Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03140/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03140-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Deonte Marshall
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 12, 2011 Decided June 9, 2011

No. 09-3140

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

DEONTE MARSHALL,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cr-00219)

Gregory Stuart Smith, appointed by the court, argued the

cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Stephen R. Prest, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. Machen Jr.,

U.S. Attorney, and Roy W. McLeese III and John P. Mannarino,

Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: ROGERS, TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges.

USCA Case #09-3140 Document #1312542 Filed: 06/09/2011 Page 1 of 15
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Opinion for the Court by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: Deonte Marshall was indicted for

unlawful possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 922(g). Despite his repeated requests for a speedy trial, this

straightforward one-count single defendant case languished in

the district court for fourteen months — 436 days — before trial

finally began. In delaying the trial the district court relied on a

government filing, styled as a “motion” to admit evidence of

other crimes pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), as a

placeholder that would suspend operation of the Speedy Trial

Act’s 70-day time limit, see 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1).1

 This

despite the district court’s acknowledged practice of not

resolving such Rule 404(b) “motions” until immediately prior to

trial or during the trial itself. 

Although Marshall’s court appointed counsel filed a motion

to dismiss the indictment for violation of the Speedy Trial Act,

and a supplement, counsel did not challenge the district court’s

exclusion of the time following the Rule 404(b) filing, which

1

 The Speedy Trial Act provides that:

In any case in which a plea of not guilty is entered, the trial of

a defendant . . . shall commence within seventy days from

[the later of (1)] the filing date . . . of the information or

indictment, or . . . [(2)] the date the defendant has appeared

before a judicial officer of the court in which such charge is

pending . . . .

18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1) (2006). The Act provides that seven “periods

of delay shall be excluded in computing . . . the time within which the

trial . . . must commence.” Id. § 3161(h). Relevant here, one such

period is “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.” Id. § 3161(h)(1)(D).

USCA Case #09-3140 Document #1312542 Filed: 06/09/2011 Page 2 of 15
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allowed the district court to conclude Marshall’s Speedy Trial

Act rights were not violated. In failing to do so, counsel

overlooked: (1) precedent of this court holding that a closely

analogous evidentiary filing does not toll the Speedy Trial Act

clock; (2) the prosecutor’s expression of concern during a

hearing that the Rule 404(b) filing did not toll the Speedy Trial

Act clock; and (3) Marshall’s own repeated pleas to the district

court and his counsel to scrutinize the record for a Speedy Trial

Act violation. Under the circumstances, the performance of his

pretrial counsel was constitutionally deficient. In view of the

violation of Marshall’s Sixth Amendment right to the effective

assistance of counsel when counsel failed to challenge whether

a Rule 404(b) filing tolls the 70-day period under the Speedy

Trial Act, the court vacated the judgment of conviction and

ordered a remand, with opinion to follow. See Order, May 13,

2011. This is that opinion. 

I.

The grand jury returned its indictment on July 22, 2008

based on a weapon seized from a locked room during the

execution of a search warrant of the house where Marshall lived

with his mother. Marshall was arraigned on July 30, 2008,

entering a plea of not guilty.2

 At the first status conference, held

August 19, 2008, the prosecutor expressed his view that “we do

need to set a trial date today unless motions are going to be filed

pretty soon.” Tr. Aug. 19, 2008, at 3. The district court

responded that its practice was not to set trial dates “until later

in the process,” id. at 4, and directed the prosecutor to “get your

2

 The next day, July 31, 2008, his appointed counsel filed a

motion to withdraw, which motion was granted four days later, on

August 4, 2008, at which time his new appointed counsel entered an

appearance. The withdrawal motion tolled the Speedy Trial Act clock

for four days. See FED R. CRIM. P. 45(a)(1)(A).

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motions in the sooner the better,” id. at 5. The district court

reiterated the message at the next status conference, held

September 9, 2008, again declining to set a trial date and stating

that the Speedy Trial Act clock would be tolled once motions

were filed, and the court was “expecting at least one in the next

day.” Tr. Sept. 9, 2008, at 10–11.

Two days later, on September 11, 2008, the fifty-first day

after indictment (and the forty-seventh day on the Speedy Trial

Act clock), the government filed a pleading styled as the

“United States’ Motion to Admit Other Crimes Evidence

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b).” In this filing the

government indicated that it intended to use evidence of the

circumstances surrounding Marshall’s prior conviction for the

same crime — unlawful possession of a firearm — as evidence

that his possession of the seized weapon was knowing and

intentional, not due to accident or mistake. At a status

conference held on October 23, 2008 — the ninety-third day

following indictment (the eighty-ninth day on the Speedy Trial

Act clock) — defense counsel told the district court that he had

not yet filed a motion to suppress the seized evidence and

Marshall’s statement (unrelated to the prosecutor’s Rule 404(b)

filing) because of an unexpected delay in obtaining a needed

transcript. But, defense counsel continued, he thought that the

delay “was not endangering [Marshall’s] Speedy Trial rights

because the government had already filed a 404(b) motion.” Tr.

Oct. 23, 2008, at 4. The district court responded: “It had. So the

statute is tolled for now anyway.” Id. 

The prosecutor, however, was not so sure, advising the

district court that “there is perhaps some dispute in the case law

about whether or not that type of motion” — referring to the

Rule 404(b) filing — “is sufficient to . . . toll the Speedy Trial

[Act] clock.” Id. at 6. “[I]n an abundance of caution,” the

prosecutor asked the district court to “make findings that the

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time has been spent . . . in the interest of justice and for the sake

of the defendant in this case[,] that the time would have been

tolled anyway [even absent the Rule 404(b) filing].” Id. at 7. 

The district court refused, advising the prosecutor that “it is this

Court’s practice and has been for seven years that a 404 motion

is sufficient for the purpose [of tolling the clock].” Id.

The prosecutor’s concerns were well founded. In United

States v. Harris, 491 F.3d 440 (D.C. Cir. 2007), over a year

before Marshall was indicted, this court held that a closely

analogous pretrial filing pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence

609 was not a pretrial motion that tolls the Speedy Trial Act

clock. 491 F.3d at 443–44. The court held instead that a Rule

609 filing is, under the plain text of Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure 12(b)(4)(A), a filing that “notif[ies] the defendant of

[the government’s] intent to use specified evidence at trial in

order to afford the defendant an opportunity to object before trial

under Rule 12(b)(3)(c),” which governs the timing of motions

to suppress evidence. The court reasoned that the government’s

Rule 609 filing, notifying the defendant of the government’s

intent to impeach him with his prior convictions, is merely a

non-tolling notice; a defendant who objects to use of the

evidence may file a motion to suppress under Rule 12(b)(3)(C),

which would toll the Speedy Trial Act clock as only then would

the district court be called upon to act. Id. at 444. 

Then, three weeks before Marshall was indicted on July 22,

this court applied Harris’s holding in United States v. Van

Smith, 530 F.3d 967 (D.C. Cir. 2008), again holding that a

government Rule 609 filing — even if styled as a “motion” —

is “an evidentiary notice that does not qualify as a pretrial

motion under the Speedy Trial Act.” 530 F.3d at 970; see also

United States v. Bryant, 523 F.3d 349, 358 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

The court explained that “[o]ur conclusion that the government’s

evidentiary filing was not a pretrial motion, in addition to being

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compelled by Harris, is animated by our understanding of the

purposes of the Speedy Trial Act.” Id. at 971. Joining the First

Circuit, the court concluded that “to treat such [evidentiary]

filings, which are ‘commonly carried over until trial,’ as pretrial

motions that toll the speedy trial clock would allow the

government to circumvent the Speedy Trial Act by submitting

its filings ‘at an early stage and then failing to press for prompt

disposition.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Rush, 738 F.2d 497,

505–06 (1st Cir. 1984)). Moreover, although declining on

forfeiture grounds to reach the question whether a Rule 404(b)

filing is treated the same way as a Rule 609 filing for Speedy

Trial Act purposes, the Van Smith majority also acknowledged

that it “may well be” the case that a Rule 404(b) filing, like a

Rule 609 filing, does not toll the Speedy Trial Act clock. Id. at

974. If the logic of the majority’s analysis was not clear enough

to indicate that it also applied to a Rule 404(b) filing, the

dissenting opinion provided the roadmap: upon concluding the

forfeiture rule was inapplicable in the circumstances, the dissent

in Van Smith reasoned that the Rule 404(b) question “is

controlled by the court’s analysis of the Rule 609 filing.” 530

F.3d at 976 (Rogers, J., dissenting). Pointing to en banc

authority, the dissent noted that it is “long settled in this circuit”

that Rule 404(b) evidence is admitted at trial pursuant to the

same notice-and-objection procedure as Rule 609 filings, id. at

979 (quoting United States v. Crowder, 141 F.3d 1202 (D.C.

Cir. 1998) (en banc)), and further that “the rights that Congress

secured in the Speedy Trial Act do not hinge on labels applied

by the parties to their filings,” id. at 980 (citing Van Smith, 530

F.3d at 970–71 (maj. op.); United States v. Santoyo, 890 F.2d

726, 727 (5th Cir. 1989); United States v. Noah, 130 F.3d 490,

495 (1st Cir. 1997)). The dissent thus reasoned that the Rule

404(b) analysis was indistinguishable from the Rule 609

analysis undertaken by the Van Smith majority and earlier by the

court in Harris, and the Van Smith majority did not dispute this

reasoning.

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Marshall, while perhaps unfamiliar with this development

in the case law, was insistent that his speedy trial rights were

being violated. At the end of the October 23, 2008 hearing,

Marshall expressed his frustration with the delay in the

proceedings, and suggested a willingness to proceed with trial

immediately, repeatedly mentioning his “hundred days,” id. at

11, 12, presumably referring to the sum amount of nonexcludable time allowed under the Speedy Trial Act between

arrest and the start of trial. See 18 U.S.C. § 3161(b), (c)(1). At

a December 2, 2008 status conference, Marshall asserted that his

“Sixth Amendment [speedy trial right] has been violated and

[his statutory] 70 days has been violated,” and further that he

was willing to drop all of his motions if it meant he could go to

trial that day. Tr. Dec. 2, 2008, at 10. On March 23, 2009,

Marshall again expressed the view that his right to a speedy trial

had already been violated, and he implored the district court to

“take a look at that [issue] really.” Tr. Mar. 23, 2009, at 19. 

Seemingly frustrated in part by the continued delays in the

proceedings, Marshall asked for and received new appointed

counsel on May 11, 2009; new appointed counsel entered his

appearance on May 29, 2009. During a June 1, 2009 hearing,

Marshall stated in court that the “Speedy Trial Act [has been]

violated since last March” and he again asked the district court

to examine the issue. Tr. June 1, 2009, at 12.

Despite these clear warning flags, Marshall’s counsel —

both counsel who entered an appearance on August 4, 2008 and

substitute counsel who took over on May 29, 2009 — did not

challenge the district court’s ruling that a Rule 404(b) filing tolls

the Speedy Trial Act clock. Nor did counsel raise the issue after

the prosecutor referred to the Rule 404(b) filing as a “notice” —

rather than a motion — during a hearing, nor when the district

court indicated its practice was to rule on Rule 404(b) issues

“either just prior to the trial or at the trial.” Tr. Mar. 23, 2009,

at 5, 7. Indeed, counsel agreed with the district court’s

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exclusion of the time following the Rule 404(b) filing on at least

three occasions: at the October 23, 2008 hearing, in a March 23,

2009 motion to dismiss under the Speedy Trial Act, and a June

24, 2009 supplement to the motion to dismiss. In the

supplement counsel cited Van Smith for the proposition that the

time following the government’s Rule 609 filing should not be

excluded, but inexplicably (in view of both the majority and

dissenting opinions) proceeded to argue that the speedy trial

clock was tolled for forty days following the government’s Rule

404(b) filing. Then, through counsel, Marshall opposed the

Rule 404(b) filing on June 3, 2009, and the district court heard

argument on July 10, 2009, and took the matter under

advisement. The record does not reflect that the Rule 404(b)

issue was ruled on prior to trial. Neither does it reflect that the

district court ruled on the speedy trial motion except to state, at

a pretrial hearing, that it agreed with the prosecutor’s position

and did not think the motion to dismiss was “going anywhere.” 

Tr. July 10,. 2009, at 43. 

In the end, the trial did not begin until October 1, 2009, 436

days after Marshall was indicted and the Speedy Trial Act clock

began to run.3

 Although much of the time was properly

excluded on account of pretrial motions and in the interest of

justice, there is no dispute that but for the district court’s

exclusion of time pursuant to the Rule 404(b) filing, the Speedy

Trial Act’s seventy-day time limit was violated. The

government appendix filed in this court and the district court

3

 Marshall had already appeared in court on a parallel

criminal complaint that was dismissed prior to his indictment. Hence,

Marshall maintains, and the government does not dispute, that the

Speedy Trial Act’s 70-day period began to run on the date of his

indictment, July 22, 2008, and not on the date of his subsequent

arraignment. See 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1). The eight day difference

has no effect on the violation of the Speedy Trial Act 70-day timeline.

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docket reflect no other tolling events from August 4 to

December 1, 2008 (when Marshall filed his motion to suppress

evidence and the clock was tolled), which is more than 70 days

after Marshall’s indictment. After a three-day trial, the jury

found Marshall guilty of the lone firearm possession count and

the district court sentenced him to eight years’ imprisonment

and 36 months’ supervised release. Through new appointed

appellate counsel, Marshall maintains, among other arguments,

that his pretrial counsel were unconstitutionally ineffective in

failing to challenge the Rule 404(b) time exclusion for Speedy

Trial Act purposes. We agree.

II.

The Sixth Amendment entitles a criminal defendant to the

assistance of “reasonably effective” counsel. Strickland v.

Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). Reversal due to

ineffective assistance is warranted only if a defendant satisfies

Strickland’s familiar two-prong inquiry. First, a defendant must

show that his “counsel’s representation fell below an objective

standard of reasonableness.” Id. at 688. Second, a defendant

must also show a reasonable probability that “but for counsel’s

unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have

been different.” Id. at 694. Although Marshall raises his

ineffective assistance of pretrial counsel claim for the first time

on appeal, the record suffices to decide the issue and a remand

is unnecessary, see United States v. Mouling, 557 F.3d 658,

668–69 (D.C. Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 130 S.Ct. 795 (2009);

United States v. Fennell, 53 F.3d 1296, 1303–04 (D.C. Cir.

1995).

On the first prong, counsel is ineffective if counsel’s acts or

omissions fall “outside the wide range of professionally

competent assistance” based on “[p]revailing norms of practice”

and the “facts of the particular case, viewed as of the time of

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counsel’s conduct.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 690. 

Marshall’s pretrial counsel fell below this standard in failing to

object to the exclusion of the Rule 404(b) filing time in the

Speedy Trial Act calculation. Although counsel need not raise

every conceivable non-frivolous argument in order to provide

objectively reasonable representation, see Engle v. Isaac, 456

U.S. 107, 133–34 (1982); Fennell, 53 F.3d at 1303–04; cf. Jones

v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 752–53 (1983), in the fact-specific

circumstances here we cannot conceive of any “sound strategic

reasons for not pursuing the [Speedy Trial Act] violation,”

United States v. Richardson, 167 F.3d 621, 626 (D.C. Cir.

1999). Indeed, counsel did pursue the Speedy Trial Act

violation in two separate filings, but in both failed to make the

argument that could have resulted in dismissal of the indictment. 

This despite: the clear application of the logic of this court’s

opinions in Harris and Van Smith to the Rule 404(b) filing; the

roadmap provided by the Van Smith dissent’s reasoning, which

was undisputed, that the majority’s analysis of a Rule 609 filing

“controlled” the outcome of the Rule 404(b) issue, 530 F.3d at

976; the prosecutor’s alert to the district court and defense

counsel of his own uncertainty about whether a Rule 404(b)

“motion” tolled the Speedy Trial Act clock; and Marshall’s

repeated pleas for scrutiny of the speedy trial issues. In these

circumstances, reasonably effective counsel would have raised

the issue, if for no other reason than to preserve it for appeal. 

The second prong of the Strickland analysis, prejudice,

requires a decision on the merits of the Speedy Trial Act issue,

because there is no possibility of a different outcome in the

proceeding if the exclusion of the Rule 404(b) filing time was

correct. Harris and Van Smith compel the conclusion that a

Rule 404(b) filing is a notice rather than a motion that tolls the

Speedy Trial Act clock. This follows from the well settled rule

acknowledged by the en banc court that the procedure for

admitting Rule 404(b) evidence is identical to the notice-andUSCA Case #09-3140 Document #1312542 Filed: 06/09/2011 Page 10 of 15
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objection procedure for Rule 609 material: “The government

must identify which of the matters listed . . . it is intending to

prove . . . . If the defense objects, the court must then satisfy

itself that the evidence is relevant to that matter.” Crowder, 141

F.3d at 1209. As the court observed in Harris and again in Van

Smith, this procedure is governed by Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure 12(b)(4)(A), which governs pretrial evidentiary

notices by the government “to afford the defendant an

opportunity to object.” It is a subsequent objection by the

defendant — considered a pretrial motion under Rule

12(b)(3)(C) — that tolls the Speedy Trial Act clock. 

On appeal, the government brief makes no meaningful

effort to distinguish a Rule 609 filing from a Rule 404(b) filing,

instead suggesting that Harris and Van Smith were wrongly

decided and citing cases from other circuits that purportedly

contradict our precedent. In fact, the Ninth and Eleventh Circuit

cases cited by the government, United States v. Gorman, 314

F.3d 1105 (9th Cir. 2002), and United States v. Jernigan, 341

F.3d 1273 (11th Cir. 2003), held only that a defendant’s motion

to exclude Rule 404(b) evidence tolled the Speedy Trial Act

clock, and the Eleventh Circuit declined to decide “[w]hether or

not the government’s [preceding Rule 404(b)] filing was a

motion that required a hearing and tolled the speedy trial clock.” 

341 F.3d at 1286; see Gorman, 314 F.3d at 1115. Those cases

are therefore entirely consistent with Harris and Van Smith: a

defendant’s motion to exclude evidence is considered a pretrial

motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure

12(b)(3)(c) that tolls the Speedy Trial Act clock. This leaves

only an unpublished summary order, United States v. Rojas, 7 F.

App’x 9 (2d Cir. 2001), which has no precedential effect even

in the Second Circuit, see 2d Cir. R. 32.1.1(a), and what little

reasoning it contains is unpersuasive given that its holding is

inconsistent with the en banc court’s interpretation of Rule 12

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in Crowder and with our subsequent decisions in Harris and

Van Smith.

At oral argument, government counsel suggested that even

if there is no distinction to be made in the generic case, here the

prosecutor sought a pretrial ruling on the matter, going as far as

to attach a proposed order to the Rule 404(b) filing. Be that as

it may, the prosecutor also referred to the filing as a “notice,” Tr.

Mar. 23, 2009, at 5, did not object when the district court

declared its intention to reserve judgment on the Rule 404(b)

issue until during or immediately before trial, and did not argue

that Marshall had conceded the Rule 404(b) “motion” when his

counsel waited over eight months to file an opposition, see

D.D.C. Local Crim. R. 47(b). In any event, the controlling

question is neither the degree of diligence with which counsel

sought disposition of the filing, nor the “labels applied by the

parties to their filings,” Van Smith, 530 F.3d at 980 (Rogers, J.,

dissenting) (citing Van Smith, 530 F.3d at 970–71 (maj. op.);

Santoyo, 890 F.2d at 727 (5th Cir.); United States v. Noah, 130

F.3d at 495 (1st Cir.)). Under Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure 12(b) and circuit precedent, a government filing

indicating its intent to introduce Rule 404(b) evidence at trial is

treated as a notice that requires no district court action and that

cannot, by itself, toll the Speedy Trial Act clock. See Van Smith,

530 F.3d at 971 (quoting Rush, 738 F.2d at 505–06 (1st Cir.)).4

4

 We note that the Supreme Court recently held that filing a

pretrial motion tolls the Speedy Trial Act clock “irrespective of

whether it actually causes, or is expected to cause, delay in starting a

trial.” United States v. Tinklenberg, ___ S. Ct. ____, No. 09-1498,

2011 WL 2039366, at *3 (U.S. May 26, 2011). In so ruling, the

Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit and agreed with the longsettled practice in this court and others. See id., 2011 WL 2039366,

at *7 (citing, inter alia, United States v. Wilson, 835 F.2d 1440, 1443

(D.C. Cir. 1987)). The question addressed by this court in Harris, Van

Smith, and now in this appeal is different from that presented to the

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The government’s other argument concerning prejudice is

equally unpersuasive. It contends that the district court would

not have granted a motion to dismiss even if Marshall had

properly raised the issue because it was firmly convinced that a

Rule 404(b) filing tolled the Speedy Trial Act clock. Putting

aside the dubious premise that the district court would have erred

had the issue been properly put before it, raising the issue would

at least have preserved it for appeal, and thus Marshall would

have secured dismissal of the indictment, later if not sooner. At

oral argument government counsel also maintained that any

dismissal of the indictment would have been without prejudice

under the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2), and that

dismissal of the indictment without prejudice is an insufficient

showing of Strickland prejudice. Because the government raised

this argument for the first time at oral argument, we decline to

consider it. See Ark Las Vegas Rest. Corp. v. NLRB, 334 F.3d

99, 108 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2003). Marshall therefore was prejudiced

by his pretrial counsel’s constitutionally deficient assistance.5

Supreme Court in Tinklenberg. The issue here is whether the

government’s evidentiary filing qualifies as a pretrial motion for

Speedy Trial Act purposes. If it were a motion, then under

Tinklenberg and this court’s well-established precedent, the Speedy

Trial Act clock was tolled. But because Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure 12 and our precedent do not construe the filing as a pretrial

motion, the Speedy Trial Act’s exclusion of a period of “delay

resulting from any pretrial motion,” 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1)(D), was

not triggered, and the Act was violated.

5

 We need not reach Marshall’s alternative claim of

Strickland prejudice resulting from the delay preventing his trial from

occurring before a change in law rendered admissible a videotaped

post-arrest statement that previously would have been inadmissible in

the government’s case-in-chief.

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In vacating the judgment of conviction by order of May 13,

2011, the court remanded the case for the district court to

determine whether the dismissal should be with or without

prejudice. See 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2); United States v. Sanders,

485 F.3d 654, 660 (D.C. Cir. 2007). In so doing, the court was

mindful of the Supreme Court’s direction that a remedy be

“tailored to the injury suffered from the constitutional violation.” 

United States v. Morrison, 449 U.S. 361, 364 (1981). In

circumstances where, as here, the constitutional violation

occurred prior to trial, granting a new trial on the existing

indictment would not cure the harm suffered by a defendant as

a result of the violation. Instead, an appropriately tailored

remedy “should put the defendant back in the position he would

have been in if the Sixth Amendment violation had not

occurred.” United States v. Blaylock, 20 F.3d 1458, 1468 (9th

Cir. 1994). Properly raising the issue prior to trial would at a

minimum have resulted in this court reviewing the Speedy Trial

Act issue de novo and holding Marshall’s statutory speedy trial

right was violated. 

As a result, this court has no occasion to reach two of

Marshall’s three other contentions. His Speedy Trial Act claim

— subject to plain error review because the Rule 404(b) issue

was not raised in the district court — would result in the same

relief granted here for ineffective assistance of counsel, and thus

there is no need to decide whether the error was plain. And his

claim of jury coercion by the district court as a result of ex parte

and other interactions with one juror who “decided his fate,”

Appellant’s Br. 31, would result only in a new trial, and thus it,

too, need not be decided. Regarding Marshall’s contention that

his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was also violated

and that the government did not overcome the presumption of

prejudice for delays of longer than one year, factual findings are

required pursuant to Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), and

in view of the record before this court the district court is better

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suited to make these findings in the first instance, if necessary. 

See Doggett v. United States, 505 U.S. 647, 651–54 & 652 n.1;

United States v. Jones, 524 F.2d 834 (D.C. Cir. 1975).

Accordingly, we vacated the judgment of conviction because

Marshall was denied his right under the Sixth Amendment to the

effective assistance of pretrial counsel, and remanded the case

for the district court to determine whether dismissal for violation

of the Speedy Trial Act shall be with or without prejudice to his

re-prosecution. See Order, May 13, 2011. If the district court

determines that the dismissal of the indictment should be without

prejudice, then it must make findings in order to determine, in

the first instance, whether Marshall’s right to a speedy trial under

the Sixth Amendment was violated.

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