Opinion ID: 1257787
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Use of Burden-Shifting Mechanism

Text: Focusing on the importance of timely prosecutions, we held in syllabus point one of Hey that [a] delay of eleven years between the commission of a crime and the arrest or indictment of a defendant, his location and identification having been known throughout the period, is presumptively prejudicial to the defendant and violates his right to due process of law. Id. at 394. We remanded the matter to give the government an opportunity to justify the delay by proving its reasonableness. Hey, 269 S.E.2d at 398. Following a hearing on the reasons for the prosecutorial delay, we instructed that the indictment should be quashed if the government was unable to prove that it acted with reasonable diligence once it had sufficient information to do so. Id. at 399. We observed in Hey that the assertion of a due process violation based on preindictment delay will not always involve allegations of facially prejudicial delay. In those cases where the delay is not extreme, we held that a trial court must weigh[] the reasons for the delay against the impact of the delay upon the defendant's ability to defend himself. Hey, 269 S.E.2d at 394, syl. pt. 2, in part. In State v. Richey, 171 W.Va. 342, 298 S.E.2d 879 (1982), we determined that where the delay is not extreme the burden initially rests upon the defendant to demonstrate how such delay has prejudiced his case. Id. at 344, 298 S.E.2d at 881, syl. pt. 1, in part. Petitioner argues that under this Court's reasoning in Hey, there can be no question that the thirteen-year delay in his case was presumptively prejudicial. He maintains that the lengthy delay between the alleged offenses and the State's decision to prosecute him for those offenses has put him at an untenable disadvantage. Due to the passage of more than a decade, he posits that records have been destroyed and memories have faded. As a consequence, he asserts that he has been denied the right to successfully defend against the charges at issue.