Opinion ID: 769403
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Howard's first trial

Text: 10 The district court granted four continuances prior to Howard's original trial. Three of these continuances--the first, second, and fourth--were either requested by Howard or jointly requested by Howard and the government. In Howard's first appeal, he therefore focused on the third continuance, a three-month delay granted at the government's request. See United States v. Howard, 1997 WL 705077, at . Noting that the district court had not made ends of justice findings to determine whether this period was excludable from the Speedy Trial Act computation, this court agreed that the three-month continuance violated the Speedy Trial Act and remanded for a determination as to whether dismissal should be with or without prejudice. The district court dismissed Howard's indictment without prejudice. 11 Howard argues on appeal that his indictment should have been dismissed with prejudice, thus foreclosing future prosecution. In reviewing such a decision, we employ a modified abuse of discretion standard. United States v. Pierce, 17 F.3d 146, 148 (6th Cir. 1994). This review differs from the typical abuse of discretion standard in that it requires the reviewing court to undertake more substantive scrutiny to ensure that the judgment is supported in terms of the factors identified in the statute. United States v. Taylor, 487 U.S. 326,337 (1988). 12 The Speedy Trial Act does not specify whether dismissal should be with or without prejudice, nor does it contain a default presumption one way or the other. See 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2); Taylor, 487 U.S. at 334. Congress did, however, provide three factors that a court should consider when making this determination. They are the seriousness of the offense, the facts and circumstances of the case which led to the dismissal, and the impact of a reprosecution on the administration of this chapter and on the administration of justice. Id. 13 Howard does not dispute that the first factor militates against dismissal with prejudice. The district court properly determined that Howard's alleged crimes, aggravated sexual abuse . . . and wanton endangerment, are serious and violent ones. Indeed, the aggravated sexual abuse charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, underscoring the gravity with which it was viewed by Congress. See United States v. Koory, 20 F.3d 844, 847 (8th Cir. 1994) (looking to the length of a sentence to determine the seriousness of an offense for the purposes of the Speedy Trial Act). 14 Howard argues, however, that the district court failed to properly consider the second factor--the facts and circumstances which led to dismissal. In his opinion, [t]he bulk of the unjustified delay that violated the Speedy Trial Act was caused by the government's failure to prepare and test its evidence in a timely manner. 15 The record indicates otherwise. On May 24, 1993, five days after Howard was indicted, the government moved for an order requiring Howard to tender blood, saliva, and hair samples. That motion was granted on July 12, 1993. As of November 29, 1993, however, Howard had still failed to comply with the district court's order. The government ultimately procured the samples with a search warrant in December of 1993. When the second continuance (requested by both parties) expired on February 2, 1994, the government requested a third continuance in order to complete tests on the samples provided by Howard. 16 Given these circumstances, the district court determined that the violation did not result from prosecutorial bad faith nor from any attempt to take advantage of the delay. . . . Nor can Defendant show a pattern of negligence on the part of the United States Attorney's Office. We see no evidence indicating that this determination was clearly erroneous. Indeed, had the district court conducted an ends of justice inquiry and excluded the time of the third continuance from the computation period, as it presumably would have done, there would have been no violation of the Speedy Trial Act in the first place. Instead, the district court mistakenly concluded that Howard's prior waiver of his right to a speedy trial when moving for an earlier continuance in July of 1993 barred him from raising that defense at a subsequent stage. 17 Although a protracted and inexcusable period of inactivity on the part of the district court may warrant dismissal with prejudice in some cases, see United States v. Moss, 217 F.3d 426 (6th Cir. June 28, 2000) (dismissing a defendant's indictment with prejudice where the district court sat on a suppression motion for over a year without explanation), the district court's error in this case was a good-faith misinterpretation of the Speedy Trial Act's requirements that resulted in a relatively short delay of the trial. We therefore conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the second factor also favors dismissal without prejudice. 18 The third and final factor that a court must consider in evaluating whether a dismissal under the Speedy Trial Act should be with prejudice is the impact of a reprosecution on the administration of this chapter and on the administration of justice.18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2). The main considerations that courts have taken into account when examining this factor are whether the defendant suffered actual prejudice as a result of the delay, see Pierce, 17 F.3d at 149, and whether the government engaged in prosecutorial misconduct that must be deterred to ensure compliance with the Act. Id. 19 The district court concluded that both of these factors weighed in favor of dismissing without prejudice. First, Howard was unable to identify any particularized prejudice to his defense that resulted from the grant of the third continuance. Second, as discussed above, the district court found no evidence of either bad faith or a pattern of negligence on the part of the government that would warrant dismissal with prejudice for the sake of deterrence. 20 Thus, considering all of the factors set out in the Speedy Trial Act, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing Howard's indictment without prejudice. Howard contends that [i]f the only repercussion to the government of violating the Speedy Trial Act is subjecting the defendant to another trial, the Act has lost its meaning. The Supreme Court has considered and rejected this argument, however, recognizing that dismissal without prejudice forces the Government to obtain a new indictment if it decides to reprosecute, and it exposes the prosecution to dismissal on statute of limitation grounds. United States v. Taylor, 487 U.S. 326, 342 (1988). In any event, Congress made the policy decision to leave this determination to the guided discretion of the district court. 21 In addition to his challenge to the third continuance, Howard also maintains that the grant of the fourth continuance prior to his original trial violated the Speedy Trial Act. According to Howard, the government was not forthcoming with information regarding Porter's psychiatric history. This forced Howard to seek a fourth continuance on May 9, 1994 when he discovered that Porter was taking anti-depressants at the time of the alleged assault. 22 Howard himself sought this fourth continuance, however, in order to conduct discovery regarding Porter's psychiatric history and to test the fluid samples recovered from Porter's clothing on the day of the attack. Because Howard requested this continuance, he is barred from arguing that it was not in the interests of justice. Cf. United States v. Monroe, 833 F.2d 95, 99 (6th Cir. 1987) (holding that a defendant could not object to the exclusion of a period of time from the Speedy Trial Act computation when defendant's counsel specifically consented to the exclusion of this time in the interest of justice and thereby waived any objections thereto).