Opinion ID: 2999370
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act

Text: Jones first argues that the District Court should have dismissed the charges against him because the government violated the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act (IAD), 18 U.S.C.App. § 2. Because the IAD is a congressionally sanctioned compact, it is subject to federal construction. See Alabama v. Bozeman, 533 U.S. 146, 149 (2001). Whether the District Court erred in denying a motion to dismiss the indictment based on the application of the IAD is a question of law that we review de novo. See United States v. Pardue, 363 F.3d 695, 698 (8th Cir 2004). The IAD is a multi-state agreement that is meant to “encourage the expeditious and orderly disposition of [outstanding] charges and determination of the proper status of any and all detainers based on untried indictments, informations, or complaints.” Art. I, 18 U.S.C.App. § 2. A detainer is a notice filed with a prisoner’s institution of incarceration alerting both he and the institution that the prisoner is wanted to face criminal charges in another jurisdiction. Practically, the detainer is a request that the prisoner be held for the other jurisdiction’s prosecutors or that the holding institution notify the prosecutors of the prisoner’s pending release. See United States v. ParedesBatista, 140 F.3d 367, 372 (2d Cir. 1998). When a detainer 6 No. 05-1489 is so lodged, the defendant “shall be brought to trial within one hundred and eighty days after he shall have caused to be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer’s jurisdiction written notice of . . . his request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment. . . .” IAD, art. III(a), 18 U.S.C.App. § 2 (emphasis added). The executed demand notifies the waiting jurisdiction of the prisoner’s intent to exercise his right to a speedy trial. At issue here is whether the demand must actually be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court, or if delivery to a supposed agent is sufficient. The trial court found the former. Jones argues for the latter. The leading Supreme Court case on this matter, Fex v. Michigan, found that the IAD demanded actual delivery. 507 U.S. 43 (1993). Appellant Fex demanded a speedy trial pursuant to the instructions set forth on his detainer. He then submitted the request to the warden of his penal institution, who delayed in forwarding the document to the United States Attorney and the appropriate district court. Fex’s legal proceeding did not begin within the demanded 180 days. In light of these facts, the Supreme Court interpreted IAD Article III(a) to mean that the 180day clock does not start until the demand “has actually been delivered to the [district] court and prosecuting officer of the jurisdiction that lodged the detainer against him.” Id. at 52. This decision was made in full consideration of the two “ ‘worst-case scenarios’ ” presented by the varying interpretations. In the first case, by emphasizing actual delivery, the IAD language grants the careless or malicious warden the power to completely prevent the commencement of the 180-day period by failing to deliver the prisoner’s demand. In the second case, were delivery to the warden by the inmate sufficient, negligence by the warden in forwarding the speedy-trial demand to the appropriate attorney would preclude prosecution “before the prosecutor even knows it No. 05-1489 7 has been requested.” Id. at 49-51. The Supreme Court found the latter scenario to be “significantly worse,” and refused to dismiss the charges against Fex. Id. at 49. Jones also chose to exercise his right to a speedy trial, but his detainer (Form USM-17) was never delivered to the U.S. Attorney or the district court. After executing his demand, Jones gave the document to the warden of his holding facility. The warden then forwarded the detainer to the U.S. Marshals’ Office for the Central District of Illinois, which sent it to its counterpart in the Northern District. Where the detainer went from there, the record does not tell us. We do know, however, that the warden failed to follow the instructions on the detainer. Jones’s executed Form USM17 instructs the warden to “forward the detainer together with the Certificate of Inmate Status by registered or certified mail to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of IL and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of IL.” Trial Rec. 639. Relying on agency theory, Jones argues that delivery occurred when the detainer was received by the Marshals’ Office in the Northern District. Because the U.S. Marshal is the authorized agent for service, he reasons, we should find that it is the authorized agent for receipt, as well. To support this argument, Jones cites two Ninth Circuit rulings on the IAD’s standards for delivery. The first is United States v. Johnson, 196 F.3d 1000 (9th Cir. 1999), where that Court held delivery to the U.S. Marshals’ office was sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the IAD. Johnson, however, turned on the fact that the Form USM17 executed by the prisoner specifically instructed the warden to return the document to the U.S. Marshals’ office. Id. at 1002-03. The Ninth Circuit reasoned that while the document was a Marshals’ Service form, it was the U.S. Attorney that was legally responsible for serving the detainer on the prisoner and they could not “both designate a manner for delivery and argue that delivery made in that 8 No. 05-1489 manner is invalid.” Id. at 1003; cf. Paredes-Batista, 140 F.3d at 372-73 (finding 180-day speedy trial timeline not violated where detainer instructed warden to return executed form to the Marshals’ Office). That is not this case. The language of Jones’s Form USM-17 restated the Article III(a) language of the IAD and directed the warden to mail the document to the U.S. Attorney and the District Court. The warden simply failed to follow instructions. United States v. Collins, 90 F.3d 1420 (9th Cir. 1996), is the second Ninth Circuit case to which Jones calls our attention. In Collins, the U.S. Attorney’s Office conceded that delivery to the U.S. Marshal constituted delivery to the prosecuting officer. Id. at 1426. But in the instant case the U.S. Attorney contests this point, and the Collins concession carries no weight in our review. It means only that the Court was not called upon to determine both points of delivery. The Court did, however, reject appellant’s argument that delivery to the U.S. Marshal was sufficient to satisfy delivery to the district court. Relying on Fex, the Ninth Circuit wrote that “[d]elivery to the Marshal . . . did not constitute delivery to the court because the Marshals are not agents for the court for purposes of accepting every request they find thrust upon them.” Id. The IAD, and the interpretation set forth in Fex, is literal: the executed detainer is “to be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court.” IAD Art. III(a), 18 U.S.C.App. § 2. This language does not contemplate authorized agents and Jones cannot show that his detainer was actually delivered to the U.S. Attorney or the District Court. While this may be a strict rule, the Supreme Court’s decision in Fex explicitly contemplated a more egregious error on the part of the warden and found dismissal of the charges to be an inappropriate remedy. See 507 U.S. at 5152. No. 05-1489 9