Opinion ID: 815387
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Application of a Reasonableness Requirement

Text: to the Co-Defendant Clause Maryea claims that the district court erred in failing to consider the reasonableness, vel non, of the delay [resulting from the granting of the Second MTC] as it applied to [her] situation. She first argues that the Supreme Court's decision in Bloate v. United States, 130 S. Ct. 1345, 1349 (2010), supports reading a reasonableness requirement into the Co-Defendant Clause because, in that decision, the Supreme Court suggested that the subsections of § 3161 may need to be analyzed together before properly excluding a period of delay. Specifically, Maryea contends that, since the Supreme Court read the ends-of-justice requirement under subsection (h)(7) into subsection (h)(1), a subsection that allows exclusions for procedural delays or delays resulting from ongoing motion practice and interlocutory appeals, subsection (h)(7) and its reasonableness requirement must also be read into the Co-Defendant Clause, subsection (h)(6). Second, Maryea claims that there is no First Circuit precedent directly on point regarding the application of the reasonableness requirement to the Co-Defendant Clause. -16- While the issue was raised in United States v. Brown, 736 F.2d 807 (1st Cir. 1984), the Court did not reach it due to the fact that the defendant in that case had not articulated an argument for why the excluded time was not reasonable as to him. Finally, Maryea relies on Third and Ninth Circuit law which has upheld the proposition that, when a delay granted for one defendant in a multi-defendant trial is applied to a co-defendant's Speedy Trial clock under the Co-Defendant Clause, a court must assess the reasonableness of the delay not only as to the first defendant, but also as to any co-defendant. See United States v. Lewis, 611 F.3d 1172, 1176 (9th Cir. 2010); United States v. Novak, 715 F.2d 810, 816, 821 (3d Cir. 1983), abrogated in part by Henderson v. United States, 476 U.S. 321, 330 (1986). Maryea maintains that Woods' Second MTC was not reasonable as to her since the continuance only gave him more time to achieve his plea deal with the government, undermining her defense strategy and resulting in her being stranded as the lone defendant to be tried for a conspiracy that originally named fifteen co-defendants. She likens her case to that of United States v. Hall, 181 F.3d 1057, 1062 (9th Cir. 1999), in which the Ninth Circuit held that a defendant suffered prejudice under the Speedy Trial Act when the district court granted a continuance to the government for the primary purpose of allowing the only other co-defendant in the case to pursue plea negotiations. -17- The government contends that the district court did not err when it excluded from Maryea's Speedy Trial clock the period resulting from the grant of the Second MTC following its determination that Woods was entitled to a continuance due to ongoing plea negotiations and a pending state court matter. That is because the only way that the court could honor Woods' need for a continuance and Maryea's right to a speedy trial was to grant Maryea a severance so that she could be tried ahead of Woods. Since the district court expressly afforded Maryea the option of a severance and she expressly declined to file a motion to sever due to her trial strategy to be tried alongside Woods, the district court's extension of the delay to Maryea was reasonable as the only way to secure Woods' interest and allow the defendant to pursue her strategy. The government cites to the Tenth Circuit's recent decision in United States v. James, 418 Fed. Appx. 751, 754 (10th Cir. 2011), to support its proposition that a [d]efendant cannot have the benefit of his trial strategy and then argue that the delay resulting from that strategy was unreasonable. When a Speedy Trial Act violation is alleged by a defendant, a trial court follows a two-step process. United States v. Staula, 80 F.3d 596, 600 (1st Cir. 1996). First, it calculates and determines the aggregate time elapsed awaiting trial. Id. In this case, the parties do not challenge the district court's Speedy Trial calculations with respect to the aggregate time elapsed -18- between the Superseding Indictment and Maryea's trial. Second, the Court determines how many days are properly excluded from that ultimate sum. Id. Maryea does not contest the reasonableness of the ends-of-justice determination in Woods' Second MTC as to him, nor does she contest the validity of the Co-Defendant Clause as a general matter. Rather, Maryea asks the court to impose an additional requirement in assessing whether days excluded from her co-defendant's Speedy Trial clock should be excluded from the ultimate sum of her own Speedy Trial clock--namely, a requirement that the district court find reasonable as to her days excluded from her co-defendant's Speedy Trial clock if they are to count as excludable days from her own Speedy Trial clock. Maryea is correct that the case law in this Circuit has not addressed head on whether the Co-Defendant Clause as a general matter is subject to a reasonableness limitation,2 and we decline to do so here. However, the court agrees with the government that, 2 Maryea specifically refers to this Court's decision in United States v. Brown, 736 F.2d 807. In that case, defendant Brown asked the court to follow the Third Circuit's decision in United States v. Novak by recognizing a reasonableness limitation on the application of excludable time from one co-defendant to another. Id. at 809 (citing Novak, 715 F.2d at 814). This court held that, since Brown did not provide any specific reasons for why the excludable period of delay might be reasonable as applied to his co-defendant but not as applied to him, the Court need not interpret the precise interplay of sections (h)(1)(F) and (h)(7) of the Act. Id. In United States v. Mitchell,723 F.2d 1040, 1048 (1st Cir. 1983), we noted a circuit split on the application of a reasonableness requirement to the Co-Defendant Clause, but explicitly declined to resolve the conflict in the circuits due to defendant Mitchell's failure to file a motion for severance. -19- under the facts of this particular case, the district court did not err when it denied Maryea's motion to dismiss. In line with the principles outlined in the Supreme Court's decision in Bloate as well as the reasoning of our sister circuits, the Court will assume without deciding, for the purposes of this case, that a reasonableness requirement applies, and that the requirement may be met through a factors-based assessment. See Bloate, 130 S. Ct. 1345 (holding that time excluded from a Speedy Trial clock for pretrial motion preparation is not automatically excluded under § 3161(h)(1), but may only be excluded when a court makes appropriate reasonableness findings under § 3161(h)(7)); United States v. Lewis, 611 F.3d 1172, 1176 & n. 2 (9th Cir. 2010) (affirming Ninth Circuit precedent that, in order to attribute a co-defendant's excludable delay under § 3161(h)(7) to a defendant, the delay must meet the reasonableness requirement of § 3161(h) (6), and noting that the reasonableness requirement comports with Supreme Court precedent); United States v. Stephens, 489 F.3d 647, 655 (5th Cir. 2007) (Attribution of the excludable delay of one co-defendant to another co-defendant is not, however, automatic; rather the period of delay must be reasonable) (citing Henderson v. United States, 476 U.S. 321, 326-27 (1986); United States v. Cordova, 157 F.3d 587, 599 (8th Cir. 1998) (applying reasonableness requirement to and finding reasonable an 80-day delay in codefendant's trial resulting from another co-defendant's capture and -20- identity hearing); United States v. Howard, 918 F.2d 329, 336 (2d Cir. 1990) (holding that the Co-Defendant Clause exclusion requires a defendant to make a motion for severance in order to benefit from the reasonableness limitation); United States v. Mayes, 917 F.2d 457, 460 (10th Cir. 1990) (applying reasonableness requirement to Co-Defendant Clause); United States v. Culpepper, 898 F.2d 65, 67 (6th Cir. 1990) (same); United States v. Tobin, 840 F.2d 867, 86970 (11th Cir. 1988) (same); United States v. Dennis, 737 F.2d 617, 621 (7th Cir. 1984) (same); United States v. Novak, 715 F.3d 810 (3d Cir. 1983) (same). In considering the significance of a defendant's failure to petition for severance in assessing reasonableness, it is important to be clear about the language and stated purpose of the Co-Defendant Clause itself, which allows for exclusions of a reasonable period of delay when the defendant is joined for trial with a codefendant as to whom the time for trial has not run and no motion for severance has been granted. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(6) (emphasis added). Some circuits have interpreted that provision as requiring a defendant to file a motion for severance in order to challenge the reasonableness of the delay on appeal. See United States v. Howard, 443 Fed. Appx. 596, 598 (2d Cir. 2011) (citing Vasquez, 918 F.2d at 336-37); Culpepper, 898 F.2d at 67. It is uncertain that this circuit has imposed such a requirement. See United States v. Mitchell, 723 F.2d 1040, 1048 (1st Cir. 1983). In -21- any event, we consider the failure to move to sever an important consideration given that our sister circuits have found a petition for severance relevant in their reasonableness analysis, having either found that a failure to move for severance contributes to a finding that a defendant was not prejudiced by a delay granted to a co-defendant or that, under a totality-of-the-circumstances test, a defendant's failure to move to sever is an important factor to consider. See United States v. Messer, 197 F.3d 330, 336-38 (9th Cir. 1999) (applying a totality-of-the-circumstances test in determining reasonableness of applying delay to a co-defendant and listing a defendant's failure to move to sever as a factor to consider); Cordova, 157 F.3d at 599-600 (finding delay reasonable where no motion for severance was granted and explaining that a defendant fails to meet his burden in showing that his right to a speedy trial has been violated when he fails to argue that the delay was unreasonable); Franklin, 148 F.3d at 457-58 (stating that [a] defendant's failure to move for severance, or otherwise pursue a speedy trial in the district court, can undermine prejudice allegations made on appeal); Mayes, 917 F.2d at 460 (finding no Speedy Trial Act violation when considering as a factor the defendant's failure to ask to be tried separately from a codefendant); Tobin, 840 F.2d at 869-70 (noting that defendant's failure to move to sever his case from a co-defendant's was a factor supporting the reasonableness of a delay); Dennis, 737 F.2d -22- at 621-22 (finding the delay reasonable where defendant at no time moved to sever his case and had failed to allege any substantial prejudice resulting from the delay). To the extent that Maryea alleges prejudice or unreasonableness under the totality of the circumstances resulting from her co-defendant having reached a plea agreement with the government as a result of ongoing negotiations prior to trial -- made possible, at least in part, by the continuances granted by the district court -- we cannot agree that such a delay goes against the text, legislative history, and purpose of the Speedy Trial Act. This is because the utility of a joint trial [wa]s particularly compelling here, as the defendants were charged with a single conspiracy so that the government could be expected to 'recite a single factual history, put on a single array of evidence, and call a single group of witnesses.' Franklin, 148 F.3d at 457. In a case heavily relied on by Maryea, the Third Circuit stated that [t]he Legislative history of section 3161(h)(7) illustrates a strong congressional preference for joint trials and an intention that delays resulting from the joinder of codefendants be liberally excluded. See Novak, 715 F.2d at 814. Courts have accordingly selected formulas that promote joint trials under the particular facts of the case based on the stated intent of the Senate in its 1974 and 1979 Senate Reports that the Co-Defendant Clause was intended to help avoid the time, expense and inconvenience of -23- separate prosecutions. See id. at 815; United States v. Campbell, 706 F.2d 1138, 1141-42 (11th Cir. 1983); S. Rep. No. 1021, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. 38 (1974); S. Rep. No. 212, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. 24 (1979). Further, Maryea could have avoided any prejudice resulting from ongoing plea negotiations by seeking severance, and she has made no showing that the granting of the Second MTC resulted in Woods reaching the plea agreement which allegedly prejudiced her, or that she would not have been convicted of the conspiracy had Woods joined her trial. For all of these reasons, we find the application of the delay resulting from the Second MTC to Maryea's Speedy Trial clock to be reasonable. Maryea's second Speedy Trial Act argument is that the district court erred in requiring her to either request a severance or forfeit her Speedy Trial rights. This is because, Maryea claims, Speedy Trial Act rights may not be waived by a codefendant's failure to request a severance based on the Supreme Court's decision in Zedner v. United States, 547 U.S. 489 (2006), the rule of a majority of sister circuits, and the text, legislative history, and purpose of the Act. See Mitchell, 723 F.2d at 1047. In Zedner, the Supreme Court held that, since the Speedy Trial Act was designed not only to protect defendants but also the public interest, defense continuance requests could not be based merely on a defendant's waiver of his rights under the Act. Id. at -24- 501. Rather, the granting of a continuance must fit within one of the specific exclusions set out in subsection (h). Id. at 500. To the extent the consideration of a failure to seek a severance in a factor-based reasonableness determination might be considered a waiver, it does not constitute a prospective waiver of Speedy Trial Act rights of the kind at issue in Zedner. Firstly, Zedner involved a blanket prospective waiver for all time of a defendant's rights under the Speedy Trial Act; this case does not. See Zedner, 547 U.S. at 492-93. Such a broad waiver was deemed ineffective by the Supreme Court because it found that the breadth of the waiver by definition did not fit within one of the specific exclusions set out in subsection (h). Id. at 500. In the facts before us, the exclusion fits within the Co-Defendant Clause, and we have found the application of the exclusion as to Maryea reasonable. The Supreme Court in Zedner also found the prospective nature of the waiver ineffective, distinguishing it from retrospective waivers and stating that there is no reason to think that Congress wanted to treat prospective and retrospective waivers similarly. Id. at 502. Retrospective waivers, the Court reasoned, do not pose a comparable danger because the prosecution and the court cannot know until the trial actually starts or the guilty plea is actually entered whether the defendant will forego moving to dismiss. As a consequence, the prosecution and the court retain a strong incentive to make sure that the trial begins on time. -25- Id. The waiver at issue in this case is not a prospective waiver but is better characterized as retrospective since Maryea could either assert her right to a speedy trial by moving to sever or challenge an alleged denial of her Speedy Trial Act rights following the denial of a motion to sever based on unreasonableness. Maryea still remained in control of the 70-day clock as to her since she was not precluded from accelerating the clock or challenging exclusions from her clock even if she may not -- and should not -- have control of the 70-day clock as to her codefendant. Thus, merely placing conditions on her assertion of her Speedy Trial Act rights does not constitute an ineffective prospective waiver for all time as prohibited under Zedner. To conclude, we hold that the district court did not err in denying Maryea's motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial since the delay caused by Woods' Second MTC was reasonable. The court thus affirms the district court's finding that no Speedy Trial violation occurred since, applying the properly excluded days from Woods' Second MTC, Maryea's Speedy Trial clock did not run in excess of the requisite seventy days.