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

Heading: Post-Violation Delay

Text: 64 Although the Speedy Trial Act was violated as early as October 16, 1996, we press on with our analysis to discern the full extent of the unexcused trial delay. Because the continuance was defective, the clock continued to run unabated until December 3, 1996, the date the government filed the joint motion seeking the scheduling of a conference for the purpose of setting a firm trial date and an exclusion of time. 65 The motion for a status conference was considered to be under advisement on December 10, 1996, the date Barnes filed her opposition to the request to exclude time. Hence, the 30-day period from December 11, 1996 through January 9, 1997 is excluded. But the trial court did not act on this motion until March 7, 1997, long after this 30-day window had shut, and [w]e see no reason why the pretrial conference could not have been scheduled sooner than it was. Mitchell, 723 F.2d at 1048. Accordingly, January 10, 1997 through March 24, 1997, the additional 74 days that accrued before the court actually resolved the motion, must count on the clock. 66 The government also contends that terms of the so-called joint motion for a status conference warrant excluding the time from December 3, 1996 onward. The problem with this argument is that the court never actually excluded any time based on this motion. It simply set a date for a conference months later, either ignoring or implicitly rejecting the request to exclude time. Given the hotly-disputed nature of the request, including whether Barnes had given her consent to make it, we cannot say that the court erred by refusing to exclude time. For this reason, the motion does not toll the Act for more than the 30 days during which it should have been decided. 67 Moving forward, we find that the 56 days between March 25, 1997 and May 19, 1997 must be excluded. At the March 25 conference, Reynaldo Barnes moved to change his plea, and the court accepted his guilty plea at a hearing on May 15, 1997. The intervening time is not counted, for all of the days between the date a codefendant files a motion for a change of plea and the date of the change of plea hearing itself are excludable from the [Act]'s seventy-day time limit. Santiago-Becerril, 130 F.3d at 20. Moreover, the overlapping adjournment sought by Barnes covers the period from April 4, 1997 until the first day of trial. It goes without saying that the government's in limine motion filed May 16, 1997 also tolled the clock until the motion was resolved on the first day of trial. 68 To summarize, we find that 191 days of nonexcludable time elapsed between Barnes's first appearance before the magistrate judge in the District of Massachusetts and the first day of trial. Forty-one days passed by the time of defendant's first conference before the district court; 20 days elapsed between February 1 and October 8, 1996; 56 days passed between the October 8, 1996 trial date and the filing of the joint motion requesting a conference on December 3, 1996; and 74 days of unexcused time elapsed while the motion requesting a pretrial conference was pending (excluding the 30-day under-advisement period). The 70-day limit was clearly exceeded. The indictment should have been dismissed.