Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-06-03166/USCOURTS-caDC-06-03166-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Anthony Rice
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 19, 2013 Decided April 1, 2014

No. 06-3166

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

ANTHONY RICE,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 03-cr-00441-08)

Jenifer Wicks, appointed by the court, argued the cause 

and filed the briefs for appellant. 

Peter S. Smith, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause 

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

Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, Assistant U.S. 

Attorney. Suzanne Grealy Curt and Mary B. McCord, 

Assistant U.S. Attorneys, entered appearances.

Before: BROWN and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Appellant Anthony Rice

appeals his convictions on drug conspiracy charges on the 

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ground that the 26-month delay between his arrest and the

start of his trial violated the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3161 et seq., and the Sixth Amendment. For the reasons set 

forth below, we reject his challenge and affirm the district 

court.

I

In June 2002, the Metropolitan Police Department and 

the FBI began a joint investigation of a drug distribution 

network led by one Raven Carroll. The investigation 

uncovered a complex, international scheme that imported 

drugs into the Washington, D.C. area from several Caribbean 

and South American countries, including the Dominican 

Republic. Wiretaps conducted by Dominican authorities 

implicated a number of individuals living outside the United 

States. Wiretaps conducted by U.S. authorities incriminated 

numerous U.S. participants, including Rice, whose role in the 

enterprise was to help test the quality of drugs and serve as 

one of Carroll’s distributors.

By October 2003, U.S. authorities had amassed enough 

evidence to charge Rice and eighteen others with two counts 

of conspiracy relating to drug importation and distribution.

Rice, along with most of his codefendants, was arrested and 

arraigned on November 12, 2003. Six foreign codefendants, 

however, remained outside the country, two at large and four 

under arrest and awaiting extradition.

Although the Speedy Trial Act requires trial to begin 

within 70 days of arraignment, the court may push back the 

start of the trial when “the ends of justice” so require. 18 

U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(A). In a motion that Rice did not oppose, 

the government argued that the case was too complex to be 

ready for trial within the 70 days called for in the Act and 

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asked for a 270-day “ends-of-justice continuance.” The 

government cited the large number of defendants, the 

international scope of their drug operation, and the sheer

volume of evidence. For example, there were thousands of 

hours of taped Spanish-language conversations that would 

need to be transcribed into Spanish and then translated into 

English. On December 19, 2003, the district court held a 

hearing on the motion and granted the continuance. (Although 

the record is unclear, for purposes of this opinion we accept

Rice’s contention that the district court intended the 270-day 

continuance to begin running immediately.)

In June 2004, partway through the 270-day continuance, 

the district court sua sponte raised the idea of severing the 

case to expedite proceedings. The court suggested that those 

defendants allegedly involved in the domestic aspects of the 

conspiracy could be tried separately from those allegedly 

involved in its international reach, some of whom still had not 

been extradited. The government conceded such a severance 

would be workable, but the court took no action on the issue 

at that time. The court floated the possibility of severance 

again in July, and once again the government thought it a 

good move. On neither occasion did any of the defendants 

request or oppose severance. On August 17, 2004, the court

entered a written order severing the case in two and 

establishing preliminary schedules for motions and the trials. 

Rice was among the domestic defendants, whose joint trial 

was scheduled to begin in January 2005.

For a variety of reasons the trial did not actually begin 

until January 2006. The delays started with the court granting 

the motion of one of Rice’s codefendants, Roland Bailey, to

postpone the trial until May 2005 so that he could obtain new 

counsel. Then, shortly before the new start date, Rice’s 

attorney announced that he would not be available for several 

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days in early June. To avoid such a disruption in the middle of 

a trial expected to last several weeks, Rice’s lawyer agreed 

that the start of trial should be set for late June. But shortly 

before that new start date, the government voiced concern that 

the trial might run through late August and conflict with other 

trials on the court’s schedule. In response, the court explained 

that if the trial did not begin in late June, it would need to be 

postponed until January 2006 to accommodate the court’s 

schedule. The government and Rice agreed, though Bailey did 

not, that starting the trial in January 2006 was best, and so the 

court once again moved back the start date.

As it turned out, only Rice and Bailey went to trial, all

their codefendants having pled guilty. On January 4, 2006, the 

district court heard the last pending pretrial motion: an 

attempt to suppress the wiretap evidence against Rice and 

Bailey. The court denied the motion that day. Jury selection 

began that afternoon and continued on to the next day.

Presentation of evidence started on January 9. After a fiveweek trial, Rice was convicted on both counts. Later that year 

he was sentenced to life imprisonment. (Bailey was convicted

on a separate possession charge but not on the conspiracy 

charges.) Rice filed a timely notice of appeal. We have

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II

Rice argues that his conviction violated the Speedy Trial 

Act, which “requires that a criminal trial must commence 

within 70 days of the latest of a defendant’s indictment, 

information, or appearance, barring periods of excludable 

delay.” Henderson v. United States, 476 U.S. 321, 326 (1986). 

See generally 18 U.S.C. §§ 3161-3162. Time can be excluded

from the 70-day clock for a variety of reasons, but only two 

are relevant to this case. First, as noted, a court can grant an 

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ends-of-justice continuance. Second, the filing of pretrial 

motions stops the clock.

We review Speedy Trial Act challenges de novo on 

matters of law, and for clear error as to findings of fact.

United States v. Van Smith, 530 F.3d 967, 969 (D.C. Cir. 

2008).

* Our review does not entail examining the entire 26-

month period between Rice’s arrest and the start of trial and

categorizing each day as excludable or nonexcludable. 

Instead, the Act places the burden of identifying violations on 

the defendant. 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2); see also Zedner v. 

United States, 547 U.S. 489, 502-03 (2006) (“[Section] 

3162(a)(2) assigns the role of spotting violations of the Act to 

defendants—for the obvious reason that they have the greatest 

incentive to perform this task.”). Accordingly, our review is 

limited to examining the particular periods of time that Rice 

alleges contained, in total, over 180 days that should not have 

been excluded from the district court’s calculation of the 70-

day clock. See Appellant’s Br. 39-41. For ease of analysis, we 

consolidate the various intervals Rice highlights into two 

periods and address them in the following two subsections. 

 * Because Rice did not make the specific arguments he raises 

on appeal in his pretrial motion to dismiss (at least not in the 

motion to dismiss included in the record before us), we should 

arguably either deem his claims waived or review only for plain 

error. See United States v. Loughrin, 710 F.3d 1111, 1121 (10th 

Cir. 2013) (specific Speedy Trial Act arguments not raised below 

are waived); United States v. O’Connor, 656 F.3d 630, 637-38 (7th 

Cir. 2011) (specific Speedy Trial Act arguments not raised below 

are reviewed at most for plain error); cf. United States v. Taylor, 

497 F.3d 673, 676 & n.3 (D.C. Cir. 2007). But the government has 

not argued waiver or forfeiture, and Rice has not had an opportunity

to contest whether he properly preserved his claims; therefore, we 

assume that the normal standard of review applies.

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A

Rice first focuses on the period from January to July 

2004. Rice claims that even after accounting for time properly 

excluded by the filing of pretrial motions, this period

contained 104 days that should not have been excluded. This 

entire period, however, falls within 270 days of the grant of 

the ends-of-justice continuance. If the continuance was valid, 

the entire period was properly excluded. Acknowledging this 

hurdle, Rice argues that the continuance was both 

substantively and procedurally flawed.

A district court can, on its own motion or at the request of 

a party, grant an excludable continuance if “the ends of justice 

served by taking such action outweigh the best interest of the 

public and the defendant in a speedy trial.” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3161(h)(7)(A). The substantive balancing underlying the 

decision to grant such a continuance is entrusted to the district 

court’s sound discretion. See United States v. Kelley, 36 F.3d 

1118, 1126 (D.C. Cir. 1994); see also, e.g., United States v. 

Clark, 717 F.3d 790, 822 (10th Cir. 2013). But this 

“substantive openendedness” is balanced by “procedural 

strictness.” Zedner, 547 U.S. at 509. An ends-of-justice

continuance is excludable only if the court “sets forth, in the 

record of the case, either orally or in writing, its reasons for 

finding that the ends of justice served by the granting of such 

continuance outweigh the best interests of the public and the 

defendant in a speedy trial.” 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(A). The

court’s findings must indicate that it “seriously weigh[ed] the 

benefits of granting the continuance against the strong public 

and private interests served by speedy trials.” United States v. 

Bryant, 523 F.3d 349, 361 (D.C. Cir. 2008); see also United 

States v. Sanders, 485 F.3d 654, 659 (D.C. Cir. 2007) 

(holding ends-of-justice findings insufficient “insofar as the 

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district court made no mention of the countervailing 

interests”).

In making its substantive judgment, a court considers

several factors, including the complexity of the case. See 18 

U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(B). Rice does not quarrel with the 

obvious: With 19 codefendants, a conspiracy spanning 

multiple states and countries, hundreds of hours of wiretaps 

(many in Spanish), the case—considered in its entirety—was 

sufficiently complex to justify the continuance. See id.

§ 3161(h)(7)(B)(ii) (indicating that a continuance can be 

justified if the case is especially “unusual” or “complex”).

But, Rice argues, the court should not have considered

the case in its entirety. Instead, the court should have 

recognized that it could have rendered the 270-day 

continuance unnecessary by severing the domestic defendants

initially. The case against them alone, Rice says, would have 

been quite simple because the foreign wiretaps would have 

been irrelevant. But, of course, at the time the district court 

granted the continuance, it acted under the assumption that the 

entire case would proceed toward trial intact. No party, 

including Rice, moved for a severance, either before or after 

the continuance was granted. At bottom, then, Rice’s 

argument is that the district court had an obligation to sever 

the case sua sponte, and abused its discretion by failing to do 

so before granting the continuance. We think not. To start, 

there is a preference for joint trials in the federal courts. See 

Zafiro v. United States, 506 U.S. 534, 537 (1993). Although 

that preference can give way in the face of certain

circumstances, see, e.g., United States v. Gray, 173 F. Supp. 

2d 1, 8 (D.D.C. 2001) (citing “the protection of the rights of 

the defendants and the physical limitations of the 

courthouse”), we do not see any here that would have 

required the district court to sever the case before it granted 

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the continuance on December 19, 2003. That none of the 

defendants sought a severance shows that none thought it was 

required. With 20/20 hindsight, severing the domestic from 

the international defendants at the outset might appear to have 

been the best way to proceed, but that hardly suggests the 

district court abused its discretion in failing to do so at the 

time and sua sponte.

Rice also contends that the continuance was procedurally 

invalid, claiming the district court’s on-the-record findings 

were insufficient. Again, we disagree. As noted, our 

fundamental concern is that the findings reveal that the court 

“seriously weigh[ed]” the need for delay against the interests 

in a speedy trial. Bryant, 523 F.3d at 361. The district court’s 

lengthy contemporaneous oral findings, which explained in 

detail why the complexity of the case made a continuance

appropriate, satisfy us that it seriously weighed these 

competing interests. The court began by noting the general 

need “to get cases to trial as quickly as possible.” But it 

explained that delay was justified because of the large number 

of defendants, the many hours of wiretaps to be transcribed 

and translated, and the absence of certain defendants still 

awaiting extradition. The court plainly took the defendants’ 

interests into consideration, noting, for example, “that the 

defense itself is not going to be in a position to adequately 

provide the quality of representation the defendants are 

entitled to, unless they know exactly what is on those 

[wiretap] disks.” True, the district court did not recite the 

statutory formulation, but the findings requirement does not 

call for magic words. The findings here are far more 

indicative of serious weighing than are those in cases where 

the district court does little more than rehearse the words of

the statute. See, e.g., United States v. Lucas, 499 F.3d 769, 

782-83 (8th Cir. 2007) (upholding such findings).

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The findings here were also a far cry from those we 

found insufficient in Sanders and Bryant, the two cases on 

which Rice relies most heavily. In Sanders, we examined a 

period of time that the district court had originally expected to 

be excluded by the filing of certain defense motions. But 

those motions were ultimately never filed. It was only after 

the period had passed, in the course of denying a motion to 

dismiss under the Act, that the district court suggested the 

period was excluded by an ends-of-justice continuance. Its 

“findings” were simply a statement that it had originally 

expected the defense to file the motions and “[s]o on some 

rough justice basis, it seems to me, it is in the interest of 

justice to [exclude] those 15 days.” Sanders, 485 F.3d at 659. 

The findings in Bryant were similarly ad hoc. When faced 

with a motion to dismiss under the Act, the judge, who 

acknowledged that he was working from memory, not 

transcript, said he “thought he had probably made a finding”

that an earlier period of time was excluded in the interests of 

justice because of the need to coordinate the schedules of the 

lawyers and the court. Bryant, 523 F.3d at 360 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). In neither case could we be 

satisfied that the district court had seriously weighed the 

relevant interests. By contrast, the district court’s findings in 

this case reflect a considered, prospective judgment that the 

complexity of the case called for the continuance.

The findings here are closer to those we upheld in United 

States v. Lopesierra-Gutierrez, 708 F.3d 193 (D.C. Cir. 

2013). Our review in that case was complicated by the fact 

that the district court order setting down the findings had gone 

missing. Id. at 204. We were able to reconstruct the court’s 

reasoning, however, because later filings established the 

existence of the order. Those later filings made clear that the 

order had cited the complexity of the case, the volume of 

discovery, and the need to bring foreign defendants and 

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witnesses to the United States—substantially the same 

circumstances the district court noted in its findings here. See 

id. (describing these as “perfectly adequate reasons for 

granting a stay”). The findings in the present case are as 

thorough as those we could infer in Lopesierra-Gutierrez.

Because the district court’s grant of the 270-day ends-ofjustice continuance was both substantively and procedurally 

valid, we conclude that the district court properly excluded 

the 104 days between January and July 2004 that Rice alleges 

should have been counted under the Act.

B

The second period in question covers late June 2005 to

January 2006, when trial began. Rice argues that after

accounting for properly excluded days, this period still 

contained 83 days that should not have been excluded for any

reason. Once again, however, the entire period in question 

was properly excluded—this time by the pendency of a 

pretrial motion that was not heard until January 4, 2006.

The Act automatically excludes at least some of the time 

it takes the district court to decide a pretrial motion. 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3161(h)(1)(D) (excluding “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”). See generally Van Smith, 530 F.3d at 969. The 

amount of time excluded depends in part on whether the 

district court holds a hearing on the motion. If the court holds 

a hearing, the Act excludes the period of time between the 

filing of the motion and the conclusion of the hearing, 

whether or not the amount of delay that occurred was 

“reasonable.” Henderson, 476 U.S. at 326-27. If the court 

does not hold a hearing on the motion, the Act excludes the 

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period of time between the filing of the motion and the day 

the court receives all the submissions it reasonably expects in 

relation to the motion. Van Smith, 530 F.3d at 969. After the 

court receives the necessary papers, the motion is considered 

“under advisement by the court,” and up to 30 additional days 

may be excluded while the court considers the matter. 18 

U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1)(H).

At a status conference on May 23, 2005, the district court 

catalogued the remaining defendants’ unresolved pretrial 

motions. Among Rice’s was “a motion to suppress all of the 

electronic surveillance evidence,” which Rice’s counsel

acknowledged and agreed was still pending. And again, on 

June 27, 2005, the court noted that “we have a motion to 

suppress the electronic surveillance evidence filed by Mr. 

Rice.” We cannot discern from the record precisely when 

Rice filed this motion, but its murky origins need not concern 

us, because the court held a hearing to consider its merits on 

January 4, 2006. (The court denied the motion that day.) Even

if we assume that Rice did not file this motion until May 23, 

2005, the entire period from that day until the day of the 

hearing would be excluded. Regardless of whether the district 

court could have held a hearing on this motion earlier—the 

record does not make clear why it did not—the entire period

of the motion’s pendency is excluded. See Henderson, 476 

U.S. at 330. Therefore, the various days between late June 

2005 and January 2006 that Rice claims were nonexcludable 

were in fact properly excluded.

III

Rice brings a constitutional challenge as well, contending

that the delay between his arrest and trial violated his Sixth 

Amendment right to a speedy trial. 

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The government argues that Rice forfeited this claim by 

failing to raise it before the district court. We agree. Though 

Rice argues that he “continuously asserted both his statutory 

and constitutional rights to a Speedy Trial,” he fails to offer 

any supporting record citations. Appellant’s Reply Br. 12. We 

can find no evidence in the record that Rice ever made a Sixth 

Amendment argument before the district court, and Speedy 

Trial Act claims do not on their own preserve a constitutional 

claim to a speedy trial. See United States v. Green, 516 F. 

App’x 113, 124 (3d Cir. 2013); United States v. Woodley, 484 

F. App’x 310, 318 (11th Cir. 2012); United States v. 

O’Connor, 656 F.3d 630, 643 (7th Cir. 2011). We therefore 

review Rice’s constitutional argument for plain error. Under 

that standard of review, Rice must demonstrate that “(1) there 

is an error; (2) the error is clear or obvious, rather than subject 

to reasonable dispute; (3) the error affected the appellant’s 

substantial rights, which in the ordinary case means it affected 

the outcome of the district court proceedings; and (4) the error 

seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of 

judicial proceedings.” United States v. Marcus, 130 S. Ct. 

2159, 2164 (2010) (internal quotation marks and brackets 

omitted).

The absence of a Speedy Trial Act violation does not ipso 

facto defeat a Sixth Amendment speedy trial claim. See 18 

U.S.C. § 3173. But as a number of courts have noted, it will 

be an “unusual case” in which the Act is followed but the 

Constitution violated. See, e.g., United States v. Bieganowski, 

313 F.3d 264, 284 (5th Cir. 2002); United States v. 

Davenport, 935 F.2d 1223, 1238-39 (11th Cir. 1991); United 

States v. Nance, 666 F.2d 353, 360 (9th Cir. 1982). Even 

more exceptional must be the case in which the Act is 

followed but there is a “clear or obvious” Sixth Amendment 

error. Our analysis of Rice’s prosecution in light of the four

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factors enumerated in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), 

convinces us this is not that rare case.

Barker teaches that in assessing whether the Sixth 

Amendment has been violated, we consider the “[l]ength of 

delay, the reason for the delay, the defendant’s assertion of his 

right, and prejudice to the defendant.” 407 U.S. at 530. The 

government concedes, and we agree, that the delay here was 

long enough to trigger Barker analysis, see Doggett v. United 

States, 505 U.S. 647, 651-52 (1992), but it remains shorter 

than others that we have upheld against challenge, see 

Lopesierra-Gutierrez, 708 F.3d at 202-03 (delay of three-anda-half years); see also Barker, 407 U.S. at 531 (“[T]he delay 

that can be tolerated for an ordinary street crime is 

considerably less than for a serious, complex conspiracy 

charge.”). The second factor, which asks “whether the 

government or the criminal defendant is more to blame for 

[the] delay,” Doggett, 505 U.S. at 651, also yields a mixed 

answer. See supra at 3-4 (describing the delays). Some of the 

delay, such as the initial ends-of-justice continuance and the

continuance for codefendant Bailey to obtain new counsel, 

was fully justified and cannot be “blamed” on either the 

government or Rice; some was caused by Rice’s lawyer’s 

scheduling decisions and is attributable to Rice, see Vermont 

v. Brillon, 129 S. Ct. 1283, 1290-92 (2009); and some was 

due to the court’s trial schedule, which is ultimately 

attributable to the government, see Barker, 407 U.S. at 531. 

The third factor, the defendant’s assertion of his right, cuts 

decidedly against Rice because he did not raise any Speedy 

Trial Act challenge until nearly a year after his arraignment, 

and, as noted earlier, never alleged a Sixth Amendment 

violation. His counsel orally raised vague Speedy Trial Act 

concerns on two occasions after moving to dismiss, but he 

also expressly agreed to the last two postponements of the 

trial. Finally, although Rice suffered lengthy “pretrial 

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incarceration” and “anxiety and concern,” he does not even 

attempt to argue that he suffered “the most serious” form of 

prejudice: the impairment of his defense. Id. at 532.

Taken together, the four factors suggest that Rice would 

have at least a debatable, if not persuasive, Sixth Amendment 

claim under de novo review. But in light of Rice’s forfeiture, 

we can reverse only for plain error, and we cannot conclude 

that the Barker analysis demonstrates a “clear or obvious” 

constitutional error in this case. Marcus, 130 S. Ct. at 2164. 

Because any error was not “clear or obvious,” we need not 

address the other requirements for relief under plain error 

review.

IV

For the foregoing reasons, we reject Rice’s Speedy Trial 

Act and Sixth Amendment challenges and affirm his 

convictions.

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