Opinion ID: 2372732
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Delay in Arraignment

Text: Franklin's argument that his statements should be suppressed due to a violation of M.R.Crim.P. 5(a) is also without merit. Defense counsel urges us to apply a Maine rule, rather than the analogous New Hampshire rule, [6] even though the defendant was arrested, detained, and presumably brought before a magistrate in New Hampshire. Both rules emphasize the need to proceed without unreasonable or unnecessary delaya requirement also found in the federal rules. Fed.R.Crim.P. 5(a). In Maine, to determine whether there was unnecessary delay, the court must view the totality of the circumstances surrounding the delay in each case. State v. Thurston, 393 A.2d 1345, 1347-48 (Me.1978). The phrase without unnecessary delay must be interpreted in light of the general policies behind the rules, see, e.g., id.; 3 Glassman, Maine Practice: Rules of Criminal Procedure Annotated, § 5.1 at 37 (1967), and the common sense meaning of the words considering the availability of a District Court judge in the area. . . . Glassman, supra, § 5.1 at 38. Given the similarity of the Maine and New Hampshire rules, regardless of which procedural rules apply, we cannot say that the Superior Court erred in refusing to find that there was unreasonable or unnecessary delay in bringing the defendant before a magistrate. See Thurston, 393 A.2d at 1347-48. Further, even if the Superior Court had found unnecessary or unreasonable delay, neither Maine, State v. Carter, 412 A.2d 56, 58 n. 2 (Me.1980); M.R.Crim.P. 5(a) advisory committee's note to 1967 amend., Glassman, supra, at 34, nor New Hampshire, see State v. Lavallee, 104 N.H. 443, 446-447, 189 A.2d 475, 478-79 (1963), has adopted the per se prophylactic rule promulgated for the federal courts by the United States Supreme Court. In Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957), the Supreme Court established that a confession, procured while the defendant is held in police custody during a period of unnecessary delay, is inadmissible. [7] In Thurston, we reserved the responsibility. . . to determine the proper sanction to impose to ensure that the values safeguarded by Rule 5(a) . . . will be adequately preserved and fostered. Thurston, 393 A.2d at 1348. The Criminal Rules Advisory Committee recommended that the question of an appropriate sanction for violation of Rule 5(a) be left for determination when the issue is appropriately raised at some judicial proceeding. Glassman, supra, § 5.1 at 39. Because we find no unnecessary delay in this case, as in Thurston, we need not reach at this time, the question of the appropriate remedy for violation of M.R.Crim.P. 5(a). The defendant's statements were properly admissible as evidence against him.