Opinion ID: 198181
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adjournment of the October 8, 1996 Trial Date

Text: 50 This case turns on the period starting with the October 8, 1996 trial date. Frankly, we, like the attorneys for both sides, are confused as to the exact circumstances surrounding the adjournment of the October 7, 1996 trial date. It is a mystery. Neither the government nor any of the defendants formally moved for a continuance, although it is theoretically possible that someone so moved informally. One would, however, usually expect one party to accuse the other of requesting a continuance if an informal request had been made by one of the lawyers; but no illuminating bout of finger-pointing has erupted. This suggests that the court, on its own volition, ordered the adjournment without date. 4 The government contends that the trial was adjourned upon consent of defendant, but the record reflects no such consent. To accept the government's position therefore requires us to infer from silence that defendant's consent was given. This we cannot do. What is apparent is that even assuming a trial date was set for October 7 and then continued by the court without objection, the grant of such a continuance--of which there is no contemporaneous written or oral record--fails to comply with the Act. See Amended Speedy Trial Act Guidelines, Aug. 28, 1981, reprinted in Robert L. Misner, Speedy Trial Federal and State Practice, App. B, at 775 (The fact that the defendant has requested the continuance or consents to it is not in itself sufficient to toll the operation of the time limits.). Whether time resulting from a continuance may toll the Act depends on whether the court abused its discretion by granting the continuance. See Pringle, 751 F.2d at 432. 51 We find that the court should not have adjourned the trial date in the manner that it did. A trial court's discretion to invoke the ends of justice exception by granting a continuance is exceedingly narrow, and should not be done lightly or routinely. United States v. Mitchell, 723 F.2d 1040, 1044 (1st Cir.1983). 52 While a continuance may have been entirely justified under the circumstances, the court failed to set forth in the record of the case ... its reasons for finding that the ends of justice served by the granting of such continuance outweigh the best interest of the public and defendant in a speedy trial. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(8)(A). There is simply no record of the continuance. Although we have held that there is no need to articulate the basic facts critical to a motion for a continuance when they are set forth in the motion papers, see Rush, 738 F.2d at 507, here, no one moved to continue the trial. Consequently, we cannot say with any reasonable certainty that the continuance met the ends of justice standard, especially where the parties themselves have offered no explanation for why or when the trial date was adjourned. The lack of findings is particularly troubling because of the open-ended nature of the continuance granted here. 5 A firm trial date was not set until the March 25, 1997 conference--more than five months after it was last continued. For these reasons, we find that the trial court abused its discretion in granting (or sua sponte ordering) the continuance, and the resulting delay of 56 days must be counted against the speedy trial clock.