Title: State v. Adams
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S51598
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: August 4, 2005

FILED:  August 4, 2005
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Petitioner on Review,
v.
MICHAEL C. ADAMS,
aka MICHAEL CORY ADAMS,
Respondent on Review,
(CC D9906823T; CA A119362; SC S51598)
En Banc
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted January 12, 2005.
Christina M. Hutchins, Assistant Attorney General, Salem,
argued the cause and filed the brief for petitioner on review. 
With her on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, Mary H.
Williams, Solicitor General, and Janet A. Klapstein, Assistant
Attorney General.
William Uhle, Portland, argued the cause and filed the brief
for respondent on review.
GILLETTE, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the
circuit court are affirmed. 
*Appeal from Washington County Circuit Court, Hollie M. Pihl, Judge. 193 Or App 469, 89 P3d 1283 (2004).
GILLETTE, J.
This is the third of three cases that we decide today
under the so-called speedy trial statutes, ORS 135.745 to
135.750.  This case arises out of defendant's motion to dismiss
on the ground that the state had failed to bring him to trial
within a "reasonable period of time" under ORS 135.747. (1) 
The case differs from the other two cases in that the trial court
here granted defendant's motion, (2) and the Court of Appeals
affirmed that ruling.  State v. Adams, 193 Or App 469, 89 P3d
1283 (2004).  In seeking review of the Court of Appeals decision,
the state focuses on the reasoning that the trial court and the
Court of Appeals shared -- namely, that defendant's trial had
been delayed unreasonably, that most of the delay could be traced
to certain funding choices that the state legislature made, that
the state ultimately must be held responsible for that part of
the delay, and that the indictment therefore must be, and
properly was, dismissed under ORS 135.747.  The state argues that
that reasoning is erroneous because it suggests that a lack of
judicial resources is not a legitimate justification for trial
delay under ORS 135.747.  We conclude that, whether or not the
reasoning of the trial court and the Court of Appeals was
erroneous, the ultimate conclusion of both courts that defendant
had not been brought to trial within a reasonable time was
correct. 
The relevant facts are as follows.  On November 16,
1999, police cited defendant for Driving Under the Influence of
Intoxicants (DUII), ORS 813.010, and ordered him to appear in
Washington County Circuit Court on December 15, 1999.  Five days
later, police cited defendant for another DUII offense and
ordered him to appear in circuit court (again, in Washington
County) on December 20, 1999.  Defendant failed to appear on
December 15, but he did appear on December 20, 1999, and pleaded
"not guilty" to both charges at that time.  The trial court then
ordered him to appear on February 14, 2000, for a pretrial
conference.
Defendant failed to appear for the scheduled pretrial
conference. (3)  However, defendant's attorney appeared in
court on February 28, 2000, to file a "demand for speedy trial." 
A few days later, on March 2, 2000, defendant attended a
rescheduled pretrial conference and, at that time, rejected a
plea offer by the state.  The trial court then scheduled a trial
on both charges for August 18, 2000.
A month before the scheduled trial, the state moved for
a continuance on the ground that an essential witness would be
unavailable.  The trial court granted the state's motion and
rescheduled defendant's trial for January 30, 2001.  On January
30, 2001, defendant requested a continuance on the ground that
defendant's lawyer had a scheduling conflict.  The trial court
granted defendant's request and rescheduled the trial for May 31,
2001.  On May 31, 2001, the trial court reset the trial on its
own motion for October 17, 2001, on the ground that no judges
were available to try the case.  On October 12, 2001, the trial
court again reset the date of trial because no judges were
available -- this time for March 7, 2002.  
Prior to the March 7, 2002, trial date, defendant filed
a motion to dismiss on statutory and constitutional speedy trial
grounds.  The trial court denied defendant's motion, and the
trial occurred as scheduled.  At the close of the trial, the jury
convicted defendant of the second (November 21, 1999) DUII
charge, but could not reach a decision on the first (November 16,
1999) DUII charge.  The court declared a mistrial on that charge
and set the matter over for retrial on August 20, 2002.   
A few weeks before the scheduled retrial, defendant
filed another motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial, again
raising both statutory and constitutional arguments.  On August
20, 2002, the judge assigned to try the case considered
defendant's motion and decided that the indictment should be
dismissed on statutory grounds.  The judge opined that
defendant's trial had been "unduly" delayed and noted that a
substantial portion of the delay had occurred because of a
persistent shortage of judges to hear criminal cases in
Washington County.  The judge noted that, in his view, that
shortage was the result of a deliberate funding decision by the
state legislature. (4)  The judge concluded that the state
ultimately was responsible for the delay and that the indictment
must be dismissed.  
The state appealed, arguing that the trial court had
erred in (1) refusing to recognize that, by failing to object to
certain postponements, defendant had consented to those
postponements for purposes of ORS 135.747, and (2) holding that
the delay in question was unreasonable for purposes of ORS
135.747, in spite of the fact that it arose out of a lack of
judicial resources.  
As noted, the Court of Appeals rejected both arguments
and affirmed.  With respect to the first argument, the court
concluded that, for purposes of ORS 135.747, "consent" to a delay
must involve some affirmative statement or action, not a mere
failure to object.  Adams, 193 Or App at 473.  With respect to
the state's second argument, the court rejected the state's
underlying premise that the court should not hold the state
responsible for the delay in question because it was beyond the
state's control:
"[I]t could not be argued that the delay resulted from
unavoidable circumstances over which the state had no
control.  The state, as a unitary political entity, is
the plaintiff in this case:  State v. Adams.  'The
state' includes the legislative branch as well as the
executive officers who apprehended and prosecuted
defendant and the judicial officers who tried him.  As such an entity, 'the state' has evidently chosen not to
expend the resources necessary to bring defendant to
trial in under 23 months.  That may or may not have
been a reasonable decision; it is not our office to sit
in judgment on the reasonableness of the legislature's
funding priorities.  It is our office, however, to
interpret the legislature's command that defendants be
brought to trial within a reasonable period of time, a
different inquiry entirely.  In the present case, the
state did not do so."   
Id. at 475 (boldface type in original).  
Before this court, the state continues to press its
theory that, for purposes of ORS 135.747, "consent" includes a
mere failure to object.  This court's cases are, however,
contrary to that position.  See, e.g., State v. Chadwick, 150 Or
645, 650, 47 P2d 232 (1935) ("where the statute refers to the
consent of defendant, it means his express consent").
The state also argues that defendant must be deemed to
have consented affirmatively or expressly to certain delays in
this case that, thus far, have not been counted against him. 
Only one of those delays is of any significance -- the five-month
delay occasioned by the state's July 17, 2000, motion for a
postponement.  That delay occurred on the state's written
application.  However, the state points to a statement in the
state's application that "the defense attorney * * * does not
object to this reset request," and asserts that that statement
shows that defendant expressly consented to the delay.  We
disagree.  In cases like the present one, a lack of objection is
just (and only) that:  a lack of objection.  It conveys no
message that the defendant either joins in the motion or waives
any rights that he has that are affected by the motion.  It
follows that we agree with the Court of Appeals that, in this
statutory context, a recital by the state that defense counsel
has "no objection" is insufficient to place a defendant's express
consent on the record, as Chadwick requires.
We turn, then, to the state's other argument -- that
the dismissal was erroneous because a lack of judicial resources
caused the delay in question and the delay, therefore, was
"reasonable" for purposes of ORS 135.747.  Before we consider
that argument, however, we first must identify the period of
delay with more particularity.  In the present case, a period of
27 months passed from the time that defendant was charged by
complaint on the first DUII citation (5) on December 10, 1999,
until he was tried on that and the other DUII charge on March 7,
2002.  In evaluating the reasonableness of that time period, we
must exclude from consideration any postponement that occurred
"upon the application of the defendant or by the consent of the
defendant."  ORS 135.747.  In the present case, that means that
we subtract the four-month postponement that resulted from
defendant's January 30, 2001, request for a setover from the 27-month period.  Thus, our task is to determine whether the
remaining period -- 23 months -- was a "reasonable period of
time" for the state to bring defendant to trial. (6)
For purposes of ORS 135.747, a "reasonable period of
time" is "such length of time as may reasonably be allowed or
required having regard to attendant circumstances."  State v.
Emery, 318 Or 460, 467, 869 P2d 859 (1994) (quoting State v.
Jackson, 228 Or 371, 377, 365 P2d 294 (1961)).  The "attendant
circumstances" include the circumstances that cause delay, i.e.,
the reasons for delay.  State v. Johnson, ___ Or ___, ___, ___
P3d ___ (Aug 4, 2005) (slip op at 27).  This court's older
cases hold that a trial court has "good cause" to continue a
trial until a later date if it has no room for the case on its
present docket.  See, e.g., State v. Bateham, 94 Or 524, 529, 186
P 5 (1919) (continuing case for lack of judicial time is "good
cause" for denying statutory speedy trial motion); State v. Lee,
110 Or 682, 687, 224 P 627 (1924) (right to speedy trial not
contravened when "accumulation of business render[s] trial
impossible"); State of Oregon v. Kuhnhausen, 201 Or 478, 537-38,
266 P2d 698, 272 P2d 225 (1954) (trial court may find that an
accumulation of cases already set constitutes good cause for
continuing a criminal case).  That principle recognizes the
obvious fact that trial courts must have some ability to
reschedule proceedings to deal with an unpredictable workload. 
The trial courts, in other words, must have control over their
own dockets.
Although the state relies heavily on the foregoing
point, it also seems to be suggesting that docket congestion
becomes an even more compelling justification for delay -- and
thus makes an even longer delay "reasonable" -- if it arises out
of a legislative policy choice. (7)  If that is the state's
point, then we disagree.  The question whether a legislative
policy choice is reasonable within the universe of considerations
that go into that policy choice is entirely separate from the
question of whether a time period required to bring a defendant
to trial is "reasonable" for purposes of ORS 135.747. 
Accordingly, the fact that docket congestion ultimately arises
out of a legislative policy neither expands (as the state argues)
nor contracts (as the trial court apparently believed) the period
of time that otherwise would be considered reasonable.
We do agree with the state's narrower point, viz., that
an overcrowded docket or, as the state would phrase it, a "lack
of judicial resources" can justify at least some trial court
decisions to postpone a trial for a certain length of time. 
Certainly, in ordinary circumstances, we would not think of a
trial court's decision to postpone because of docket congestion
as creating an unreasonable delay per se.  
However, the fact of an overcrowded docket can only go
so far in expanding the period of time that will be considered
"reasonable" for purposes of ORS 135.747.  At some point, the
focus must shift away from whether the various postponement
requests and decisions individually are justifiable to whether
the overall period of time to bring the defendant to trial is
"reasonable" in toto. 
We think that the time period at issue here -- 23
months, excluding the delay that defendant himself caused -- goes
beyond the reasonable limit.  Although it is difficult to
identify the point at which delay becomes unacceptable, we think
that a delay that roughly equals the statute of limitations for
the crime at issue is too long. (8)  Although statutes of
limitation clearly serve a different purpose than the speedy
trial statutes, they nevertheless provide some indication of what
the legislature views as the outer limit of reasonableness for
proceeding against a defendant for a given crime.  If two years
is the limit for commencing a DUII prosecution, then it certainly
must be beyond the reasonable time for bringing to trial a
defendant whom the state already has charged with DUII. (9) 
We hold that defendant in the present case was not
brought to trial within a "reasonable period of time" for
purposes of ORS 135.747.  The trial court properly dismissed the
indictment, and the Court of Appeals properly affirmed the trial
court's decision to dismiss. (10)  
The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment
of the circuit court are affirmed. 
1. ORS 135.747 provides: 
"If a defendant charged with a crime, whose trial has not been postponed
upon the application of the defendant or by the consent of the defendant, is not
brought to trial within a reasonable period of time, the court shall order the
accusatory instrument to be dismissed."
2. In State v. Johnson, 193 Or App 250, 90 P3d 4, adh'd to on recons, 194 Or
App 28, 92 P3d 766 (2004), the trial court denied the defendant's motion to
dismiss.  The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded to the trial court with
instructions to dismiss without prejudice.  We affirmed the Court of Appeals
decision.  State v. Johnson, 339 Or ___, ___ P3d ___ (Aug 4, 2005).  In State v.
Davids, 193 Or App 178, 90 P3d 1 (2004), the trial court also had denied the
defendant's motion to dismiss.  The Court of Appeals concluded that the trial
court should have dismissed without prejudice pursuant to ORS 135.747.  The
Court of Appeals noted, however, that, because the statute of limitations for
defendant's crimes had passed, the trial court's dismissal on remand must be final. 
Id. at 182.  We affirmed that decision.  State v. Davids, ___ Or ___, ___ P3d ___
(Aug 4, 2005).
3. The trial court issued a "failure to appear"
arrest warrant when defendant failed to appear, but
revoked the warrant when defendant appeared to file his
speedy trial motion.  A notation on the revocation
order suggests that the trial court found that
defendant had been told, in error, not to appear for
the February 14, 2000, pretrial conference.    
4. The judge explained, in that regard:
"[T]he legislature has chosen -- now, I know they have a limited amount of
money called the general fund * * * and they have to make decisions in where to
spend it. * * * And I agree with [another judge] that the reason this case did not go
to trial within a reasonable period of time, within what we call the statutory
aspects of the case, is because the legislature chose to spend our money
elsewhere."
5. As discussed in Johnson, ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 35), the clock begins to
run, for purposes of the "reasonable period of time" determination of ORS
135.747, when the defendant is "charged with a crime."  
6. Before this court, the state also argues that
defendant is categorically excluded from the dismissal
remedy provided in ORS 135.747 because trial was
postponed at least once on defendant's application.  We
rejected that construction of ORS 135.747 in Johnson,
___ Or at ___ (slip op at 37).
7. The state suggests, for example, that "[i]f
the legislature has directed courts to operate on
restricted budgets, those limited resources will
necessarily drive the inquiry of what constitutes a
'reasonable' time within which to bring an offender to
trial." 
8. Defendant's crime of DUII is a misdemeanor.  The general statute of
limitations for misdemeanors is two years.  ORS 131.125(6)(b). 
9. Our utilization of the applicable statute of limitations in this case does not,
of course, mean that only such extreme delays will require dismissal pursuant to
ORS 135.747; Johnson and Davids illustrate otherwise.  Neither are we holding
that a delay of that magnitude never can be justified; we do not have the ability to
foresee every possible variation of facts that may occur.  We simply hold here that
the delay is extreme and is not justified by the reason that the state presents.
10. In Johnson, ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 30), we
concluded that trial courts have discretion to
continue, in spite of an unreasonable delay in bringing
a defendant to trial, if "sufficient reason" to
override the mandate of dismissal is shown.  Here,
where the trial court granted defendant's motion to
dismiss, there is no occasion to consider that
additional step.