Opinion ID: 2268037
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to an Alleged Violation of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act

Text: It is undisputed that Rhode Island is a signatory to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act (IADA or act) which has been codified as G.L.1956 chapter 13 of title 13. This act constitutes a compact among a number of participating states, including the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It has been approved by Congress and is designed to expedite the trial of criminal charges pending in one state (the receiving, state) while the person is incarcerated in another state (the sending state). The purpose of this compact has been outlined in United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340, 343-44, 98 S.Ct. 1834, 1839, 56 L.Ed.2d 329, 336 (1978). We have recognized that the purpose of this act is encouraging and facilitating the expeditious disposition of charges pending against that prisoner in another jurisdiction. State v. Clifton, 777 A.2d 1272, 1279 (R.I.2001). We also held in Clifton that we employ a de novo standard in reviewing the denial of a defendant's motion to dismiss a charge under the IADA. Id. However, we review with deference the findings of historical fact upon which the trial justice's legal determination is based. These factual findings will be disturbed only if clearly wrong. Id. The defendant was arraigned on the charges contained in this information in 1988. Between the date of his arraignment and November 1989, four attorneys were appointed to represent him and subsequently were discharged by Werner. Pretrial hearings on this information began before a justice of the Superior Court on September 15, 1988. At that time, Werner was represented by Attorney Richard Corley. The defendant told the justice that he wished to dismiss Attorney Corley and obtain new counsel because he was dissatisfied with Corley's representation. Over the objection of counsel for the state, the justice granted defendant's request. When Werner came before another justice of the Superior Court in December 1988, he again complained about counsel; but strangely enough, Attorney Corley was still representing Werner when he was presented before the first justice in April 1990, on a motion to suppress evidence found in the search of the Mercury Monarch that Werner drove on the night of the shooting. Attorney Corley was successful on this motion and the justice granted the motion to suppress the fruits of the search of the automobile. On appeal to this Court, the order suppressing the evidence was reversed in State v. Werner, 615 A.2d 1010 (R.I.1992). While the appeal from the order of suppression was pending, Werner was incarcerated in the Suffolk County jail in Massachusetts. He was released on bail in December 1991, but did not surrender to the Rhode Island authorities. He was again arrested in Massachusetts, on a charge of home invasion, in March 1992. He was incarcerated awaiting trial in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, at the time that this Court released its opinion in State v. Werner. After Werner was sentenced by a Massachusetts court in March 1993, the Rhode Island office of the Attorney General began attempts to seek custody of Werner pursuant to the IADA to face a number of criminal charges that were pending in this state. The history of these attempts is complex and subject to considerable dispute between the parties. It appears that during these attempts Mr. Werner at times worked at cross-purposes with the attorneys who represented him. He appeared before a justice of the Superior Court on December 6, 1993, at which time the justice held that Rhode Island had sought temporary custody of defendant pursuant to Article III of the IADA rather than Article IV, which had been cited by counsel for defendant. The Court made the following findings of fact intermingled with conclusions of law: The detainer in this case is dated April 1, 1993. The State has represented to the Court that that detainer was mailed on April 8, '93 and received on April 12, '93, by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This representation is further supported by the fact that a copy of that letter was received by the Superior Court and date-stamped by the Clerk's Office April 12, 1993. The Court finds that the receipt of the detainer triggers the running of a 30 day period during which the sending state, that is Massachusetts, through its Governor, may object to the offer of temporary custody, or the prisoner himself may object to the offer of temporary custody, but that once the detainer is lodged, the 30 day period begins to run. At the expiration of the 30 day period, the sending state must offer to deliver temporary custody of the prisoner to the receiving state. This is provided in Article 5. Article 5 provides that at the expiration of the 30 day period, the sending state must respond to the offer made by the receiving state. Once the sending state makes an offer to deliver temporary custody, once that is received by the State of Rhode Island, then Rhode Island, and only then, can Rhode Island go to Massachusetts and retrieve the prisoner. The 120 day period set forth in Article 3 begins to run once the prisoner arrives in Rhode Island. None of that occurred in this case, for reasons which have not been explained. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts did not send an offer of temporary custody to Rhode Island. Mr. Dambruch has orally represented that at some point in April or in early May of 1993, the State of Rhode Island was informed that the defendant refused to exercise his rights under the detainer. This may very well be supported by Defendant's Exhibit A for Identification, a letter written by Mr. Dambruch to Mr. Werner's then attorney Mr. Corley. Notwithstanding that oral representation, Defendant's Exhibit B demonstrates that on May 20, 1993, Mr. Corley, on behalf of Mr. Werner, wrote to MCI Concord, and indicated to them that Mr. Werner wished to exercise his rights under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers. Defendant's Exhibit C for Identification is a letter written by the defendant to the Superintendent at MCI Concord, which also indicates that he was anxious to resolve all pending matters in the State of Rhode Island. What happens next is of significance to this proceeding, because on June 11, 1993, Mr. Werner does, in fact, receive Form 1, which is the notice of untried indictment. He also executes Form 2, which is the request for disposition of criminal charges. Attached to Form 2 is Form 3, which is the Certificate of Inmate Status, and attached to Form 3 is Form 4, which is the offer to deliver temporary custody to the State of Rhode Island by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. According to Mr. Dambruch, these documents were received by the Attorney General on June 23, 1993. The defendant has presented no evidence to refute that date. Thus, the Court finds that the defendant's temporary custody in Rhode Island, pursuant to Article 3, and not Article 4, of the Interstate Agreement, and that the trial in this matter is thus governed by the 180 days set forth in Article 3. When does the 180-day period begin to run? The law in this case is quite clear that the 180 day requirement begins to run when the Attorney General receives both the prisoner's request for disposition and the Certificate of Inmate Status. In this case, that date is June 23, 1993. Counsel for the defendant also presented another argument, that on April 5, 1993, Mr. Justice Wiley granted a petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in a separate case. That case is indictment K1-92-875, which is also the subject of this Motion to Dismiss. Counsel for the defendant argues that the petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, and the order signed by Judge Wiley, as well as the arguments made by Mr. Werner's attorney in support of the petition, served to establish the receipt of both the request for the disposition, and the Certificate of Inmate Status. In other words, counsel's position is that the proceedings before Mr. Justice Wiley substituted [for] the documents required to trigger the 180 days. This is simply not the case. The Court finds that the proceeding held by Mr. Justice Wiley cannot substitute for the specific documents required by the Interstate Agreement on Detainers. The Court further notes that on that day, the detainer had not even been lodged in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The justice went on to comment further: Thus, with respect to indictment K1-90-0804, today is the 166th day. Thus, the Court with respect to this case, need not address the delay caused by this defendant. However, the Court does note that trial in this matter did commence in September. The trial commenced, it did not conclude, and the Court found that the reason the trial did not conclude was because Mr. Werner dismissed his attorney. With regard to the other two cases, which is K1-92-0875 and K2-88-0490 [the information upon which this appeal is pending], the Court also denies the defendant's motions to dismiss. The Court did set a date certain for those trials, both of which would have been held within the 180 day period. The Court, however, in open court, with either the defendant or Mr. Corley present, found that good cause necessitated a continuance of those matters. The record is clear in both of those matters, as well as this matter, that a period of weeks did elapse, at which point Mr. Werner did not have an attorney. This Court made great efforts in obtaining counsel for Mr. Werner, and that at least during that period, caused what's sufficient to warrant the continuance of both of those cases. The Court will note that those continuances were both necessary and reasonable. Before the appearance on December 6, 1993, Werner had been presented to the same justice in Kent County on September 29, 1993, to begin pretrial hearings on that case. At that time defendant demanded that the justice recuse herself. When this request was denied, he sought a stay of further proceedings so that he could seek a review of her refusal to recuse from this case. At that time he was represented by Mr. Corley, whom Werner sought to discharge because he was dissatisfied with the attorney's representation. After a considerable colloquy, the justice declined to authorize Mr. Corley to withdraw. At this point, Werner emphatically refused to have Attorney Corley represent him. He became disruptive and threatened to absent himself from the proceedings. On September 30, 1993, Attorney Corley moved to withdraw on the ground that it was impossible for him to continue to represent defendant. The justice granted the motion to withdraw and said that she would appoint new counsel for defendant but that appointment of new counsel would constitute good cause to grant a necessary and reasonable continuance of the trial that would take it outside the 180-day period during which a trial must commence under Article III of the IADA. At this point, defendant made an obscene statement to the motion justice who ordered him to be removed from the courtroom. She confirmed her ruling and finding that the appointment of new counsel is a necessary and reasonable circumstance to grant a continuance beyond the 180 day rule. She also assured Mr. Corley that he still was representing defendant and that she would appoint new counsel as soon as possible. When defendant Werner came before the motion justice on December 6, 1993, he was represented by new counsel, Attorney Vincent Indeglia. It was Mr. Indeglia who presented the motion to dismiss the indictment pending before the motion justice, as well as the criminal information in the case at bar, based on Article IV of the IADA. At this hearing, it was disclosed that a letter was written to prison officials in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on April 8, 1993, purporting to lodge a detainer in respect to Werner. The letter was received by Massachusetts prison officials on April 12, 1993. This triggered a thirty-day period for Massachusetts authorities to respond to the transfer. It was further disclosed that during the thirty-day period, on May 5, 1993, penal authorities at the Massachusetts Correction Institute at Concord informed representatives of the Rhode Island Attorney General that when defendant Werner was presented with the Rhode Island detainer and advised of his rights under the IADA, he refused to sign the required forms and told the Massachusetts authorities that he would not voluntarily return to Rhode Island to face the charges that were then pending against him. At this time, counsel for the state wrote to Attorney Corley (who was then still representing Werner) and advised him that Werner's refusal voluntarily to return would delay the process of bringing him to Rhode Island to face the pending charges. In response to this letter, Mr. Corley wrote to the Massachusetts officials at MCI Concord informing them that Mr. Werner would voluntarily return and asked that Werner be given the requisite forms to execute to implement the process. On June 23, 1993, defendant Werner filed his request with the Massachusetts authorities to be transferred to Rhode Island pursuant to the terms of the IADA. It was for this reason that the justice on December 6, 1993, determined that this was the date upon which the 180-day period for bringing Werner to trial had commenced. We have considered the record of the proceedings leading up to the decision of the motion justice on December 6, 1993. We have examined the IADA in its entirety, as well as the case law that has interpreted its purpose and provisions. We conclude that the findings of fact made by the motion justice were amply supported by the evidence presented. We further hold that her conclusions of law were correct in the light of the findings of fact and the tactics Mr. Werner used in dismissing his attorney and in frustrating his return to the State of Rhode Island until June 23, 1993. We agree that the writ of habeas corpus issued by another justice of the Superior Court on April 5, 1993, did not constitute an effective detainer (nor did it purport to do so) and did not trigger any obligation either by Massachusetts or Rhode Island to return Mr. Werner to this jurisdiction. Consequently, we are of the opinion that the motion justice was correct in denying the motion to dismiss the various proceedings then pending, including the information that now is before us on the ground that there had been a violation of the provisions of the IADA. After a trial before the justice who had denied his motion to dismiss, defendant Werner discharged Attorney Vincent Indeglia. Subsequently, Werner was presented to another justice of the Superior Court for the trial of the information containing' charges in the case at bar and sought to dismiss those charges for lack of a speedy trial pursuant to the holding in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972). That justice denied his motion to dismiss. He adopted the findings of the previous motion justice in respect to the alleged violation of the IADA and further held that the delay could not be attributed to the state. He noted that Werner's discharge of attorneys contributed to the delay. He also referred to the fact that Werner had absconded on an outstanding Rhode Island warrant when he had been released on bail in Massachusetts. He also found that Werner for a time had refused to cooperate in the attempt by Rhode Island authorities to have him transferred to Rhode Island pursuant to the IADA. We agree with the findings of fact and conclusions of law enunciated by the justice who presided over the trial of the charges set forth in this information as well as the findings of fact and conclusions of law enunciated by the first motion justice on December 6, 1993. Both justices were correct in refusing to dismiss the charges for violation of the IADA and for the alleged violation of his right to a speedy trial.