Case Title: State v. Pair

Citation: 416 Md. 157

Docket Number: 95/09

State: maryland

Court: Maryland Supreme Court

Date: 2010-10-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
State of Maryland v. Caleb Micha Pair, No. 95, September Term 2009
Interstate Agreement on Detainers – General Application – Pending Charges in
Sending State
The Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), a congressionally sanctioned compact codified
at Maryland Code (1999, 2008 Repl. Vol.), Correctional Services §§ 8-401 to 8-417, applies
to an individual serving a term of incarceration in another jurisdiction who also has
outstanding charges pending against him in that jurisdiction.  Although Appellee was
incarcerated in Delaware while awaiting trial on other charges, such confinement was
pursuant to a prior conviction, and therefore satisfied the requirement of the IAD that the
subject of detainer is “serving a term of imprisonment.”
Interstate Agreement on Detainers – General Application – Inability to Stand Trial
Under the IAD, an individual serving a term of incarceration in another jurisdiction has the
right to seek disposition of the charges underlying a detainer.  § 8-405(a).  Section 8-405(a)
further provides that, once that request is received, the appropriate authorities in the
“receiving” state must try the prisoner on those charges within 180 days.  If, however, the
prisoner is being held in the sending state pending disposition of other charges in that state,
the prisoner is considered “unable to stand trial” on the untried charges in the “receiving
state” under the tolling provision of § 8-408(a).  Until all charges against Appellee were
resolved in Delaware, he could not stand trial in Maryland without Delaware’s consent,
thereby rendering him, during the pendency of the Delaware charges, “unable to stand trial”
in Maryland and tolling during that time the 180-day speedy trial provision of § 8-405. 
Appellee, however, was able to stand trial in Maryland once all pending charges in Delaware
were resolved and the 180-day speedy trial provision resumed running.  The States, as
signatories to the IAD, have the burden of abiding by its requirements, and any error, by
either the sending or receiving state, that causes a delay in disposition of the untried charges
in the receiving state will be counted against the 180-day speedy trial provision.  Because a
total of 204 non-tolled days had elapsed before Maryland could commence trial against
Appellee, the Circuit Court was correct to dismiss the charges with prejudice, pursuant to §
8-407(c).  
Circuit Court for Cecil County
No. 07-K-05-001098
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
OF MARYLAND
No. 95
September Term, 2009
STATE OF MARYLAND
v.
CALEB MICHA PAIR
Bell, C.J.,
Harrell
Battaglia
Greene
Murphy
Adkins
Barbera,
               JJ.
Opinion by Barbera, J.
Murphy, J., joins judgment only.
Filed:   October 7, 2010
1 Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent statutory citations will be to the Correctional
Services Article of the Maryland Code (1999, 2008 Repl. Vol.).
This case calls upon us to construe the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (“IAD”),
codified at Maryland Code (1999, 2008 Repl. Vol.),  §§ 8-401 to 8-417 of the Correctional
Services Article.1   In particular, we are asked to determine whether the Circuit Court for
Cecil County correctly interpreted the IAD to require dismissal of the criminal charges
against Appellee, Caleb Micha Pair, on the ground that Appellant, the State of Maryland
(“the State”), failed to comply with the 180-day speedy trial period set forth in the IAD.  The
State appealed the Circuit Court’s decision to the Court of Special Appeals.  We issued a writ
of certiorari before briefing and argument in that court.  For the following reasons, we affirm
the Circuit Court’s judgment of dismissal. 
I.
 The IAD, to which Maryland became a signatory in 1965, is a congressionally
sanctioned compact among forty-eight states, the Federal Government, Puerto Rico, the U.S.
Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia.  Drafted in 1956 by the Council of State
Governments, the IAD has its origins in a report by a group of federal, state, and private
entities (the “Joint Committee on Detainers”) highlighting the significant problems arising
from the use of detainers. The IAD is based on a legislative finding that “‘charges
outstanding against a prisoner, detainers based on untried indictments, informations, or
complaints and difficulties in securing speedy trial of persons already incarcerated in other
jurisdictions, produce uncertainties which obstruct programs of prisoner treatment and
2 The IAD does not define “detainer.”  We have described a detainer as “a notification
filed with the institution in which a prisoner is serving a sentence, advising that he is wanted
to face pending criminal charges in another jurisdiction.” Stone v. State,  344 Md. 97, 108,
685 A.2d 441, 446 (1996) (quotation marks and citation omitted). 
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rehabilitation.’”  United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340, 351 (1978) (quoting Article I of the
IAD, found at § 8-403).  The Supreme Court explained in Carchman v. Nash: 
The inmate who has a detainer against him is filled with anxiety and
apprehension and frequently does not respond to a training program.  He often
must be kept in close custody, which bars him from treatment such as
trustyships, moderations of custody and opportunity for transfer to farms and
work camps.  In many jurisdictions he is not eligible for parole; there is little
hope for his release after an optimum period of training and treatment, when
he is ready for return to society with an excellent possibility that he will not
offend again.  Instead, he often becomes embittered with continued
institutionalization and the objective of the correctional system is defeated.  
 473 U.S. 716, 720 (1985) (quoting Council of State Governments, Suggested State
Legislation, Program for 1957, p. 74 (1956)).  See also generally Christopher D. Serf,
Federal Habeas Corpus Review of Nonconstitutional Errors: The Cognizability of the
Interstate Agreement on Detainers, 83 COLUM. L. REV. 975, 978 (1983) (summarizing the
significant hardships that detainers imposed upon prisoners prior to enactment of the IAD).
The IAD consists of nine articles, the first of which sets forth its policy and purpose:
The party states find that charges outstanding against a prisoner, detainers[2]
based on untried indictments, informations, or complaints, and difficulties in
securing speedy trial of persons already incarcerated in other jurisdictions,
produce uncertainties which obstruct programs of prisoner treatment and
rehabilitation.  Accordingly, it is the policy of the party states and the purpose
of this Agreement to encourage the expeditious and orderly disposition of such
charges and determination of the proper status of any and all detainers based
on untried indictments, informations, or complaints.  The party states also find
that proceedings with reference to such charges and detainers, when emanating
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from another jurisdiction, cannot properly be had in the absence of cooperative
procedures.  It is the further purpose of this Agreement to provide such
cooperative procedures.
Article I (§ 8-403).  In short, the purpose of the IAD is to facilitate speedy disposition of
charges underlying detainers.
The IAD sets forth two procedures designed to effectuate its purpose.  First, Article
IV of the IAD (§ 8-406) “enables a participating State to gain custody of a prisoner
incarcerated in another jurisdiction, in order to try him on criminal charges[,]” Reed v.
Farley, 512 U.S. 339, 341 (1994), and, second, Article III (§ 8-405) “gives a prisoner
incarcerated in one State the right to demand the speedy disposition of any untried
indictment, information or complaint that is the basis of a detainer lodged against him by
another State[,]” Carchman, 473 U.S. at 718-19 (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted).  The present case involves a prisoner’s request, pursuant to  § 8-405, for a speedy
disposition of outstanding charges.  
The interstate transfer process begins when the “receiving” state lodges a detainer
with the warden “or other official” of the institution where the prisoner in question is
currently imprisoned, in what is referred to as the custodial or “sending” state.  See § 8-
405(b).  The warden or other authority in the sending state is then obligated to inform the
inmate of the detainer’s source and contents, and of the inmate’s right, under the IAD, to
request final disposition of the charges on which the detainer is based.  See § 8-405(c).  
To exercise the right of speedy disposition, the inmate must file a request for IAD
relief with the warden, who must forward the request to appropriate authorities in the
3  Section 8-416 states that the 180-day time period does not begin until the
appropriate court and the appropriate State’s Attorney or other authorized person “actually
receive[]” the prisoner’s request.  That section provides:
     As to any request by an individual confined in another party state for trial
in this State, written notice may not be deemed to have been delivered to the
prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of this State in accordance with
§ 8-405(a) (Article III(a) of the Agreement) of this subtitle and notification
may not be deemed to have been given in accordance with § 8-405(d) or § 8-
406(b) of this subtitle (Article III(d) and Article IV(b) of the Agreement) until
the notice or notification is actually received by the appropriate court and the
appropriate State’s Attorney of this State, the State’s Attorney’s deputy or
assistant, or any other person empowered to receive mail on behalf of the
State’s Attorney.
Maryland may well be the only party state to have added a provision of this sort to its IAD.
In any event, the Supreme Court has interpreted the “caused to be delivered” phrase in § 8-
405(a) of the IAD to commence the running of the 180-day period upon receipt of the
prisoner’s request for a speedy disposition of the charges that are the subject of the detainer.
Fex v. Michigan, 507 U.S. 43, 52 (1993).
4 Section 8-405(a) provides, in pertinent part:
(continued...)
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receiving state.  See § 8-405(d).  This document operates as a request by the prisoner for final
disposition of all untried charges underlying the detainer and is deemed to be a waiver of
extradition.  See § 8-405(d); Mauro, 436 U.S. at 351. 
 Once the receiving state receives the request,3 the IAD requires that jurisdiction to
bring the prisoner to trial within 180 days, unless one of two provisions of the IAD is
invoked.  The first of these provides that a court in the receiving state may issue a
continuance “for good cause shown in open court,” so long as the continuance is “necessary
and reasonable” and “the prisoner or the prisoner’s counsel [is] present.”  § 8-405(a).4  The
4(...continued)
(a) Notice of prisoner’s place of imprisonment and request for final
disposition. — Whenever a person has entered upon a term of imprisonment
in a penal or correctional institution of a party state, and whenever during the
continuance of the term of imprisonment there is pending in any other party
state any untried indictment, information, or complaint on the basis of which
a detainer has been lodged against the prisoner, the prisoner shall be brought
to trial within 180 days after the prisoner shall have caused to be delivered to
the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer’s
jurisdiction written notice of the place of the prisoner’s imprisonment and the
prisoner’s request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment,
information, or complaint; provided that for good cause shown in open court,
the prisoner or the prisoner’s counsel being present, the court having
jurisdiction of the matter may grant any necessary or reasonable continuance.
. . .
5  Section 8-408(a) provides: 
(a) Computation of time periods. — In determining the duration and expiration
dates of the time periods provided in §§ 8-405 and 8-406 of this subtitle
(Articles III and IV of the Agreement), the running of these time periods shall
be tolled whenever and for as long as the prisoner is unable to stand trial, as
determined by the court having jurisdiction of the matter.
6 Section 8-407(c) provides:
(c) Dismissal of indictment. — If the appropriate authority shall refuse or fail
to accept temporary custody of the person, or in the event that an action on the
indictment, information, or complaint on the basis of which the detainer has
been lodged is not brought to trial within the period provided in § 8-405 or §
(continued...)
-5-
second provides that the 180-day requirement “shall be tolled whenever and for as long as
the prisoner is unable to stand trial, as determined by the court having jurisdiction of the
matter.”  § 8-408(a) (emphasis added).5  If neither of these tolling provisions is properly
invoked, then the receiving state’s failure to comply with the 180-day provision requires
dismissal of the charges, with prejudice.  See § 8-407(c).6  
6(...continued)
8-406 of this subtitle (Article III or IV of the Agreement), the appropriate court
of the jurisdiction where the indictment, information, or complaint has been
pending shall enter an order dismissing the same with prejudice, and any
detainer based on the indictment, information, or complaint shall cease to be
of any force or effect.
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Because the purpose of the IAD is to help effectuate the rehabilitative process for
those who are incarcerated, it applies only to individuals who have “entered upon a term of
imprisonment.”  § 8-405(a).  As we shall discuss in more detail, infra, the IAD has been
interpreted not to apply to individuals in pre-trial confinement who are awaiting the
disposition of charges brought by the state in which they are detained.  See, e.g., Painter v.
State, 157 Md. App. 1, 17, 848 A.2d 692, 701 (2004) (collecting cases).
II.
Appellee was convicted of robbery by a Delaware state court in August 2005, and
began serving the sentence for that crime at a correctional facility in that state.  Just over one
month after the Delaware robbery conviction, Appellee was indicted in the Circuit Court for
Cecil County, Maryland, on an unrelated charge of armed robbery.  On May 18, 2006, the
State lodged a detainer with the proper authority in Delaware, a signatory to the IAD.
Appellee timely filed a request under the IAD for disposition of the charges.  The
State received that request on July 26, 2007, and offered to take temporary custody of
Appellee until final disposition of the charges.  On September 6, 2007, Delaware refused the
offer because, meanwhile, Delaware had charged Appellee with assault and related offenses
arising out of a March 2007 incident allegedly involving Appellee and a correctional officer
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at the institution where Appellee was housed.  
The following day, September 7, 2007, an Assistant State’s Attorney for Cecil County
filed in the Circuit Court for Cecil County a motion for continuance of trial on the Maryland
charges until resolution of the pending Delaware charges.  We have mentioned that the IAD
requires continuances to be granted upon “good cause shown in open court, the prisoner or
the prisoner’s counsel being present[.]”  § 8-405(a).  The Circuit Court granted the motion
four days later, without conducting a hearing.
On May 6, 2008, Appellee was acquitted of all the Delaware charges. Delaware,
however, did not inform the Cecil County State’s Attorney Office of the acquittal.  Indeed,
the State’s Attorney’s Office did not learn of the outcome of the Delaware proceedings until
July 24, 2008, when it received Appellee’s second request for IAD relief.  Following that,
the State accepted temporary custody of Appellee and set a trial date of October 15, 2008,
for disposition of the pending Maryland charges.
On that date, Appellee, represented by counsel, filed a motion to dismiss the charges,
citing the State’s failure to prosecute him within 180 days of July 26, 2007, the date on which
the State received his initial request.  Appellee argued that, although Delaware had informed
the State that it was unwilling to send Appellee to Maryland for trial, Delaware’s denial of
the State’s request for temporary transfer did not abrogate the State’s responsibilities under
the IAD.
The State offered three arguments in opposition to the motion to dismiss.  The State
argued that Appellee’s incarceration in Delaware constituted what the State described as
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“pretrial confinement awaiting disposition of [his] charge,” so the IAD, and consequently its
180-day requirement, did not apply.  The State also argued that the continuance the Circuit
Court granted in September 2007 tolled the 180-day period for the duration of the time
leading up to Appellee’s temporary transfer to Maryland on July 24, 2008.  Finally, the State
argued that, even if the continuance did not satisfy the requirements of § 8-405, the 180-day
time period nonetheless was tolled from September 6, 2007 (the date Maryland learned of
Delaware’s refusal to transfer Appellee) until Appellee’s transfer to Maryland on July 24,
2008, because, pursuant to § 8-408(a), Appellee was “unable to stand trial” in Maryland
during that time.
The Circuit Court (the Honorable Dexter M. Thompson, Jr. presiding) heard the
motion to dismiss.  The court rejected each of the State’s arguments and, agreeing with
Appellee that Maryland had violated the 180-day provision of the IAD, dismissed the charges
with prejudice.  The court reasoned that “the IAD definitely applies” to Appellee because,
when Maryland lodged the detainer, Appellee met the condition of the IAD that he had
“entered upon a term of imprisonment” in Delaware, even though, for some period of time
thereafter, he was also awaiting trial on the new Delaware assault charges.
The court also found no merit in the State’s argument that the Circuit Court’s grant
of the State’s September 7, 2007 request for continuance tolled the 180-day clock.  The court
ruled that the continuance was without effect because it was obtained without compliance
7 The State wisely does not challenge on appeal the correctness of the court’s ruling
that the continuance was without effect.
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with the IAD requirement of a hearing in open court, with Appellee or his counsel present.7
The court then turned to the State’s contention that Appellee had been “unable to
stand trial,” under § 8-408(a), on the Maryland charges because of Delaware’s refusal to send
him during the pendency of the Delaware assault charges.  The court divided into four time
periods the 447 days between the time Appellee requested disposition of the Maryland
charges and the scheduled trial date: 
(1) the 42 days between July 26, 2007, when Maryland received Appellee’s initial
IAD request, and September 6, 2007, when Delaware informed Maryland that it
would not send him to Maryland for trial; 
(2) the 243 days between September 6, 2007, and May 6, 2008, when Appellee was
acquitted of the new charges in Delaware; 
(3) the 79 days between May 6, 2008, and July 24, 2008, when Maryland learned of
the acquittal; and 
(4) the 83 days between July 24, 2008, and October 15, 2008, the scheduled trial date.
The court found no tolling during the first period (42 days).  The court found tolling during
the second period (243 days) because “Delaware refused to send [Appellee] to Maryland”
pending disposition of the Delaware charges.  The court disagreed with the State, however,
that such tolling continued beyond May 6, 2008, the date on which Appellee was acquitted
of those charges.  Rather, the court reasoned, the 180-day clock resumed on that day and ran
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for 79 days through July 24, 2008, the day the State learned about the acquittal (the third
period), and continued for another 83 days to the scheduled trial date of October 15, 2008
(the fourth period), which, when added to the 42 days at the outset, created a total delay of
204 days.  Because the total non-tolled time exceeded 180 days, the court concluded that
dismissal of the indictment was required by the terms of § 8-407(c).
The State noted a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals.  On September 14,
2009, before briefing and argument in that court, we granted a writ of certiorari, State v. Pair,
410 Md. 559, 979 A.2d 707 (2009), to answer the following question:
Did the circuit court err in dismissing the charges on the basis of violation of
the 180-day period of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers where the trial
court failed to toll the 180-day period as required after Delaware refused to
transfer [Appellee] and [Appellee] was unable to stand trial in Maryland as a
result? 
III. 
The propriety of the Circuit Court’s dismissal of the charges hinges on whether that
court correctly interpreted and applied the IAD to the facts before it.  As the facts are not in
dispute, we have only to decide whether the court was legally correct in its interpretation of
the law.  Schliser v. State, 394 Md. 519, 535, 907 A.2d 175, 184 (2006).  In doing so, we
must examine the provisions of the IAD with the goal of ascertaining the legislative intent,
by resorting first to the plain language of the law.  Thanner v. Balt. County, 414 Md. 265,
277, 995 A.2d 257, 264 (2010).  We strive to avoid constructions that are inconsistent with
common sense or render any of the statutory language nugatory or surplusage.  Lonaconing
Trap Club, Inc. v.  Md. Dep’t of the Env’t, 410 Md. 326, 339, 978 A.2d 702, 709 (2009).  If
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the language is ambiguous because it is susceptible to more than one equally reasonable
construction, we look to legislative intent to resolve the ambiguity.  Melton v. State, 379 Md.
471, 477, 842 A.2d 743, 746 (2004).  
The IAD is a congressionally sanctioned compact, and as a federal law is subject to
federal construction.  Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U.S. 433, 442 (1981).  Therefore, we defer to the
Supreme Court’s interpretation of it.  Moreover, by its express terms, the IAD “shall be
liberally construed so as to effectuate its purposes.” § 8-411.
A.
We turn first to the State’s argument that the Circuit Court erred in concluding that
the IAD applies to the facts of this case.  In the State’s view, the IAD does not apply because,
in terms of IAD law, Appellee was not serving “a term of imprisonment” in Delaware, but
was instead in “pre-trial status” in that state due to the pending Delaware charges.  We
disagree.
We have said that the IAD requires that a prisoner subject to a detainer must “ha[ve]
entered upon a term of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution of a party state,”
§ 8-405(a), at the time the detainer was lodged, in order to invoke the speedy trial provision
of the IAD.  We also have mentioned that courts have consistently construed that language
to mean that the IAD does not apply to a prisoner in pre-trial confinement.  Painter, 157 Md.
App. at 17, 848 A.2d at 701.  See United States v. Currier, 836 F.2d 11, 16 (1st Cir. 1987)
(the IAD applies “exclusively to prisoners who are actually serving their sentences, and not
to pretrial detainees”); accord United States v. Wilson, 27 F.3d 1126, 1130 (6th Cir.), cert.
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denied, 513 U.S. 976 (1994); United States v. Muniz, 1 F.3d 1018, 1025-26 (10th Cir.), cert.
denied, 510 U.S. 1002 (1993); United States v. Bayless, 940 F.2d 300, 303 (8th Cir. 1991);
United States v. Dobson, 585 F.2d 55, 59 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 899 (1978);  State
v. Hargrove, 45 P.3d 376, 383 (Kan.), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 982 (2002); State v. Reed, 668
N.W.2d 245, 251-52 (Neb. 2003), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1154 (2004).  We agree with the
Painter Court’s assessment of the “entered upon a term of imprisonment” limitation on the
applicability of the IAD:
[This] limitation is consistent with the point of the Agreement. . . . [T]he
purpose of the IAD is to minimize the adverse impact of a foreign prosecution
on rehabilitative programs of the confining jurisdiction.  As a pretrial detainee
has little or no interest in any of the rehabilitative programs of the institution[]
in which he is being temporarily detained pending trial, there is no basis to
justify invoking the IAD.  
157 Md. App. at 17, 848 A.2d at 701 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
It is undisputed that, when the State lodged the detainer, Appellee, then serving the
sentence imposed upon his August 2005 robbery conviction, had “entered upon a term of
imprisonment” in Delaware.  The State’s insistence that, for purposes of the IAD, Appellee
was in pre-trial detention in Delaware confuses the basis for Delaware’s incarceration of
Appellee in the first place (the 2005 conviction) with Delaware’s reason for subsequently
refusing to send him to Maryland (the pendency of the new assault charges).  Moreover, even
if the language of § 8-405(a) supports the State’s argument, which it does not, the argument
is undermined by a critical fact:  Appellee could not have been in pre-trial detention at the
time the State filed the detainer because the incident that formed the basis of the new
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Delaware charges occurred ten months later.  
Beyond that, the State’s argument subverts the purpose of the IAD, which is
avoidance of interruption of the rehabilitative efforts on the inmate’s behalf in the sending
state.  The pendency of the Delaware charges does not change the fact that before, while, and
after the charges were pending, Appellee was serving a term of imprisonment on the 2005
Delaware conviction.  Appellee therefore maintained throughout his confinement in
Delaware a continued interest in his rehabilitation and in avoiding any adverse consequences
on the conditions of his confinement that may have been precipitated by the detainer.  See
United States v. Roy, 771 F.2d 54, 58 (2d Cir. 1985) (holding that a prisoner who was serving
a sentence on a Connecticut conviction could invoke the protections of the IAD in response
to a federal detainer because “[t]he fact that additional Connecticut charges were pending
against him did not diminish his interests in his rehabilitation and in avoiding the adverse
consequences on the conditions of his confinement caused by the filing of a detainer”), cert.
denied, 475 U.S. 1110 (1986). 
We therefore hold that Appellee was serving “a term of imprisonment” in a Delaware
state correctional institution within the meaning of the IAD, notwithstanding that, for a
period of time during that incarceration, he also faced pending Delaware charges.  The IAD
therefore applies to Appellee, and he is entitled to the speedy trial protections afforded by it.
B. 
We now consider whether the Circuit Court properly concluded that the State violated
the 180-day speedy trial provision of the IAD.  There is no question that a total of 447 days
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elapsed between July 26, 2007, the date on which Maryland received Appellee’s initial
request for speedy disposition of the charges and October 15, 2008, the scheduled trial date.
The question is whether enough of that 447-day period, if any portion of it at all, was tolled
so as to bring the State into compliance with the 180-day requirement of the IAD.  The
parties do not dispute the four-period breakdown used by the Circuit Court in addressing this
issue, and we adopt it as we consider the State’s challenge to the legal correctness of the
court’s analysis.
The State concedes that the Circuit Court correctly concluded that the 180-day period
began to run on July 26, 2007, and ran for 42 days until September 6, 2007, when Delaware
informed Maryland that Appellee could not be transferred because of the by-then pending
charges in Delaware.  We agree with the State that the court correctly charged that first 42-
day period against the State. 
The State, looking next to the fourth period, further concedes that the court correctly
determined that the 83 days from July 24, 2008, when Maryland received notice from
Appellee of his acquittal of the assault, until the October 15 scheduled trial date count against
the State in the 180-day calculation.  Again, we agree with the State that the court correctly
analyzed that time period.
The parties dispute the effect upon the 180-day calculus of the second and third time
periods.  The second period, totaling 243 days, ran from September 6, 2007, when Delaware
notified Maryland of its refusal to send Appellee to Maryland before disposition of the
Delaware charges, through May 6, 2008, the date on which Appellee was acquitted of those
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charges.  The Circuit Court concluded that the 180-day period was tolled for those 243 days
because, during that time, Appellee was “unable to stand trial,” as that term is used in § 8-
408(a).  The State, not surprisingly, agrees with the court’s conclusion, arguing that it is
consistent with a proper construction of the term “unable to stand trial.”  Appellee disagrees,
arguing that only the six days during which he was being tried on the Delaware charges was
he “unable to stand” trial in Maryland. 
As for the 79 days of the third period, that is, the time between Appellee’s acquittal
on May 6, 2008, and July 24, 2008, the day the State learned of it, the Circuit Court
concluded that the 180-day time period was not tolled because the IAD places on the State
the responsibility to bring Appellee to trial, “even though the State of Maryland might not
have done anything wrong.”  The State challenges this analysis, arguing that it should not be
penalized for Delaware’s failure to alert Maryland officials that Appellee had been acquitted.
Appellee responds that the Circuit Court correctly decided that this third, 79-day period
should be charged against the State.
The parties’ arguments therefore reduce to the following:  By the State’s reasoning,
the 180-day speedy trial clock was tolled for all of both the second period (243 days) and the
third period (79 days) because for all of that time Appellee was “unable to stand trial.”
Therefore, only 125 days of the total period (447 days) count in the speedy trial calculus,
resulting in no violation of the 180-day requirement as of October 15, 2008, the date on
which the Circuit Court wrongly, in the State’s view, dismissed the charges.  By Appellee’s
reasoning, only six days (the days of the Delaware assault trial) were tolled because for only
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those days was he unable to stand trial in Maryland, resulting in a 441-day delay in bringing
him to trial on the Maryland charges, thereby violating the IAD.  The Circuit Court, as we
have seen, disagreed with both parties and concluded that only during the second, 243-day
period was Appellee unable to stand trial, resulting in a delay of 204 days in bringing
Appellee to trial in Maryland, thereby violating the IAD and requiring dismissal of the
charges.
We, like the parties and the Circuit Court, view the outcome of this appeal as
ultimately turning on the meaning of the phrase “unable to stand trial,” as it is employed in
the IAD.  For the reasons we next discuss, we agree with the Circuit Court that Appellee was
“unable to stand trial” in Maryland only for the 243-day period during which the assault
charges were pending against him in Delaware.
C.
The parties have not directed us to a Maryland appellate decision construing the
phrase “unable to stand trial,” and we have found none.  In construing that phrase, however,
we do not write on a clean slate.  Our research discloses that, with the apparent exception of
the Fifth Circuit, all of the federal and state courts that have addressed this issue in reported
decisions have held, albeit through slightly different analyses, that a prisoner who desires a
speedy disposition of a detainer is “unable to stand trial” on the charges underlying the
detainer whenever such unavailability can be attributed to “legal” or “administrative”
reasons, such as, in the present case, the pendency of charges in the sending jurisdiction.
The Second, Fourth, and Ninth Circuits interpret the term “unable to stand trial” by
8 Section 3161(h)(1) tolls the clock in any of the following instances:
(A) delay resulting from any proceeding, including any examinations, to
determine the mental competency or physical capacity of the defendant;
(B) delay resulting from trial with respect to other charges against the
defendant;
(C) delay resulting from any interlocutory appeal;
(D) delay resulting from any pretrial motion, from the filing of the motion
through the conclusion of the hearing on, or other prompt disposition of, such
motion;
(E) delay resulting from any proceeding relating to the transfer of a case or the
removal of any defendant from another district under the Federal Rules of
Criminal Procedure;
(F) delay resulting from transportation of any defendant from another district,
or to and from places of examination or hospitalization, except that any time
consumed in excess of ten days from the date an order of removal or an order
directing such transportation, and the defendant’s arrival at the destination
shall be presumed to be unreasonable;
(G) delay resulting from consideration by the court of a proposed plea
agreement to be entered into by the defendant and the attorney for the
Government; and
(H) delay reasonably attributable to any period, not to exceed thirty days,
during which any proceeding concerning the defendant is actually under
advisement by the court. 
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reference to the analogous tolling provision contained in the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 18
U.S.C. § 3161(h) (2008), which tolls the 180-day speedy trial requirement in various
circumstances, including “delay resulting from trial with respect to other charges against the
defendant.”8  Those courts reason that the Speedy Trial Act and the IAD have the same
purpose and should therefore be construed in pari materia.  See United States v. Collins, 90
F.3d 1420, 1427 (9th Cir. 1996); United States v. Cephas, 937 F.2d 816, 819 (2d Cir. 1991),
cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1037 (1992); United States v. Odom, 674 F.2d 228, 231-32 (4th Cir.),
cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1125 (1982).  
9 A district court in the Sixth Circuit employed a similar analysis in coming to the
same conclusion as did the Young Court.   See United States v. Mason, 372 F. Supp. 651, 653
(N.D. Ohio 1973) (ruling that the period during which the defendant was standing trial in
another jurisdiction should be excluded from the 180-day period, “since if a person is
standing trial in one state he cannot be expected to be standing trial in another state
simultaneously”).
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The Seventh and Eighth Circuits simply toll the 180-day period while the prisoner is
“legally or administratively” unavailable.  See United States v. Neal, 564 F.3d 1351, 1354
(8th Cir. 2009); United States v. Roy, 830 F.2d 628, 635 (7th Cir. 1987); cert. denied, 484
U.S. 1068 (1988).  Particularly pertinent here, the Eighth Circuit has held that a prisoner is
“legally or administratively” unavailable to be sent elsewhere to stand trial on a detainer for
as long as the prisoner is involved in court proceedings in the sending jurisdiction.  See
Young v. Mabry, 596 F.2d 339, 343 (8th Cir.) (holding that the time the defendant was in
federal custody awaiting trial on federal charges was properly excluded in determining, under
the IAD, whether the defendant was brought to trial on the state charges on which the
defendant had requested speedy disposition), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 853 (1979).9
Insofar as we can discern, the Fifth Circuit is alone among the federal courts that have
spoken on the subject, by interpreting the “unable to stand trial” proviso as applying only to
prisoners who are physically or mentally incapacitated.  See Birdwell v. Skeen, 983 F.2d
1332, 1341 (5th Cir. 1993) (construing the phrase “unable to stand trial” to mean only a
physical or mental inability, which does not include the delay attendant to the processing of
10  To our knowledge, however, the Fifth Circuit has not addressed a factual scenario
like the one presented here.
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pre-trial motions).10 
Like the federal courts, our sister state courts employ various analyses for determining
when an inmate is “unable to stand trial” due to out-of-jurisdiction charges.  Yet, all
conclude, like most of the federal courts we have identified, that the standard for inability to
stand trial is one akin to “legal or administrative” unavailability, which includes the
unavailability to stand trial in the receiving state until pending charges in the sending state
are resolved.   See Johnson v. Comm’r of Corr., 758 A.2d 442, 450-51 (Conn. App. 2000)
(affirming the denial of a Connecticut prisoner’s petition to quash a Massachusetts detainer
because, until the prisoner’s charges were resolved in Connecticut, he was “unable to stand
trial” in Massachusetts, thereby tolling the 180-day requirement);  State v. Wood, 241
N.W.2d 8,14 (Iowa 1976) (prisoner unable to stand trial in Iowa during pendency of
proceedings in Kansas);  State v. Binn, 506 A.2d 67, 69-70 (Sup. Ct. N.J. App. Div. 1986)
(prisoner unable to stand trial in New Jersey because of the legitimate claim of New York
to hold him to dispose of the remaining New York charges); People v. Vrlaku, 134 A.D.2d
105 (N.Y. App. Div. 1988) (tolling properly applied while prisoner awaited federal drug
charges in federal detention facility); aff’d, 533 N.E.2d 1053 (N.Y. 1988). 
Like the majority of our sister federal and state courts, we construe the “unable to
stand trial” language of § 8-408(a) to include the time during which the sending jurisdiction
is actively prosecuting the inmate on current and pending charges.  This construction is
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consistent with a practical commonsense interpretation of § 8-408(a), and with the purpose
clause of the IAD, which explains the necessity for “cooperative procedures” among the
states, see § 8-403. 
We reject Appellee’s suggestion that Maryland had the responsibility to persuade
Delaware to send Appellee to Maryland while he was awaiting resolution of the Delaware
charges.  Although the IAD requires that the sending state “shall offer to deliver temporary
custody of [a] prisoner” to the receiving state, § 8-407(a), the IAD does not require the
sending state to transfer a prisoner who faces pending charges in that state.  We therefore are
in accord with the cases cited above that the IAD is not designed to deprive the sending state
of its right to resolve pending charges in that state.  
Applying this construction of § 8-408(a) to the present case, we hold that the 180-day
speedy trial period of the IAD was properly tolled for all of the 243 days during which
Appellee awaited disposition of the Delaware assault charges.
D.
Finally, we must decide whether the State is correct that Appellee also was “unable
to stand trial “ on the Maryland charges during the 79 days between the date on which he was
acquitted on the Delaware charges and the date on which Maryland learned, through
Appellee, of the acquittal.  The Circuit Court decided that this period should not count as a
time when Appellee was unable to stand trial, and Appellee, of course, concurs.  Once again
we agree with the Circuit Court.
Courts have routinely stressed that the IAD is remedial in nature and should be
-21-
liberally construed in favor of the prisoner against whom the detainer is lodged.  See United
States ex rel. Esola v. Groomes, 520 F.2d 830, 836 (3d Cir. 1975);  State v. Sassoon, 242
S.E.2d 121, 122-23 (Ga. 1978); People v. Christensen, 465 N.E.2d 93, 96 (Ill. 1984);
Commonwealth v. Thurston, 834 A.2d 595, 599 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2003).  It is also understood
that “[t]he burden of compliance with the procedural requirements of the IAD rests upon the
party states and their agents; the prisoner, who is to benefit by this statute, is not to be held
accountable for official administrative errors which deprive him of that benefit.”  Pittman v.
State, 301 A.2d 509, 514 (Del. 1973).  Moreover, “[u]nreasonable time delays caused by the
custodial state do not toll the statutory [180-day] period.”  Short v. State, 205 P.3d 195, 200
(Wyo. 2009).
In Pittman, the Delaware Supreme Court addressed whether the receiving state must
be charged for delays attributable to the sending state.  In that case, the trial court refused to
dismiss the Delaware charges against the prisoner even though Delaware had failed to bring
the prisoner to trial within 180 days of his request for IAD relief.  Delaware argued that the
delay was caused by Maryland’s failure to abide by the IAD by not forwarding Pittman’s
request for IAD relief to the relevant Delaware official, and that “the mistakes of the
Maryland officials should not frustrate Delaware’s timely attempt to bring accused felons to
trial.”  301 A.2d at 512.  The Delaware Supreme Court reversed, holding that the IAD
required dismissal of the charges.  The court explained that,
[i]f, . . . as the State urges, we should strictly construe this statute, we
must do so in favor of the prisoner because the State, through its agents and its
control of the procedural aspects of the IAD, controls the only ultimate
-22-
guarantee of performance for the benefit of the prisoner.
* * *
. . . . It would be a gross violation of the spirit of the IAD if we were to
penalize Pittman for the neglect of the [Delaware] Attorney General’s office
or the mistake of the Maryland official.  The purpose of the Act is to enable a
prisoner in another state to compel prompt trial of a criminal charge in
Delaware without awaiting his release in the other state.  That purpose is
completely destroyed if state officials fail to perform the duties imposed upon
them by the Act.
Id. at 513.  To conclude otherwise,
not only misreads the purpose [of the IAD], but effectively emasculates it as
well.  The Legislature enacted no specific requirement that a prisoner, for
whose benefit the IAD was enacted, be apprised of the technical aspects of the
law.  Indeed, the Legislature has placed one, and only one burden on the
prisoner, that is, to ask the prison official who has custody over him to prepare
and send the forms to the jurisdiction from which a detainer is lodged against
him.
Id. at 512-13.  See Nelms v. State, 532 S.W.2d 923, 926-27 (Tenn. 1976) (noting  that “[the
defendant] should not be charged with the responsibility of insuring [sic] that his captors
have complied with provisions of the law when he has no control over their activities.  By
placing the burden of insuring [sic] compliance on the two states involved, the defendant is
less likely to become the victim of their contributory inaction”) (internal quotation marks
omitted); accord State v. Ferguson, 535 N.E.2d 708, 713-14 (Ohio 1987) (discussing with
favor Pittman and Nelms, and concluding that “the sending state’s failure to inform the
receiving state of the accused’s whereabouts or offer temporary custody does not justify the
receiving state’s inability to bring the accused to trial within one hundred eighty days”).  
We agree with the reasoning underpinning the decisions in Pittman, Nelms and
Ferguson, which leads us readily to conclude that Appellee was not “unable to stand trial”
-23-
in Maryland within the meaning of the IAD during the 79 days between his acquittal in
Delaware and Maryland’s learning of that fact.  We therefore hold that the Circuit Court
correctly ruled that the 180-day speedy trial period in the IAD was not tolled during the 79
days that followed Appellee’s acquittal of the Delaware charges.
E.
In sum, the 42 days that elapsed following receipt by the appropriate Maryland
authorities of Appellee’s request for speedy disposition of the Maryland charges, added to
the 79 days between Appellee’s acquittal of the Delaware charges and Maryland’s learning
of it, and to the subsequent 83 days leading to up to Appellee’s scheduled trial date of
October 15, 2008, results in 204 non-tolled days.  Because the delay exceeded 180 days, the
Circuit Court did not err in dismissing the indictment, with prejudice.
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED; COSTS TO
BE PAID BY CECIL COUNTY.  
Judge Murphy joins the judgment only.