Opinion ID: 2586092
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The delay in indicting Gonzales is presumptively valid because of his flight from the state and because of concerns about the welfare of A.D.

Text: The record indicates that the state offered two persuasive reasons for the ten-year delay between the 1992 allegations of child molestation and the 2002 indictment. First, Gonzales fled the state and could not be located until 2002. Second, A.D. was institutionalized for a significant period of time subsequent to the alleged abuse. [32] After these reasons were proffered, the lower courts should have shifted the burden to Gonzales to show that his flight and concerns about A.D. were not reasonable reasons to delay prosecution. Both of the reasons the state mentionsGonzales's absence from the state and concerns about the minorhave been found, in isolation, to justify delay. We consider each reason in turn.
Alaska cases support the state's proposition that a defendant's flight is a reasonable cause for the state to delay an indictment. In Lipscomb v. State, [33] the court of appeals held that Lipscomb's due process rights were not violated by a three-year delay between his conduct of failing to appear for a hearing and his indictment on the charge because Lipscomb left the state and operated under an assumed name in the intervening time. [34] A bench warrant was issued in Lipscomb's name but not entered into the national computer systems as was normal practice. [35] A detective did make several unsuccessful inquiries into Lipscomb's whereabouts. Lipscomb claimed that the police could have known about his whereabouts if they had entered his warrant into the computer system, but we noted that because Lipscomb was arrested under false names elsewhere, this was `not necessarily the case.' [36] Gonzales argues that his situation is distinguished from Lipscomb in several ways. First, Gonzales argues that Lipscomb truly fled because at the time he left the state he had already been indicted for robbery (indeed, Lipscomb failed to appear at a pretrial hearing, leading to the pre-indictment delay in charging him with failure to appear). [37] In contrast, Gonzales argues that there was nothing to indicate to Gonzales that he should or was required to remain in Alaska. We reject that argument. Gonzales was aware of the ongoing investigation and believed that he needed a lawyer. Because Gonzales delayed the state's investigation, the case had not yet reached the point of arrest or indictment. That he had not yet been indicted does not make Gonzales's departure any less a flight. The record also offers a plethora of reasons to characterize Gonzales's departure as a flight: he left home in the middle of the night, having never [been] so scared in [his] life, without knowing where he was going, and without informing his minor son. [38] He failed to notify his landlord or shut off utilities. And he subsequently misled his girlfriend D.D. as to his whereabouts by sending a note suggesting that he was looking for work in Seattle. Gonzales also attempts to distinguish himself from Lipscomb on the issues of false identity and thoroughness of the police search. Gonzales maintains that he never changed his identity, unlike the defendant in Lipscomb, and that the police failed to follow up on leads that would have taken them to him. Specifically, Detective Branchflower had been told that Gonzales might be in Las Vegas with his uncle Jack Carother (where Gonzales lived for some months before moving elsewhere in the city). Detective Branchflower did not contact the Las Vegas police with Gonzales's suspected location at the uncle's home. Nonetheless it seems that Gonzales worked to conceal his location. As the state points out, Detective Branchflower was in fact told that Gonzales had left Alaska a week earlier and was staying with his uncle for only a few days, meaning that Gonzales would have already moved on by the time Detective Branchflower learned of the tip had the information been accurate. This was apparently confirmed by Gonzales's subsequent false message to D.D. that he was living in Seattle. The state also points out that Gonzales moved several times in his ten-year absence and that he often was self-employed or living with friends, making him more difficult to trace. Gonzales cites Odekirk v. State [39] for the proposition that the state should have done more investigative work in order for a delay predicated on his absence to be reasonable. Odekirk presented the question of whether or not Criminal Rule 45 [40] barred a defendant's conviction. In order to make that determination the court needed to decide whether to exclude the period of Odekirk's absence from the state from the speedy trial time limits. The law provided that a defendant was considered absent (and thus the time did not run against the state) whenever his whereabouts are unknown and in addition he is attempting to avoid apprehension or prosecution or his whereabouts cannot be determined by due diligence. [41] Odekirk established that a failure to exhaust every conceivable method of locating a defendant will not establish a lack of due diligence so long as the state, employing customary methods, continues to actively seek a defendant. [42] However, in Odekirk the court found that the state did not exercise due diligence when no effort was made to trace Odekirk through the military or to discover where it sent his personal effects, particularly given that Odekirk's commanding officer had called the police to warn of Odekirk's pending discharge. [43] Odekirk is distinguishable on several grounds, including that Criminal Rule 45 does not apply to pre-indictment delay. [44] Moreover, the tip that Gonzales was in Las Vegas with his uncle was not entitled to the same weight as the evidence overlooked in Odekirk. This is particularly true because Detective Branchflower received multiple conflicting reports as to Gonzales's whereabouts. In addition, the circumstances of Gonzales's departure are significantly more incriminating than those in Odekirk. Odekirk's departure came after the initial charges brought against him had been dismissed, when it was uncertain whether more charges were to come, and when his military service was up. [45] Gonzales had no similar reason to expect that his investigation was going to be dismissed, and his actions in leaving suddenly in the middle of the night are much more consistent with flight. Finally, Gonzales argues that the length of delay in his case exacerbates any ordinary concerns of pre-indictment delay including faded memories and difficulties in locating witnesses, making an otherwise reasonable delay unreasonable. Our case law has not emphasized the length of pre-accusation delay. As the court of appeals stated here, The primary concern of the rule against unreasonable pre-accusation delay is not the length of the delay, but the harm to the defendant's ability to present a defense. [46] Nonetheless, in Mouser that proposition was used to explain that even a relatively short pre-accusation delay could violate a defendant's rights, [47] and no case that has come before us has approached the length of the delay at issue here. [48] We have emphasized the continuing nature of the investigations during periods of delay and have cautioned that continued or long term inactivity or a pattern of lack of prompt investigation of cases might warrant our reconsideration of such periods. [49] However, because the delay here was caused largely by the actions of the defendant, the ten-year delay was nonetheless reasonable. In sum, the state presented a valid reason for delay, and the defendant did not adequately rebut that presumption of reasonableness.
In Yarbor v. State, [50] we held that a seven-month pre-indictment delay did not violate the defendant's due process rights because it was not unreasonable for the state to wait three months for the mother of a sexual abuse victim to decide whether or not to press charges. Yarbor performed lewd and lascivious acts towards a ten-year old child in August 1973. Between August and December of that year the district attorney's office reviewed the case, and in December a formal complaint was prepared for the minor's mother to sign. [51] The mother was notified several times a month that the complaint was ready for her signature, but she did not sign until March of that next year. [52] Two days later, Yarbor was served with the complaint. [53] This court found that the state's decision to wait three months because of the mother's hesitation was not unreasonable. [54] The court noted that the emotional effects to the child, injury to the child's reputation, and family disruption[] all had to be considered in [the mother's] decision. [55] In Burke v. State, [56] we expanded on the justifiability of delay in cases involving sexual abuse of a minor. In that case the accused was charged with statutory rape against his stepdaughter. We explained that [a]lthough the mother in this case was not reluctant, a concern by the district attorney's office over the advisability of bringing charges of a similarly serious nature also suggests that the effects on the victim and her family are factors which must be carefully weighed by the district attorney. [57] Case law thus shows that consideration for the victim's situation is an acceptable reason for pre-indictment delay. Indeed, it is possible that the investigators had even more reason for the delay in the present case because A.D. necessitated such extensive psychiatric hospitalization allegedly due to her trauma. Furthermore, Burke and Yarbor each presented a case in which any testimony from the victims could be put to immediate use because the whereabouts of the perpetrator was known. In contrast, Detective Branchflower could reasonably hesitate even longer before bringing A.D. in front of a grand jury given that Gonzales could not be found. The superior court acknowledged that further testimony would have been necessary from A.D. for the grand jury to indict Gonzales, but faulted the state for not presenting evidence that A.D. was unable to have testified in 1992 (presumably following her release from the hospital). The superior court stated on the record, this is a case that was ready to go and it didn't go, and problems have resulted. We disagree with that characterization. Given A.D.'s emotional fragility and the defendant's absence from the state, the state acted reasonably by delaying. By the time that A.D. was released from the hospital, Gonzalez had fled. The superior court abused its discretion in determining that the state's decision to delay was unreasonable.