Opinion ID: 555453
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: pre- and postindictment delay

Text: 7 As might be expected, the first ground Ashford raises on appeal concerns the five and one-half years that elapsed between arrest and trial in this case. Ashford asserts that this delay prejudiced him because government records of the investigation of Austin that he sought to use at trial to support an entrapment defense were lost or destroyed with the passage of time. He also asserts that the delay impaired the recollection of government witnesses regarding the investigation that led to his arrest and the role persons whom Ashford sought to prove were informants had played in that investigation. The government counters that Ashford was provided with adequate evidence concerning the role (or lack thereof) that the various people he suspects were informants played in the investigation, and that none of the information Ashford sought would have supported an entrapment defense had Ashford chosen to present one. The district court concluded that the delay in bringing Ashford to trial did not amount to a constitutional violation and denied Ashford's pretrial motion to dismiss. We believe this ruling was correct. 8 The Sixth Amendment guarantees that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy ... trial.... U.S. Const. Amend. VI. However, not all delay between arrest and trial implicates the Sixth Amendment. As the Supreme Court explained in United States v. MacDonald, no Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial arises until charges are pending. 456 U.S. 1, 7, 102 S.Ct. 1497, 1501, 71 L.Ed.2d 696 (1982); see also United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 313 (1971) (On its face, the protection of the Amendment is activated only when a criminal prosecution has begun....). In this case, while Ashford's speedy trial right originally attached upon his arrest on May 10, 1984, see Dillingham v. United States, 423 U.S. 64, 65, 96 S.Ct. 303, 303-04, 46 L.Ed.2d 205 (1975) (per curiam ), it lapsed during the four-year period beginning on June 8, 1984, when the government dismissed its complaint against Ashford, and ending June 18, 1988, when the grand jury returned its indictment. See MacDonald, 456 U.S. at 7, 102 S.Ct. at 1501 (1982) ([T]he Speedy Trial Clause has no application after the Government, acting in good faith, formally drops charges.); United States v. Dyal, 868 F.2d 424, 429 (11th Cir.1989); United States v. Zukowski, 851 F.2d 174, 178 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 868, 109 S.Ct. 174, 102 L.Ed.2d 144 (1988). 9 While [t]he statute of limitations is the primary safeguard of a right to a timely indictment, United States v. Carmany, 901 F.2d 76, 78 (7th Cir.1990), a defendant who complains that the government waited too long to bring his or her indictment is not bereft of constitutional protection. Rather, as the Supreme Court held in United States v. Lovasco, the Due Process Clause has a limited role to play in protecting against oppressive delay. 431 U.S. 783, 789, 97 S.Ct. 2044, 2048, 52 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977). To successfully advance a claim that pre-indictment delay violated due process, a defendant must  'prove that the delay caused actual and substantial prejudice to his or her fair trial rights and that the government delayed indictment for tactical advantage or some other impermissible reason.'  United States v. Chappell, 854 F.2d 190, 195 (7th Cir.1988) (quoting United States v. Watkins, 709 F.2d 475, 479 (7th Cir.1983)). 10 According to Ashford, the four-year delay in bringing his indictment prejudiced him by preventing him from establishing that Willie Russell, the third person arrested with Ashford and Austin after the sale of the treasury checks to Agent Procter, and Bennie Langston, one of Ashford's co-workers at the River Grove postal facility, were government informants who entrapped Ashford. He also contends that other evidence such as a log book listing calls made to and from the phone number the Secret Service treasury check squad used in its undercover operations and tapes of certain phone calls between Austin and Agent Procter was lost or destroyed during the long interval between the investigation that led to Ashford's arrest and his indictment. More generally, Ashford argues that the long delay took a psychological toll on him and interfered with his ability to obtain employment. 11 While we agree with Ashford that justice would have been better served had this relatively straightforward prosecution been brought sooner, we are unable to conclude that the delay in bringing charges caused him actual and substantial prejudice. First, it is not clear how discovering that either Russell or Langston were government informants would have helped Ashford to assert an entrapment defense. The evidence shows that Ashford met Russell for the first time after Ashford had already stolen the treasury checks from the postal facility where he worked and was on his way to give them to Austin so that Austin could sell them to Agent Procter. This suggests that Russell's testimony would hardly have aided Ashford in showing an absence of predisposition to commit the three offenses for which he was tried, an essential element of an entrapment defense. See United States v. Rivera-Espinoza, 905 F.2d 156, 158 (7th Cir.1990) (collecting cases). 12 As to Langston, the government fully investigated Ashford's assertion that Langston was a government informant and certified to the district court that it had come up with no evidence that he was. Unlike Russell, Langston was available to testify at trial, but Ashford never called him. Most damaging to Ashford, he never asserted that Langston encouraged him or coerced him to steal items from the mail, only that he had revealed to Langston his view that there was corruption among postal officials and that Langston had passed on this view to his superiors, leading them to target Ashford for arrest. Any contribution that evidence that Langston was an informer could have made to Ashford's entrapment defense is at best speculative, and as such, will not suffice to establish actual prejudice. United States v. Floyd, 882 F.2d 235, 242 (7th Cir.1989). 13 The same is true concerning the missing phone logs and tapes. Ashford asserts that the phone logs and tapes would have established that Austin, too, was a government informant who had entrapped Ashford. However, the tapes of phone conversations between Austin and Agent Procter that the government did turn over failed even to suggest that Austin worked for the government. Further weakening Ashford's assertion that Austin entrapped him is the fact that Austin was indicted for--and convicted of--the same offenses for which Ashford was tried, and for which he received a stiffer sentence than did Ashford. Moreover, as with Langston, Austin presumably was available to be called as a witness in Ashford's trial, but, as with Langston, Ashford never sought to obtain his testimony. As to the logs and tapes, the mere fact that preindictment delay causes evidence to be unavailable does not establish actual prejudice. See United States v. Valona, 834 F.2d 1334, 1338 (7th Cir.1987) (It is clear that the death of a witness alone is insufficient to establish actual prejudice.); cf. Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 57-58, 109 S.Ct. 333, 337-38, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988) (mere failure of police to preserve potentially exculpatory evidence insufficient to violate defendant's due process rights). 14 Turning to the second leg of the preindictment delay analysis, Ashford has conceded throughout this litigation that [t]here was no evidence of any bad faith by the Government in this delay. Defendant's Brief at 17. Since Ashford has failed to establish either that the four-year delay in bringing his indictment prejudiced him in any real and substantial way, or that the delay was motivated by an impermissible motive such as the pursuit of tactical advantage, we conclude that the preindictment delay in this case did not violate his right to due process of law. 15 Ashford also asserts that the eighteen-month delay between his indictment in June 1988 and the start of his trial in December 1989 violated his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. In analyzing a Sixth Amendment speedy trial claim, we apply the four-factor test set out in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), looking to the [l]ength of delay, the reason for the delay, the defendant's assertion of his right, and prejudice to the defendant. Id. at 530, 92 S.Ct. at 2191-92; see, e.g., United States v. Kimberlin, 805 F.2d 210, 225 (7th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1023, 107 S.Ct. 3270, 97 L.Ed.2d 768 (1987); United States v. Brock, 782 F.2d 1442, 1445 (7th Cir.1986); United States ex rel. Mitchell v. Fairman, 750 F.2d 806, 807-08 (7th Cir.1984). 16 We have in the past held that delays of as little as twelve months are presumptively prejudicial, see, e.g., United States v. Jackson, 542 F.2d 403, 407 (7th Cir.1976), so the delay of eighteen months in this case creates the necessity for inquiry into the other factors that go into the balance. Id. The delay in bringing this case to trial, however, was largely caused by the substitution of defense counsel after defendant's first attorney was relieved of his appointment by the district court as well as Ashford's decision to file numerous discovery requests. Both of these reasons serve[d] to justify appropriate delay, Barker, 407 U.S. at 531, 92 S.Ct. at 2192, because they protected the defendant's constitutional rights to effective assistance of counsel and due process of law as well as rights to pretrial discovery created by statute and rules of criminal procedure. 1 Indeed, as noted above, Ashford concedes that the delay in this case was not caused by an illegitimate motive of the kind that should be weighted heavily against the government. Id. 17 Turning to the third Barker factor, the defendant in this case asserted his speedy trial right through a pretrial motion submitted to the district court in early October 1989, two months before trial began. While it seems clear that defendant waited to assert the right until late in the period of delay, especially since the period of delay he complained of in his motion included not only the postindictment period but the four-year preindictment period as well, it is reasonable to assume that some of his delay in asserting his speedy trial right was caused by the disruption in defendant's representation caused by the district court's decision to relieve Ashford's first counsel of his appointment. We conclude that this factor neither weighs for Ashford or against him. We come to the last Barker factor, prejudice. We have already concluded that Ashford suffered no real and substantial prejudice from the four-year delay between the dismissal of the complaint against him and the subsequent indictment. The same is true of the delay following the indictment. Balancing the Barker factors leads to the conclusion that Ashford's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was not violated by the eighteen-month delay following his indictment, the great majority of which was caused by the appointment of substitute counsel and defense pretrial motions and none of which substantially prejudiced his defense.