Opinion ID: 1784514
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Turner v. State

Text: In Turner, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that a 25-month delay from Turner's indictment until his conviction violated his right to a speedy trial. 378 So.2d at 1178-79. In examining the fourth factor, the court did not require Turner to demonstrate actual prejudice. 378 So.2d at 1179. A Russell County grand jury indicted Turner on January 11, 1977, for assault with intent to murder. Less than five months later, Turner  who was imprisoned in Georgia on convictions for robbery and murder  asserted his right to a speedy trial by requesting Russell County officials to dispose of the indictments against him. [11] Despite Turner's request, the State waited approximately a year before making any effort to extradite Turner and bring him to trial. The State's first efforts failed, however, because the prosecuting authorities attempted to gain custody of Turner by using an obsolete extradition procedure. Consequently, Turner's trials on the robbery and assault charges did not occur until February 22, 1979, and March 5, 1979, respectively  a delay of approximately 21 months from Turner's request for a speedy trial and 25 months from Turner's indictment. 378 So.2d at 1176-79. In balancing the Barker factors, the Court of Criminal Appeals found that the first three factors weighed against the State: the 25-month delay from Turner's indictment until his trial was presumptively prejudicial under the first factor; Turner asserted his right to a speedy trial less than five months after the indictment, which weighed in Turner's favor under the second factor; and the State's negligence  specifically, its failure to act and its ignorance of changes in the extradition procedure  was the reason for the delay in Turner's case. 378 So.2d at 1176-78. Regarding the fourth factor, the Turner court stated: The record is silent with regards to whether [Turner] was prejudiced by the excessive delay in bringing him to trial. `[H]owever, there is authority which holds that where the other three Barker factors weigh in favor of the accused, prejudice  either actual or presumed  becomes totally irrelevant.' 378 So.2d at 1179 (quoting Prince v. State, 354 So.2d 1186, 1192 (Ala.Crim.App.1977), quoting in turn Hoskins v. Wainwright, 485 F.2d 1186, 1192 (5th Cir.1973)). Walker argues that because the first three factors weigh in her favor, this passage from Turner requires us either to presume prejudice or simply to ignore the fourth factor. We reject this argument for two reasons. First, Turner and the cases on which it relies do not stand for the broad proposition that any weighting of the first three factors in favor of the accused either renders prejudice irrelevant or automatically entitles the accused to a finding of presumed prejudice; instead, based on its balancing of the particular facts before it, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Turner did not require the accused to demonstrate prejudice under the fourth factor. Second, Walker's case is distinguishable from Turner. Admittedly, the quoted passage from Turner upon which Walker relies is confusing. On the one hand, the court suggests that it did not require any showing under the fourth Barker factor, because it stated that `where the other three Barker factors weigh in favor of the accused, prejudice  either actual or presumed  becomes totally irrelevant.' 378 So.2d at 1179 (quoting Prince, 354 So.2d at 1192, quoting in turn Hoskins, 485 F.2d at 1192). But immediately following this passage, it appears that the court did consider prejudice in its analysis; the court stated that it had carefully weigh[ed] all the Barker factors. 378 So.2d at 1179 (emphasis added). Because of this apparent contradiction in Turner, we take this opportunity to clarify the law in Alabama regarding prejudice under the fourth Barker factor. We look first at the cases upon which the Turner court relied for the proposition that `where the other three Barker factors weigh in favor of the accused, prejudice  either actual or presumed  becomes totally irrelevant.' 378 So.2d at 1179 (citations omitted). First, Turner cited Prince v. State , in which the Court of Criminal Appeals found that a 3 1/2-year delay constituted a speedy-trial violation. Prince, 354 So.2d at 1190-92. Prince recognized that prejudice may be presumed under the fourth factor: [W]here the delay is excessive and inexcusable, as shown here, `prejudice may fairly be presumed simply because everyone knows that memories fade, evidence is lost, and the burden of anxiety upon any criminal defendant increases with the passing months and years.' 354 So.2d at 1192 (quoting United States v. Mann, 291 F.Supp. 268, 271 (S.D.N.Y.1968)). Prince further recognized that an inquiry into prejudice may even be rendered irrelevant: [W]here the other three Barker factors weigh in favor of the accused, `prejudice  either actual or presumed  becomes totally irrelevant.' 354 So.2d at 1192 (quoting Hoskins, 485 F.2d at 1192). But the court in Prince did not presume that the delay prejudiced the accused. Instead, the court in Prince found actual prejudice. In particular, the State had not rebutted the accused's demonstration that the delay had actually prejudiced him in two ways: (1) the delay had caused him to suffer anxiety and concern  an interest that Barker explicitly recognizes as one protected by the right to a speedy trial, Barker, 407 U.S. at 532, 92 S.Ct. 2182; and (2) the delay had negatively affected the accused's ability to obtain work-release status. Prince, 354 So.2d at 1192. Additionally, the accused in Prince testified that he had suffered memory loss and was unable to recall the circumstances of the alleged offense. As the court in Prince notes, memory loss, standing alone, is rarely  if ever  sufficient to establish prejudice under the fourth Barker factor. 354 So.2d at 1192 (citing Crawford v. State, 342 So.2d 450 (Ala.Crim.App.1977)). See Carrell, 565 So.2d at 108 (ordinarily a mere assertion of a loss of memory is not enough of a showing of prejudice to support a finding that a defendant has been denied due process). But Prince recognizes that memory loss together with excessive delay and other factors weighing in the accused's favor may warrant a presumption of prejudice under the fourth Barker factor. Prince, 354 So.2d at 1192. See Clopton, 656 So.2d at 1246-47; Carrell, 565 So.2d at 108-09. Thus, Prince did not consider the fourth factor irrelevant, and the analysis in Prince of that factor resulted in a finding of more than presumed prejudice. Prince thus does not establish a broad rule that any weighting of the first three Barker factors against the State either requires presumed prejudice or renders the fourth factor irrelevant; to the extent that Turner suggests Prince did so, the Turner court misconstrued Prince. Finally, as noted in Turner, Prince relied upon Hoskins v. Wainwright for the passage Walker argues requires us either to presume prejudice or simply to dispense with the fourth Barker factor as irrelevant. The facts of Hoskins  and the context in which the relevant language occurs  support our conclusion that Walker's reading of Turner is inaccurate. The passage in Hoskins  from which Prince and Turner quoted in part  reads: [T]here must be some point of coalescence of the other three factors in a movant's favor, at which prejudice  either actual or presumed  becomes totally irrelevant. And so we hold. 485 F.2d at 1192 (emphasis added). Thus, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit did not hold in Hoskins that any weighting of the first three factors in the accused's favor requires a finding of presumed prejudice or otherwise renders the fourth Barker factor irrelevant. Instead, the Hoskins court held that the first three factors may weigh so heavily in the accused's favor that [p]rejudice is simply no longer an issue. 485 F.2d at 1194. Hoskins found such a coalescence of the other three factors where there was an 8 1/2-year delay between accusation and trial and where the accused had made repeated demands for a trial. 485 F.2d at 1192-94. This holding is consistent with the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Doggett, 505 U.S. at 655, 112 S.Ct. 2686 (affirmative proof of particularized prejudice is not essential to every speedy trial claim), and it is consistent with our decision today. Rather than supporting the presumed-prejudice rule that Walker urges, Turner and the cases upon which it relies illustrate the general proposition that in evaluating a speedy-trial claim, a court is to balance the Barker factors and, in so doing, may conclude that the accused does not have the burden of demonstrating actual prejudice or even that prejudice is simply irrelevant. Moreover, even if Turner, Prince, and Hoskins supported the broad rule that Walker urges  which they do not  Walker's case is distinguishable from these decisions. Walker's case is distinguishable from Turner because of the greater emphasis the Turner court put on Turner's assertion of his right to speedy trial and the much longer delay that was caused by the State's negligence after Turner asserted his right. In contrast to Walker  who did not make her demand for a speedy trial until more than three years after she was indicted  Turner asserted his right to a speedy trial less than five months after his indictment. After Turner's request for a speedy trial, the prosecuting authorities waited almost a year before attempting to have Turner returned to Alabama. Even then the effort was needlessly delayed for an additional five months because of the State's ignorance of changes in Alabama's extradition procedure. Turner, 378 So.2d at 1177-79. All told, the State's negligence caused a delay of almost 22 months after Turner had asserted his right to a speedy trial. 378 So.2d at 1177-78. Consequently, both the second and third Barker factors  the reason for the delay and the accused's assertion of the right to a speedy trial  weighed more heavily in the accused's favor in Turner than they do in Walker's case. As mentioned, Walker did not assert her right to a speedy trial until June 9, 2003, less than 5 months after her arrest but almost 42 months after her indictment. [12] Walker pleaded guilty on March 25, 2004, approximately nine months after she asserted her right to speedy trial. Thus, although the State was admittedly negligent, nothing in the record indicates that the State's negligence caused Walker's case to be unusually delayed after Walker asserted her right to a speedy trial. Walker's case is therefore distinguishable from Turner. Walker's case also differs from Prince and Hoskins. Prince is distinguishable because, in addition to Prince's allegation of loss of memory and resulting prejudice, the court determined that Prince had suffered actual prejudice. 354 So.2d at 1192. Hoskins is distinguishable because of the much longer delay  8 1/2 years  and because Hoskins had made repeated assertions of his right to a speedy trial. [13] 485 F.2d at 1194. Additionally, there was evidence of actual prejudice in Hoskins, but because of the weight of the other three factors in favor of the accused, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals chose not to base its ruling on a finding of prejudice. 485 F.2d at 1188 n. 3 (Assuming for the moment... that `prejudice' as a requirement for Sixth Amendment relief in a speedy trial case means impairment of the defense, we find that the record discloses sufficient instances of impairment to require reversal.). In contrast to Turner, Prince, and Hoskins, Walker's case involves nothing more than delay caused by the State's negligence. Although the first three Barker factors weigh in Walker's favor, none of those factors weighs heavily in her favor or against the State. Accordingly, Turner, Prince, and Hoskins do not require a finding of presumed prejudice under the fourth Barker factor in Walker's case, and they do not render the prejudice inquiry irrelevant.