Opinion ID: 6931638
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Speedy Teial Act

Text: Rodriguez contends that the district court erred in overruling his motion to dismiss the third superseding indictment by reason of delay. We review the facts supporting a Speedy Trial Act ruling using the clearly erroneous standard and the legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Ortega-Mena, 949 F.2d 156, 158 (5th Cir.1991). Rodriguez was first named as a defendant (under the name Lencho Ramirez) in the superseding indictment filed on April 23, 1991, and he was arrested and made his initial appearance on May 1, 1991. A new superseding indictment (apparently the third superseding indictment in the case), was filed on November 26, 1991. At the arraignment on this indictment, which took place on December 3, 1991, the presiding magistrate judge noted that the only change wrought by the new indictment was to expand the alleged length of each conspiracy. Although the government claims that Rodriguez did not move to dismiss the new indictment, the record belies this assertion; on December 16, 1991, Rodriguez filed a motion to dismiss by reason of delay. This motion was denied after a hearing on January 3, 1992. Trial commenced, as we have noted, on January 15, 1992. The Speedy Trial Act requires that criminal defendants be tried “within seventy days from the filing date ... of the information or indictment, or from the date the defendant has appeared before a judicial officer of the court in which such charge is pending, whichever date last occurs.” 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1). The seventy-day clock will be tolled during certain delays enumerated in § 3161(h). Under § 3161(h)(1)(F), the clock is tolled during any “delay resulting from any pretrial motion, from the filing of the motion through the conclusion of the hearing on, or other prompt disposition of, such motion.” The government contends that this provision negates Rodriguez’s speedy trial argument. The Supreme Court has held that § 3161(h)(1)(F) tolls the speedy trial clock during all delays between the filing of a motion and the conclusion of the hearing on that motion, regardless of whether the delay in holding that hearing is “reasonably necessary.” Henderson v. United States, 476 U.S. 321, 330, 106 S.Ct. 1871, 1877, 90 L.Ed.2d 299 (1986). This indefinite exclusion is limited, however, by § 3161(h)(l)(J), which limits to thirty days an exclusion “reasonably attributable to any period ... during which any proceeding concerning the defendant is actually under advisement by the court.” Once a hearing has been held on a motion and all necessary additional materials submitted to the court, or once a motion not requiring a hearing is filed along with necessary supporting materials, § 3161(h)(l)(J) limits the excluded period to thirty days. See Henderson, 476 U.S. at 329, 106 S.Ct. at 1876 (noting that district courts cannot use § 3161(h)(1)(F) to circumvent the thirty-day limit of § 3161(h)(l)(J)). The fact that pretrial motions are pending, standing alone, does not necessarily toll the speedy trial clock indefinitely; the motions must require a hearing under § 3161(h)(1)(F) if indefinite tolling is to occur. See generally United States v. Johnson, 29 F.3d 940, 942-43 (5th Cir.1994) (providing an overview of the proper interplay between §§ 3161(h)(1)(F) and (J)). It appears that we have implicitly agreed with the several circuits that have consistently interpreted § 3161(h)(7) to provide that all defendants who are joined for trial generally fall within the speedy trial computation of the latest codefendant and that the excludable delay of one codefendant may be attributed to all defendants. United States v. Neal, 27 F.3d 1035 (5th Cir.1994) (holding that the clock was tolled from the day the last-arraigned defendant appeared before a judicial officer because “[a]t that time, several Defendants already had filed pretrial motions, and pretrial motions of some type remained pending [for over two years].”); see also United States v. Arbelaez, 7 F.3d 344, 347 (3d Cir.1993); United States v. Butz, 982 F.2d 1378, 1381 (9th Cir.) (observing that the First, Second, Sixth, Eighth, and District of Columbia Circuits also follow this interpretation), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 250, 126 L.Ed.2d 203 (1993); United States v. Mendoza-Cecelia, 963 F.2d 1467, 1477 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 436, 121 L.Ed.2d 356 (1992); United States v. Tanner, 941 F.2d 574, 580 (7th Cir.1991), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 1190, 117 L.Ed.2d 432 (1992). The filing of a superseding indictment does not affect the speedy trial clock for offenses charged in the original indictment or any offense required to be joined under double jeopardy principles. United States v. Gonzales, 897 F.2d 1312, 1316 (5th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1029, 111 S.Ct. 683, 112 L.Ed.2d 675 (1991). The clock continues to run from the original indictment or arraignment, whichever was later, and all speedy trial exclusions apply as if no superseding indictment had been returned. Id. This prevents the government from circumventing the speedy trial guarantee through the simple expedient of obtaining superseding indictments with minor corrections. However, motions pending on the charges in the previous indictment continue to toll the clock after the superseding indictment is returned if some of the original charges are retained. Id. at 1316-17. The government relies principally on the James 2 motions filed by Rodriguez’s codefendants before Rodriguez himself was indicted to toll the speedy trial clock. The record contains a pretrial ruling by the district court filed on March 4,1991, in which the court ordered James motions by Garza, Pedraza, Baldemar Bermea, and Guadalupe Bermea to be carried with the case until trial. The district court ruled on the defendants’ James motions at trial after the close of the government’s evidence on January 27, 1992. 3 The Eleventh Circuit has specifically held that James motions will toll the speedy trial clock until trial if the hearing is deferred until trial. United States v. Phillips, 936 F.2d 1252, 1254 (11th Cir.1991); United States v. Garcia, 778 F.2d 1558, 1562 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 477 U.S. 906, 106 S.Ct. 3279, 91 L.Ed.2d 568 (1986). It appears, however, that we have never specifically so held in this circuit. In Johnson, we held that a pending James motion that was never argued or ruled upon, even at trial, did not toll the speedy trial clock beyond the thirty days permitted by § 3161(h)(l)(J). Id., at 945. We recognized that the result might have been different had the trial court held a hearing on the James motion immediately before or during trial. Id., at 944 n. 8. We must decide the question left open in Johnson in the instant ease because other pretrial motions and continuances did not sufficiently toll Rodriguez’s speedy trial clock to bring him within the seventy-day limit. Several of Rodriguez’s codefendants filed motions to suppress evidence prior to Rodriguez’s initial appearance. These motions were ultimately heard on September 10, 1991, and the district court denied the last motion to suppress on September 12, 1991. Rodriguez’s speedy trial clock thus could not have started to run until September 13,1991. It did not, however, because Avalos filed a motion in limine on September 11, 1991, which tolled the clock for at least thirty days under §§ 3161(h)(1)(F) and (J). According to the government, the district judge carried this motion to trial and ruled on it on the first day of the trial. Our review of the record, however, shows that the motion was mentioned at the beginning of the trial, but we find no ruling on the motion in the portion of the record cited by the government. Giving Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt, we will presume that the motion in limine tolled the clock for only thirty days. In any event, Rogelio Bermea obtained a continuance, granted by the court under the “ends of justice” provision of the Speedy Trial Act, § 3161(h)(l)(8), on September 23, 1991, resetting the trial for October 15, 1991. Trial did not actually begin then, and the next pretrial motion cited by the government was Rodriguez’s own motion to dismiss by reason of delay, filed December 16, 1991. Sixty-one days lapsed between October 15 and December 16, 1991. The motion to dismiss tolled the clock until January 3, 1992, when the motion was denied. Nine more days lapsed before the government filed a motion in li-mine on January 13, 1992. If we do not consider the James motions in our calculus, seventy non-excludable days lapsed before trial began on January 15, 1992, and the Speedy Trial Act was violated. We have observed that pending motions carried for hearing just before or during trial will toll the speedy trial clock indefinitely. United States v. Santoyo, 890 F.2d 726, 728 (5th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 959, 110 S.Ct. 2567, 109 L.Ed.2d 749 (1990). In San-toyo, we held that a defendant’s motion in limine tolled the clock for some eight months, even though the district court carried the motion for hearing during trial soon after the motion was filed. Id. at 728. In United States v. Welch, 810 F.2d 485, 488 (5th Cir.1987), we held that a defendant’s motion to sever tolled the clock for almost two years in the absence of any showing that the defendant had unsuccessfully attempted to receive a hearing. In Johnson, we left open the question of whether James motions carried until and actually ruled upon during trial could toll the speedy trial clock throughout their pendency. Johnson, at 944 n. 8. Confronted with such a ease, we agree with the Eleventh Circuit’s decisions in Phillips and Garcia. We conclude that the pendency of Rodriguez’s codefendants’ James motions tolled the speedy trial clock throughout Rodriguez’s prosecution because they were ultimately heard and ruled upon during trial. His Speedy Trial Act claim is therefore without merit.