Opinion ID: 652876
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Delay Attributable to the Government.

Text: 26 In assessing this factor, the district court found that the prosecution bore responsibility for a portion of the pretrial delay, which weigh[ed] in favor of ordering [the defendants'] conditional release. Millan, 824 F.Supp. at 42; see also Rivera, slip op. at 3-4. The court absolved the government of responsibility for the first nineteen months of delay, which it found was largely attributable to defense counsel adjournments. Rivera, slip op. at 3; see also United States v. Kercado, No. 91 Cr. 685 (SWK), 1992 WL 196778, at  2 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 3, 1992) (finding as to codefendant, after twelve months of detention, that the Government is not responsible for the length of time that has elapsed from the time of the underlying indictment). However, the court found that in Rivera's case, the prosecution's failure to bring the allegations of police misconduct to the court's attention prior to the commencement of the initial trial rendered the government primarily, if not solely, responsible for the trial's delay since April 16, 1993. Rivera, slip op. at 3. Similarly, because the government failed to notify the court of Pollack's pending indictment on felony charges, the district court found that in Millan's case, the government was primarily responsible for all delay since March 24, 1993, when Millan elected a mistrial upon learning about Pollack's indictment. Millan, 824 F.Supp. at 42. 27 It is not clear to us that the government should be accorded sole responsibility for the severance required by Millan's lack of awareness of Pollack's indictment. There was concededly a failure of communication in the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York for some time between the attorney in that office who was aware of Pollack's indictment and Snell, who was not. Certainly, however, Pollack had at least equal responsibility to advise the court and his client of his predicament. We note also that although the district court directed Millan to obtain new counsel after the mistrial, he instead opted to wait and see whether Pollack would be acquitted. Millan, 824 F.Supp. at 46 n. 5. In addition, the government represented to us in a letter dated July 30, 1993 that Rivera had obtained a change of his court-appointed counsel in this case four times, most recently discharging on July 30 the attorney who represented him on this appeal, and that Millan had not obtained substitute counsel for Pollack at that date. Thus, it appears that as of July 30, 1993, neither Millan nor Rivera was represented by counsel. 28 The primary reason for the delay since March 1993 has nonetheless been the government's failure to advise the court prior to the initial trial concerning the misconduct of certain of the agents who participated in the Millan investigation. There is no suggestion that this failure was intentional; the district court explicitly stated that the Court does not doubt that the Assistant United States Attorneys prosecuting this case were unaware of the Robles investigation prior to the time that they reported it to the court. Millan, 817 F.Supp. at 1086 n. 11. The failure of communication in their office has nonetheless caused significant delay in bringing this case to trial. 29 We conclude that this factor weighs in favor of Millan and Rivera, but to a significantly lesser extent than the district court concluded in view of the primary responsibility of Millan and Rivera for the delay between their arrest and retrial. 30