Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-14-50576/USCOURTS-ca9-14-50576-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
John Felix Alexander
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

JOHN FELIX ALEXANDER, AKA

Africa,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 14-50576

D.C. No.

2:07-cr-01402-

SJO-20

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

S. James Otero, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

March 10, 2016—Pasadena, California

Filed April 1, 2016

Before: Stephen Reinhardt, Mary H. Murguia,

and John B. Owens, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam Opinion

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2 UNITED STATES V. ALEXANDER

SUMMARY*

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion

to dismiss an indictment in a case in which the defendant,

who was extradited from Canada, claimed that the delay

between the indictment and his arrest violated his

constitutional right to a speedy trial.

The panel wrote that the delay of almost five years is

sufficient to trigger an inquiry into the other factors set forth

in Barker v. Wingo, but agreed with the district court that the

balance of those factors weighs against finding a

constitutional violation. The panel held that the record

supports the district court’s conclusion that the United States

pursued the defendant’s extraditionwith reasonable diligence. 

The panel rejected the defendant’s argument that the United

States should be held jointly responsible for Canada’s delay

under the “joint venture” doctrine. The panel held that the

factor relating to the defendant’s assertion of his right to a

speedy trial favors neither party, where there is no evidence

that the defendant knew about the indictment until after he

had been arrested, at which point he fought extradition for

over 16 months. The panel expressed concern that the 9.6

months it took for the U.S. prosecutor to submit a draft of the

extradition request to the Department of Justice Office of

International Affairs could have been reduced, but wrote that

such a period of negligence alone would not deny the

defendant’s right to a speedy trial without a sufficient

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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UNITED STATES V. ALEXANDER 3

showing of prejudice. The panel concluded that the

defendant had not met his burden of showing particularized

prejudice, where he was not incarcerated for any portion of

the overall five year delay, he has not shown any uncertainty

or anxiety resulting from the delay, and he has not provided

any non-speculative proof as to how his defense was

prejudiced.

COUNSEL

Alissa Sawano Peterson (argued), Law Offices of Alissa

Sawano Peterson, Irvine, California, for DefendantAppellant.

Kerry C. O’Neil (argued), Assistant United States Attorney;

Eileen M. Decker, United States Attorney; Lawrence S.

Middleton and Ellyn Marcus Lindsay, Assistant United States

Attorneys, United States’ Attorney’s Office, Los Angeles,

California, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

On December 18, 2007, Defendant John Felix Alexander

was indicted, along with twenty-one co-defendants, for

conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud against elderly

victims living in Canada and the United States. Shortly after

the indictment was returned, the United States initiated its

effort to extradite Alexander from Canada for trial. After

four years, nine months, and 29 days, Canada finally

approved the United States’ request for Alexander’s

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4 UNITED STATES V. ALEXANDER

extradition, and Canadian authorities arrested Alexander

shortly thereafter. Following his arrest, Alexander resisted

extradition for approximately 16 additional months.

Almost immediately upon entering the United States,

Alexander filed a motion to dismiss his indictment, claiming

that the delay between the indictment and his arrest violated

his constitutional right to a speedy trial.1 The district court

held a hearing on the issue during which the U.S. and

Canadian officials responsible for Alexander’s case testified

that the process of extraditing a defendant from Canada can

be a frustrating one. The prosecutor must first send a request

to the Department of Justice, Office of International Affairs

(“OIA”), where it is reviewed by the OIA attorney in

accordance with the extradition treaty between the United

States and Canada. Once the request is put into final form,

the U.S. Department of State issues a diplomatic note

requesting extradition. The Canadian Central Authority for

extradition, the International Assistance Group (“IAG”), then

receives and reviews the request, and may require additional

information or even a new request. Once IAG is satisfied that

the request meets Canadian requirements, it issues an

Authority to Proceed, and the request is given to the Canadian

prosecutor’s office for the issuance of an arrest warrant.

In this case, it took the U.S. prosecutor 9.6 months to

submit a draft of the extradition request to OIA. It then took

OIA four months to complete its initial review and return the

1 The length of delay in speedy trial claims is ordinarily measured from

the time of the indictment to the time of trial. United States v. Gregory,

322 F.3d 1157, 1162 (9th Cir. 2003). In this case, however, the defendant

challenges only the delay between the indictment in December 2007 and

his arrest in Canada in October 2012.

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UNITED STATES V. ALEXANDER 5

draft to the prosecutor. Four months later, the request was

provided to the Canadian authorities. Canada did not approve

the request, however, and instead repeatedly returned it to the

United States with demands for corrections or additional

information. On each occasion, the United States prosecutor

revised the request per Canada’s specifications, only to have

Canada identify other reasons to return it. This process

continued for over three years. According to the testimony at

the hearing, this extensive back-and-forth between the United

States and Canada was “very typical.”

In total, the district court found, 32.5 months of the delay

was attributable to Canada, 26.4 months of the delay was

attributable to the United States, and 16 months resulted from

Alexander’s fighting the extradition. With respect to the

delay attributable to the United States alone, the district court

held that the United States “pursued extradition with

reasonable diligence” and that any prejudice caused by the

delay was not severe enough to have denied Alexander his

right to a speedy trial. Accordingly, the court denied

Alexander’s motion.

We review a district court’s denial of a speedy trial claim

de novo, although factual determinations underlying the

decision are reviewed for clear error. United States v.

Mendoza, 530 F.3d 758, 762 (9th Cir. 2008). Under Barker

v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530 (1972), we must review four

factors in determining whether a defendant has been denied

his right to a speedy trial: (1) the length of the delay, (2) the

reason for the delay, (3) the defendant’s prior assertion of the

right, and (4) the prejudice resulting from the delay.

The length of the delay is a “threshold” factor, and a

sufficiently lengthy delay “necessitates an examination of the

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6 UNITED STATES V. ALEXANDER

other three factors.” United States v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.,

Inc., 877 F.3d 734, 739 (9th Cir. 1989). Here, the delay of

almost five years is sufficiently lengthy to trigger an inquiry

into the other factors. See United States v. Gregory, 322 F.3d

1157, 1161–62 (9th Cir. 2003) (“[D]elays approaching one

year are presumptively prejudicial.”). We agree with the

district court, however, that the balance of the other factors

weighs against finding a constitutional violation.

The second factor, the reason for delay, is “the focal

inquiry.” Sears, 877 F.3d at 739. If the government can

show that the delay was wholly justifiable because it

proceeded with reasonable diligence, the defendant’s speedy

trial claim generally cannot succeed in the absence of a

showing of actual prejudice resulting from the delay. See

Doggett v. United States, 505 U.S. 647, 656 (1992). If the

government intentionally delayed or negligently pursued the

proceedings, however, prejudice may be presumed, and its

weight in the defendant’s favor depends on the reason for the

delay and the length of the delay. Id. at 656–57; United

States v. Aguirre, 994 F.2d 1454, 1456 (9th Cir. 1993). A

district court’s finding on the reason for delay and its

justifiability is reviewed “with considerable deference.” 

Aguirre, 994 F.2d at 1457 (quoting Doggett, 505 U.S. at 652).

Here, the district court determined that on the whole the

United States pursued Alexander’s extradition with

reasonable diligence and the record supports this conclusion. 

Alexander argues that the United States was negligent

because it failed to produce adequate extradition requests,

resulting in numerous rounds of review and significant delay. 

The testimony from the hearing, however, demonstrates that

this was not a case in which the extradition requests had

substantial deficiencies or in which the U.S. prosecutor

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UNITED STATES V. ALEXANDER 7

consistently failed to follow protocol. Rather, the evidence

showed that Canada was not consistent “in terms of the

questions that [it] ask[ed] the United States,” and further, that

delays of this nature are typical of Canadian extradition

requests.

We also reject Alexander’s argument that the United

States should be held jointly responsible for Canada’s delay

under the “joint venture” doctrine. In the context of the

exclusionary rule, the Ninth Circuit has recognized a limited

exception to the general rule that U.S. constitutional

protections are inapplicable to actions of foreign agents

conducted in foreign countries for situations in which “United

States agents’ participation in the investigation is so

substantial that the action is a joint venture between United

States and foreign officials.” United States v. Barona,

56 F.3d 1087, 1091 (9th Cir. 1995). No circuit has ever

extended the joint venture doctrine to the speedy trial context,

and we decline to do so here. Further, the facts of this case

do not support a finding that a joint venture existed in terms

of Alexander’s extradition. The United States neither

participated in nor encouraged the delay caused by the

Canadian authorities. There is no evidence that United States

agents were attempting to undermine Alexander’s speedytrial

right “by circuitous and indirect methods.” See United States

v. Rose, 570 F.2d 1358, 1362 (9th Cir. 1978). Rather, as the

district court concluded, there “was certainly no cooperation

between the prosecutors in Canada and the prosecutors in the

United States” during the extradition process. Accordingly,

no joint venture existed with respect to Alexander’s

extradition.

There is, however, one portion of the delay that we

believe the district court should have weighed against the

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8 UNITED STATES V. ALEXANDER

United States. It took 9.6 months for the U.S. prosecutor to

submit a draft of Alexander’s extradition request to OIA, and

the government has failed to adequately explain the extent of

this delay. Some of this time, of course, was necessary to

prepare an extensive request for the extradition of twenty-two

defendants, but it is not clear that all of the 9.6 months should

be ascribed to the complexities of this case—as opposed to

the United States’s negligence. The U.S. prosecutor admitted

that it took her a “couple of months” to clear her other cases

so that she could devote her resources to drafting the

extradition request. Further, it seems that the prosecutor did

not use the entire remaining time to draft the request

efficiently. Although she did not recall how long it took her

to write the request, when asked if she could estimate whether

it took “more than a week and less than a month,” she

responded only that it “was definitely more than a week.”

The third Barker factor is the defendant’s assertion of the

right to a speedy trial. Barker, 407 U.S. at 530. There is no

evidence in the record that Alexander knew about the

indictment against him until after the extradition request had

been approved and he was arrested. After his arrest,

however, Alexander fought extradition for over 16 months. 

We have held under similar circumstances that this factor, on

balance, favors neither party. See United States v. CoronoaVerbera, 509 F.3d 1105, 1116 (9th Cir. 2007).

The last factor we consider is the prejudice to the

defendant. The amount of prejudice a defendant must show

is inversely proportional to the length and reason for the

delay. See Doggett, 505 U.S. at 655–56. While we are

concerned that the initial prosecutorial delay could have been

reduced, a 9.6 month period of negligence alone would not

deny Alexander’s right to a speedy trial without a sufficient

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UNITED STATES V. ALEXANDER 9

showing of prejudice. As the Supreme Court held in Doggett,

“to warrant granting relief, negligence unaccompanied by

particularized trial prejudice must have lasted longer than

negligence demonstrably causing such prejudice.” Id. at 657. 

This court has previously held that a violation of the

constitutional right to a speedy trial did not occur in the

absence of a showing of particularized prejudice when the

government’s negligence caused a 22-month delay. Gregory,

322 F.3d at 1162. Here, Alexander has not met his burden of

showing particularized prejudice. He was not incarcerated

for any portion of the overall five year delay, he has not

shown any uncertainty or anxiety resulting from the delay,

and he has not provided any non-speculative proof as to how

his defense was prejudiced by the delay. See CoronaVerbera, 509 F.3d at 1116; United States v. Williams,

782 F.2d 1462, 1466 (9th Cir. 1985).

After weighing the Barker factors, we agree with the

district court that Alexander was not deprived of his right to

a speedy trial. We note, however, that the U.S. Attorney’s

offices would do well to adopt systems of controls that would

track the status of extradition requests so as to ensure the

timely submission of extradition materials to the Justice

Department and foreign governments. Such a system would

likely have avoided much of the initial 9.6 month delay

present here, which, though not sufficient to affect the

outcome of this case, is troublesome indeed.

AFFIRMED.

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