Opinion ID: 2982994
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Defendant’s Assertion of His Right

Text: “[A] defendant’s assertion of his speedy trial right [] is entitled to strong evidentiary weight in determining whether the defendant is being deprived of the right.” Barker, 407 U.S. at 531-32. Meanwhile, a defendant’s “failure to assert the right will make it difficult for a defendant to prove that he was denied a speedy trial.” Id. at 532. The first time Richardson Nos. 13-2655/2656 United States v. Richardson Page 13 asserted his speedy trial right was in his January 10, 2013 motion to dismiss. At no point in time prior to the filing of this motion had any of Richardson’s attorneys asserted a speedy trial claim. The fact that Richardson waited eight months after he was arraigned and seventeen months after he was indicted before raising a speedy trial claim based primarily on prearraignment delay “is sufficient to cast doubt on the sincerity of [his] demand.” United States v. Williams, 753 F.3d 626, 633-34 (6th Cir. 2014) (“The fact that [the defendant] did not assert his right to a speedy trial for some eight months after he was arraigned and sixteen months after he was arrested is sufficient to cast doubt on the sincerity of the defendant’s demand.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).