiny of the
other factors, especially the question of why the delay occurred. 
It was the People’s burden to bring defendant to trial in a
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timely fashion (see Smith v Hooey, 393 US 374, 383 [1969]).  The
genesis of this extraordinary delay was the People’s decision to
defer their prosecution, allowing defendant to be sent abroad for
a foreign murder prosecution, and then failing to make an
extradition request to Canadian authorities, which, if granted,
might have mitigated the length of the delay.  
Soon after the filing of this indictment, defendant
made repeated demands to be arraigned in Suffolk County before
being sent to Canada.  Additionally, during a hearing to
determine whether defendant could be prosecuted in Canada first,
Suffolk County Court cautioned the People that their decision
might cause a speedy trial violation.  Thus, even prior to their
decision to defer prosecution, the People had been placed on
notice that their decision might violate defendant’s
constitutional speedy trial rights, as defendant was already
making claims that he was being prejudiced by the delay.  In the
face of these warnings, the People still allowed defendant to be
prosecuted abroad before even arraigning him on the Suffolk
County murder indictment.
The People argue that the correspondence they received
from Canadian officials justified their decision to defer
prosecution and the ensuing lengthy delay.  Defendant does not
suggest that the People acted with bad-faith, which obviously
would weigh heavily in favor of dismissal of the indictment (see
Doggett, 505 US at 656).  But even if acting under the mistaken
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belief that defendant’s presence could be obtained in Suffolk
County promptly after the Canadian trial, the People still knew
or should have known that there was no guarantee that defendant
would be brought back to Suffolk County in a timely manner.  They
were advised that the extradition treaty in effect would have
enabled the People to request defendant’s extradition, which the
Canadian authorities had the discretion to grant or defer until
the completion of defendant’s sentence.  The People were required
to, at the very minimum, make such a request for defendant’s
return.  By deferring prosecution and choosing not to attempt to
extradite defendant, the People ran the risk of a speedy trial
violation.   
The fact that a defendant is incarcerated outside of
the State makes it incumbent upon the People to make diligent,
good faith efforts to secure his presence in the state for
arraignment and trial (see Hooey, 393 US 374, 383 [1969]).  Where
the defendant is incarcerated in another country, failing to make
an extradition request has been one factor that courts have
viewed as evidencing a lack of diligent efforts on the part of
the prosecution in bringing defendant to trial promptly (see
United States v Pomeroy, 822 F2d 718, 721-722 [8th Cir 1987];
United States v McConahy, 505 F2d 770, 773-774 [7th Cir 1974]). 
Of course, where the foreign country demonstrates its clear
intention to deny an extradition request, the People are under no
obligation to make a futile gesture.  But nothing in this record
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demonstrates that a request here would have been futile, and thus
this case differs from cases where an extradition request would
clearly fall on deaf ears (see United States v Blanco, 861 F2d
773, 778 [2d Cir 1988] [Colombian government repeatedly refused
to extradite Colombian nationals]; United States v Walton, 814
F2d 376, 379 [7th Cir 1987] [Swedish officials denied informal
requests from the United States State Department to extradite the
suspect]).  An extradition request might have led to cooperation
in securing defendant’s return to Suffolk County (see Pomeroy,
505 F2d at 721-722 [because it was at least possible that Canada
would have honored an extradition request, the prosecution’s
failure to make an extradition request evidenced a lack of
diligent efforts to secure the defendant]). 
The third factor applies to the underlying charges. 
Although this case involves the grave offense of murder, the
level of offense does not trump a defendant’s right to a speedy
trial.  As we stated in Taranovich: 
“Of course, this is not to say that one’s
right to a speedy trial is dependent upon
what one is charged with, but rather that the
prosecutor may understandably be more
thorough and precise in his preparation for
the trial of a class C felony than he would
be in prosecuting a misdemeanor” (37 NY2d at
446). 
Here, the People do not claim that any delay was a
result of time needed for pre-trial preparation.  The 12-19 year
delay is entirely the result of defendant’s incarceration in
Canada. 
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The fourth factor, whether there has been an extended
period of pretrial incarceration, is not significant in this
case.  Defendant was initially detained on a warrant filed by the
Canadian government.  He has been held at all times thereafter
pursuant to the Canadian charges, never on the Suffolk County
indictment alone.  At no point during his prosecution on the
Suffolk County charges has he faced additional incarceration from
those charges.  
The fifth factor is whether or not there is any
indication that the defense has been impaired by reason of the
delay, such as difficulty in gathering evidence and locating
witnesses (see Barker, 407 US at 532).  Such concerns are
exacerbated where the defendant is incarcerated in a foreign
jurisdiction. 
Here, it is highly likely that the defense was
“impaired” (see Hooey, 393 US at 374) by defendant’s
incarceration for many years in a foreign prison where it would
have been difficult for him to participate in his own defense,
confer with counsel and contact witnesses.  Defendant claims that
he had psychiatric problems and might have presented a defense
based on a lack of criminal responsibility by reason of mental
disease or defect.  This type of defense would have required
defendant to establish his mental incapacity at the time of the
offense.  The ability to do this was clearly hampered by his
incarceration abroad.    
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We conclude that the Appellate Division properly
balanced the Taranovich factors and that the prejudice caused by
the post-indictment delay, as a result of the People’s decision
to allow defendant to be tried in Canada first and the subsequent
decision not to seek defendant’s extradition to Suffolk County,
violated defendant’s constitutional right to a speedy trial. 
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should
be affirmed. 
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * 
Order affirmed.  Opinion by Acting Chief Judge Ciparick.  Judges
Graffeo, Read, Smith, Pigott and Jones concur.
Decided February 11, 2009