Case Title: P. v. Lowe

Citation: 

Docket Number: S131879

State: california

Court: California Supreme Court

Date: 2007-03-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
1 
Filed 3/29/07 
 
 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
 
THE PEOPLE , 
) 
 
 
) 
 
Plaintiff and Appellant, 
) 
 
 
) 
S131879 
 
v. 
) 
 
 
) 
Ct.App. 6 H026889 
DANIEL LOWE, 
) 
 
 
) 
Santa Clara County 
 
Defendant and Respondent. 
) 
Super. Ct. No. CC03969 
___________________________________ ) 
 
The California Constitution guarantees criminal defendants the right to a 
speedy trial.  (Cal. Const., art. I, § 15.)  When a violation of that right arises from a 
delay that occurs “after the filing of a complaint and before arrest or formal 
accusation by indictment or information . . . a defendant seeking dismissal must 
affirmatively demonstrate prejudice.”  (People v. Martinez (2000) 22 Cal.4th 750, 
755 (Martinez).)   
The prosecution in this case filed criminal charges against defendant, but it 
did not notify him thereof until he had completed a jail term in a neighboring 
county for a probation violation.  There is no evidence that the delay has impaired 
defendant’s ability to defend against the charges.  He contends, however, that he 
should be allowed to establish prejudice from the delay simply by showing that he 
lost the chance to serve any sentence stemming from the pending charges 
concurrently with the jail term he was already serving on the probation violation.  
We disagree. 
 
2 
I 
The preliminary hearing transcript shows the following:  On October 18, 
2002, Mandy Isbell told San Jose Police Officer David Lee that defendant, her 
estranged husband, was in arrears on child support payments and had been 
sending her threatening messages.  Officer Lee found defendant sitting in his 
parked car, near Isbell’s mobile home.  After speaking to defendant, Lee 
concluded he was under the influence of methamphetamine.  Lee retrieved from 
defendant’s car a pipe bomb containing gunpowder.  He arrested defendant for 
possessing a destructive device and for being under the influence of 
methamphetamine. 
Defendant spent the next four days in jail.  On October 22, 2002, the date 
set for his arraignment, he was released because the Santa Clara County District 
Attorney had not filed a complaint against him.  (The record does not indicate why 
no complaint was filed.) 
At the time, defendant was on probation in Alameda County after a 
conviction for an offense committed there.  On November 28 or 29, 2002, he was 
arrested in Santa Clara County on a warrant alleging that, based on the October 
18, 2002, incident in San Jose, he had violated the conditions of his Alameda 
County probation.  Defendant was transported to Alameda County, and on 
February 6, 2003, he admitted the probation violation.  The trial court reinstated 
probation on condition that defendant serve one year in the Alameda County Jail.     
Four days later, on February 10, 2003, the Santa Clara County District 
Attorney filed a complaint – based on the events of October 18, 2002 – charging 
defendant with both possession of a destructive device (Pen. Code, § 12303.2),1 a 
                                              
1  
Unless otherwise stated, all statutory references are to the Penal Code. 
 
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felony, and being under the influence of methamphetamine (Health & Saf. Code, 
§ 11550), a misdemeanor.  The superior court issued an arrest warrant, which was 
“activated” on March 13, 2003.  Defendant was not notified of the complaint or 
the warrant. 
On June 26, 2003, four and a half months after issuance of the Santa Clara 
County complaint, the Alameda County Jail was notified of the Santa Clara arrest 
warrant.  On July 8, 2003, defendant completed his jail term in Alameda County 
for the probation violation.  Thereafter, he was detained on the warrant and 
transferred to Santa Clara County, where he was arraigned on July 11, 2003.   
After being held to answer on the charges, defendant moved to have them 
dismissed, alleging that the delay of nearly five months between the filing of the 
complaint in February 2003 and his arraignment in July 2003 violated his right to 
a speedy trial under the California Constitution.  Defendant also asserted that the 
nine-month delay from October 2002, when the conduct underlying the charges in 
Santa Clara County occurred, to July 2003, when he was arraigned, violated his 
right to due process of law under the state and federal Constitutions.  Relying on 
People v. Martinez (1995) 37 Cal.App.4th 1589, defendant contended the delay 
had prejudiced him because he had lost the opportunity to serve any sentence that 
might be imposed for the Santa Clara County offenses concurrently with his 
sentence for the probation violation in Alameda County.  He did not claim that the 
delay had caused defense witnesses to become unavailable, or that the memories 
of defense witnesses had faded; nor did he assert that the delay had in any other 
way impaired his ability to defend against the charges.   
In his points and authorities in opposition to defendant’s motion to dismiss 
the charges, the Santa Clara County District Attorney made no attempt to justify 
the delay in prosecuting defendant.  Rather, he argued that to establish a violation 
of the California Constitution’s speedy trial right, defendant had to show 
 
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“prejudice to his ability to defend [against the charges] that is attributable to the 
delay,” and that because defendant had not alleged such prejudice the trial court 
should deny his speedy trial motion. 
The trial court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the charges, ruling 
that “[t]he delay in this case effectively removed [defendant’s] opportunity to 
receive a sentence concurrent to his Alameda County sentence [and] [t]he People 
provide no justification for the delay.”  This delay, the court concluded, violated 
defendant’s right to a speedy trial under the California Constitution.  The court did 
not address defendant’s alternative claim that the nine-month delay from October 
2002, when the Santa Clara offenses allegedly were committed, to July 2003, 
when the arraignment occurred, violated his right to due process of law under the 
state and federal Constitutions.  The district attorney appealed from the trial 
court’s order dismissing the charges.   
The Court of Appeal affirmed.  It relied on its previous decision in People 
v. Martinez, supra, 37 Cal.App.4th 1589, which held that when a defendant, 
because of unnecessary delay by the prosecution, loses the opportunity to serve a 
sentence concurrently with that in another case, the resulting prejudice to the 
defendant justifies dismissal of the charges unless the prosecution establishes 
justification for the delay.  We granted the district attorney’s petition for review. 
II 
Both the state and federal Constitutions guarantee criminal defendants the 
right to a speedy trial.  (U.S. Const., 6th Amend.; Cal. Const. art. I, § 15.)  But the 
rights differ from each other in two significant respects.  First, the state 
constitutional right arises upon the filing of a felony complaint, whereas the 
federal right does not come into play until an indictment or an information has 
been filed or the defendant has been arrested and held to answer.  Second, an 
“uncommonly long” delay triggers a presumption of prejudice under the federal 
 
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Constitution, but not under the state Constitution.  (Martinez, supra, 22 Cal.4th at 
pp. 765-766.)  Here, defendant raises only a claim under the state Constitution. 
The defense has the initial burden of showing prejudice from a delay in 
bringing the defendant to trial.  Once the defense satisfies this burden, the 
prosecution must show justification for the delay.  If the prosecution does that, the 
trial court must balance the prejudice to the defendant resulting from the delay 
against the prosecution’s justification for the delay.  (Serna v. Superior Court 
(1985) 40 Cal.3d 239, 249.)   
At issue here is whether the defense may satisfy its initial burden of 
establishing prejudice from the delay by demonstrating that the delay has cost the 
defendant the opportunity to serve a sentence for the charged crime concurrently 
with the sentence being served in another case.  In concluding that the defense 
may do so, the Court of Appeal followed its decision in People v. Martinez, supra, 
37 Cal.App.4th 1589.  In that case, the defendant was arrested in March 1991 for 
possession of heroin, but he was released without being booked.  Four months 
later he was arrested for an unrelated offense, which resulted in a conviction and a 
prison sentence of three years.  In the spring of 1992, he was charged with 
possession of heroin based on the March 1991 arrest; although an arrest warrant 
was issued, the prison where he was serving his sentence for the crime unrelated to 
the pending charge was apparently not notified of the warrant.  While in prison, 
the defendant in People v. Martinez asked a prison legal counselor if there were 
any holds or warrants against him; the counselor determined there were none.  In 
September 1993, after being released on parole, he was arrested for a new offense, 
and he was also charged with possession of heroin based on the March 1991 
incident.  He moved to dismiss the heroin charge, claiming a violation of his 
speedy trial rights.  As to prejudice, he alleged only that the delay prevented him 
from serving his heroin possession sentence concurrently with the three-year 
 
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prison sentence in the unrelated case.  The trial court granted his motion to 
dismiss.  The prosecution appealed. 
The Court of Appeal in People v. Martinez affirmed the trial court’s 
dismissal of the heroin possession charge.  It rejected the prosecution’s claim that 
the defendant’s showing of prejudice was inadequate for failure to show 
“prejudice to a fair trial, as generally manifested by missing witnesses or evidence 
of failing memories.”  (People v. Martinez, supra, 37 Cal.App.4th at p. 1594.)  It 
pointed out that “both the United States Supreme Court and our own California 
Supreme Court have included the possibility of concurrent sentencing as a 
potential aspect of prejudice” (ibid.), citing Barker v. Municipal Court (1966) 64 
Cal.2d 806, 813 (Barker), and Smith v. Hooey (1969) 393 U.S. 374, 377-378 
(Smith).  We do not, however, so construe the holdings of those two decisions, as 
discussed below. 
While incarcerated in federal prison on certain federal offenses, the 
defendants in Barker were charged in Monterey County, California, with 
attempted murder.  The county prosecutor placed a “detainer warrant” on the 
defendants but refused to extradite them for trial, rejecting their repeated requests 
that he either bring them to trial or dismiss the attempted murder charges.  As a 
result, the defendants continued to serve their federal sentences for almost 18 
years before being brought to trial in state court.2   
                                              
2  
Under current law, the defendants in Barker could have insisted on an 
earlier trial by invoking section 1381.5, which permits a defendant incarcerated in 
federal prison to demand to be brought to trial within 90 days on charges pending 
in a California state court.  The California Legislature did not enact this law until 
1963; thus, it was unavailable to the defendants in Barker “during the greater part 
of [their] federal incarceration and at none of the times when they made requests 
for trial.”  (Barker, supra, 64 Cal.2d at p. 812.) 
 
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We held in Barker that the prosecutor’s delay in bringing the defendants to 
trial violated their right to a speedy trial under the California Constitution.  We 
explained:  “The guarantee of a speedy trial ‘serves a three-fold purpose.  It 
protects the accused . . . against prolonged imprisonment; it relieves him of the 
anxiety and public suspicion attendant upon an untried accusation of crime; and 
. . . it prevents him from being “exposed to the hazard of a trial, after so great a 
lapse of time” that “the means of proving his innocence may not be within his 
reach” – as, for instance, by the loss of witnesses or the dulling of memory.’  
[Citations.]  [¶]  The foregoing purposes are equally served with respect to one 
already imprisoned for another crime.  Even the purpose of preventing undue 
imprisonment is of some concern to a California prisoner, because if he is 
promptly convicted of an additional offense he may be sentenced to serve a term 
of imprisonment concurrently with the term already imposed . . . ; if a defendant is 
brought to trial only after his sentence on another charge has been completed, the 
possibility of concurrent sentences is denied him.”  (Barker, supra, 64 Cal.2d at 
p. 813, italics added.)  It is this italicized phrase on which defendant here relies. 
But that observation in Barker has to be read in context, not in isolation.  
Immediately thereafter, Barker pointed to “the obvious prejudice which follows 
when required to defend against criminal charges long after commission of the 
alleged offenses” (Barker, supra, 64 Cal.2d at p. 813) when memories have 
become clouded and witnesses inaccessible.  Barker did not identify the type of 
prejudice – loss of an opportunity to serve concurrent sentences, faded memories, 
or inaccessible witnesses – suffered by the defendants in that case, in light of its 
holding that prejudice was presumed because of the 18-year delay in bringing 
them to trial.  (Id. at p. 812.)  Given that circumstance, Barker cannot be read as 
holding that a defendant claiming violation of the right to a speedy trial under the 
California Constitution can establish prejudice simply by demonstrating a loss of 
 
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the opportunity to serve any sentence in the pending case concurrently with the 
sentence in another matter. 
We now turn to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Smith.  The 
defendant there was indicted for a violation of Texas law while he was serving a 
sentence in federal prison in Kansas.  For the next six years, the Texas authorities 
rejected the defendant’s repeated requests for a speedy trial, making no effort to 
extradite him.  He finally moved for dismissal of the Texas charges, asserting a 
violation of his speedy trial right under the federal Constitution.  The Texas 
Supreme Court held that a federal prisoner had no right to a speedy trial on state 
charges.  The United States Supreme Court disagreed.  In holding that the state 
had a constitutional duty to make a diligent, good faith effort to bring a defendant 
to trial, the high court noted that “the possibility that the defendant already in 
prison might receive a sentence at least partially concurrent with the one he is 
serving may be forever lost if trial of the pending charge is postponed.”  (Smith, 
supra, 393 U.S. at p. 378.)   
But the high court in Smith went on to explain:  “[I]t is self-evident that ‘the 
possibilities that long delay will impair the ability of an accused to defend himself’ 
are markedly increased when the accused is incarcerated in another jurisdiction.  
Confined in a prison, perhaps far from the place where the offense covered by the 
outstanding charge allegedly took place, his ability to confer with potential 
defense witnesses, or even to keep track of their whereabouts, is obviously 
impaired.  And, while ‘evidence and witnesses disappear, memories fade, and 
events lose their perspective,’ a man isolated in prison is powerless to exert his 
own investigative efforts to mitigate these erosive effects of the passage of time.”  
(Smith, supra, 393 U.S. at pp. 379-380, fn. omitted.) 
Thus, in Smith loss of the opportunity to serve concurrent sentences was not 
the only circumstance but one of several mentioned by the high court in explaining 
 
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why the state prosecutor in that case could not refuse to prosecute the defendant 
while he was serving his federal sentence.  Consequently, Smith cannot be said to 
hold that an unjustified delay in bringing a defendant to trial violates the 
defendant’s speedy trial right under the federal Constitution when, as here, the 
only prejudice alleged by the defendant is the loss of the opportunity to serve the 
sentence on the pending charge concurrently with the sentence in another case.   
The federal courts have in those situations uniformly rejected defense 
claims of prejudice.  (See United States v. Gregory (9th Cir. 2003) 322 F.3d 1157, 
1164 [“any sentencing prejudice that [the defendant] might suffer is speculative 
rather than actual”]; United States v. White (6th Cir. 1993) 985 F.2d 271, 276 [loss 
of the opportunity to serve concurrent sentences “is not sufficient to constitute 
‘substantial prejudice’ ”]; United States v. Cabral (1st Cir. 1973) 475 F.2d 715, 
719-720 [the defendant’s allegation that he lost the opportunity to serve 
concurrent sentences “is highly speculative and falls far short of a demonstration 
of actual prejudice”]; see also U.S. v. Sanchez (2d Cir. 2000) 225 F.3d 172, 177; 
U.S. v. Lainez-Leiva (2d Cir. 1997) 129 F.3d 89, 92; U.S. v. Throneburg (6th Cir. 
1996) 87 F.3d 851, 853; U.S. v. Tippens (5th Cir. 1994) 39 F.3d 88, 89.)  
Consistent with these decisions construing the federal Constitution’s right 
to a speedy trial, we reject defendant’s contention that under the California 
Constitution’s speedy trial right, a pending criminal charge must be dismissed 
solely because the delay in bringing the defendant to trial has cost the defendant 
the chance to serve the sentence on that charge concurrently with the sentence in 
another case.  If that were so, a delay in bringing a defendant to trial would require 
dismissal of even a very serious charge (such as murder), despite overwhelming 
evidence of the defendant’s guilt, merely because the defendant was denied the 
potential benefit of serving some slight portion (perhaps only a few months) of the 
sentence for that crime concurrently with a sentence previously imposed in 
 
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another case.  In that situation, the drastic sanction of dismissal would be grossly 
disproportionate to the harm that the defendant actually suffered—the mere 
possibility, however slight, that the sentence ultimately imposed for the dismissed 
crime might have been effectively reduced in some measure, however small, by 
concurrent service with the sentence for another crime. 
One additional observation:  The likelihood of serving a sentence on a 
pending charge concurrently with a sentence already being served in another case 
is speculative.  Sometimes imposition of concurrent sentences is legally barred.  
(See, e.g., §§ 667.6, subd. (d); 1170.12, subds. (a)(6)-(a)(8).)  Even when 
concurrent sentences are permitted, they often are not imposed because of the 
presence of certain aggravating factors.  (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 4.425.) 
For the reasons given above, we hold that a defendant claiming a speedy 
trial violation under the California Constitution must show that the delay has 
impaired the ability to defend against the charged crime because, for instance, a 
witness has become unavailable, evidence has disappeared, or the memory of a 
potential witness has faded.3  If the defense makes that initial showing, the trial 
court may then, consistent with Barker, supra, 64 Cal.2d at page 813, consider the 
defendant’s loss of an opportunity to serve a concurrent sentence in weighing all 
of the prejudice to the defendant against the prosecution’s justification for the 
delay.  In maintaining that the possibility of such loss alone should be sufficient to 
establish prejudice, defendant asserts that to hold otherwise would encourage 
prosecutors to “intentionally delay filing complaints and/or executing warrants 
until a person serving another sentence was nearly finished with that sentence,” 
thereby “unfairly prevent[ing] the defendant from even asking for concurrent 
                                              
3  
We disapprove People v. Martinez, supra, 37 Cal.App.4th 1589, to the 
extent it is inconsistent with this opinion. 
 
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sentencing” and “unilaterally depriv[ing] trial judges of their discretion to impose 
concurrent sentences.”  We stress that engaging in such improper conduct would 
be violating the prosecutor’s duty to expedite criminal proceedings “to the greatest 
degree that is consistent with the ends of justice.”  (§ 1050, subd. (a).)  Here, there 
is no evidence that the prosecution deliberately violated that duty. 
In dismissing the charges against defendant, the trial court accepted 
defendant’s claim of a violation of his right to a speedy trial.  In doing so, the trial 
court relied on People v. Martinez, supra, 37 Cal.App.4th 1589, a decision by the 
Court of Appeal in the judicial district encompassing this trial court.  Because for 
reasons discussed earlier we now disapprove that decision, we conclude that the 
trial court erred. 
DISPOSITION 
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed, and the matter is 
remanded to that court with directions to reverse the trial court’s dismissal and to 
reinstate the charges against defendant. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
KENNARD, J. 
WE CONCUR: 
 
GEORGE, C. J. 
BAXTER, J. 
WERDEGAR, J. 
CHIN, J. 
MORENO, J. 
CORRIGAN, J. 
 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion People v. Lowe 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted XXX 126 Cal.App.4th 1365 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S131879 
Date Filed: March 29, 2007 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: Superior 
County: Santa Clara 
Judge: Marcel P. Poché 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Appellant: 
 
George W. Kennedy, District Attorney, Neal Kimball, Joseph Thibodeaux and Marilyn Masciarelli, Deputy 
District Attorneys, for Plaintiff and Appellant. 
 
 
 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Respondent: 
 
Jose R. Villarreal and Mary J. Greenwood, Public Defenders, and Brian J. Matthews, Deputy Public 
Defender, for Defendant and Respondent. 
 
Michael P. Judge, Public Defender (Los Angeles) and John Hamilton Scott, Deputy Public Defender, as 
Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Marilyn Masciarelli 
Deputy District Attorney 
County Government Center, West Wing 
70 West Hedding Street, Sixth Floor 
San Jose, CA  95110 
(408) 792-2629 
 
Brian J. Matthews 
Deputy Public Defender 
120 West Mission Street 
San Jose, CA 95110 
(408) 299-7721