Opinion ID: 200079
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Responsibility for the Delay.

Text: 34 The next question relates to how much responsibility the Commonwealth and the petitioner, respectively, bear for the sixty-eight months of delay. During this time frame, the petitioner spent forty-two months in a Texas jail, fifteen in parts unknown, four living under his own name in Massachusetts, and seven engaged in pretrial preparation. The petitioner accepts responsibility for this last segment. Responsibility for each of the remaining three intervals is contested. We analyze each separately. 5 35 1. The Texas Time. The petitioner was incarcerated in Texas on an unrelated charge for some three and one-half years. We are convinced that the Commonwealth must shoulder significant responsibility for this period of delay. 36 Our conclusion is driven primarily by the Supreme Court's decision in Smith v. Hooey, 393 U.S. 374, 89 S.Ct. 575, 21 L.Ed.2d 607 (1969). There, a prisoner was indicted in Texas on state charges while serving a sentence at a federal penitentiary. For the next six years, the defendant made repeated requests for a speedy trial but the Texas authorities did nothing to advance the matter (even though they knew the prisoner's whereabouts). When the petitioner sought a dismissal, the state asserted that it had no obligation to gain custody of the defendant while he was imprisoned by another sovereign. The Supreme Court disagreed. We glean from its opinion that when a defendant demands a speedy trial, the state is obliged to make a diligent effort to obtain custody over his person even if another sovereign ultimately might decline to grant such custody. 6 Id. at 383. 37 Here, the Commonwealth knew that the petitioner was incarcerated in another jurisdiction, yet it made no attempt to bring him back for trial during the forty-two months of his Texas confinement. To this extent, the case is analogous to Smith. Given that precedent, the Commonwealth must shoulder significant responsibility for this period of delay. 7 38 Here, moreover, the Commonwealth's failure to act was aggravated by the fact that both Massachusetts and Texas were parties to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD). See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 276, App. § 1-1 et seq.; Tex.Code Crim. Proc. art. 51.14. The IAD contains provisions that allow the transfer of an incarcerated defendant from one jurisdiction to another in order to stand trial. See 18 U.S.C., App. § 2, art. IV. The IAD contemplates that a state in which untried charges are pending may lodge a detainer against a defendant incarcerated in another state. Once that happens, the defendant must be informed of the detainer, and, if he so requests, he must be remitted for trial within the next 180 days. Id. at art. III. If the defendant does not make such a request, the detainer ensures that he will be transferred into the custody of the state that lodged the detainer upon the completion of his prison term. See Alabama v. Bozeman, 533 U.S. 146, 148, 121 S.Ct. 2079, 150 L.Ed.2d 188 (2001). 39 Although the IAD contains no explicit requirement that a state lodge a detainer whenever it learns that a person under indictment is being held in another jurisdiction, the compact was crafted with the policy and purpose of encourag[ing] the expeditious and orderly disposition of [untried] charges. 18 U.S.C., App. § 2, art. I. Thus, even though the failure to lodge a detainer is not itself a per se violation of a defendant's speedy trial right, it is a significant misstep, for which the state must bear responsibility. 40 In this case, the record does not suggest that the failure to lodge a detainer was deliberate. It was, however, plainly negligent; the Commonwealth knew why the petitioner did not appear for arraignment, and the presiding magistrate envisioned that the Commonwealth would proceed under the IAD. The failure therefore cuts in favor of the petitioner's speedy trial claim. See Doggett, 505 U.S. at 656-57. Holding otherwise would allow a state to circumvent the IAD with impunity — a result that would contravene both the intent behind the IAD and the Supreme Court's admonition that the primary burden ... to assure that cases are brought to trial rests with prosecutors, not defendants. Barker, 407 U.S. at 529. 41 2. The Fifteen-Month Hiatus. Responsibility for the period of delay following the petitioner's egress from the Texas jail is quite a different matter. The state court considered the petitioner a fugitive for this entire period. The petitioner assails this determination, asseverating that the Commonwealth should be held fully responsible for this interval. 42 The petitioner bases his asseveration upon Doggett, a case in which the defendant was absent from the United States for two and one-half years following his indictment. Doggett, 505 U.S. at 648. He subsequently returned to this country and lived openly under his own name for almost six years until he was arrested and tried. Id. at 649-50. The government defended its actions, claiming that it had lost track of Doggett shortly before he returned to the United States and had not learned his whereabouts until the Marshal's Service ordered a credit check. Id. The Supreme Court rejected the government's explanation; it determined that the government had not exercised due diligence in locating Doggett and counted this period of delay against the government. Id. at 652-63. One thing that figured importantly in this determination was the fact that Doggett knew nothing of the pending indictment prior to his arrest. Id. 43 The record of this case presents a far different picture as to the fifteen months following the petitioner's release from the Texas jail. One striking difference is the lack of relevant information. The petitioner apparently spent an indeterminate amount of time at a halfway house in Texas as part of a pre-release program, but otherwise we know very little. For aught that appears, the petitioner vanished into the Bermuda triangle. The record does not tell us where he was, what he did, whether he lived under his own name, or whether he endeavored to conceal his identity (as he had done on other occasions). Consequently, we cannot estimate how easy it would have been for the Massachusetts authorities to locate him. We do know that, unlike in Doggett, the petitioner had been informed that there were charges pending against him, see infra note 8, and he never asked the Massachusetts authorities if those charges were still live. 44 In the habeas context, a petitioner who fails to adduce any evidence regarding a segment of pretrial delay cannot rebut the presumption of correctness to which the state court's finding against him is entitled. See Wilson v. Mitchell, 250 F.3d 388, 394-95 (6th Cir.2001) (affirming, under the AEDPA, a state court's finding that the defendant was a fugitive and therefore responsible for a period of delay when he had failed to produce evidence to the contrary); cf. Mala, 7 F.3d at 1061-62 (explaining that lack of evidence relevant to the Barker analysis cuts against the defendant as to issues on which he bears the burden of persuasion). The petitioner has not satisfied that burden in regard to this fifteen-month traipse. We therefore lack any basis for disturbing the Massachusetts Appeals Court's finding that the petitioner was a fugitive during that period (and, thus, responsible for the attendant delay). 45 3. The Next Four Months. The four months immediately preceding the petitioner's 1992 arrest present a closer parallel to Doggett, and the petitioner, represented here by able counsel, rides that horse for all it is worth. He emphasizes that he lived under his own name in Massachusetts during that time frame, and that the authorities squandered several opportunities to detain him. 46 Although it was incumbent upon the Commonwealth to seek the petitioner with diligence, see Doggett, 505 U.S. at 656-57, even a diligent investigator might have taken months to uncover the fact that the petitioner had quietly returned to Massachusetts. The petitioner's failure to contact the authorities or inquire about the status of his case during the brief period of his residence in Massachusetts, along with his post-arrest attempt to evade the indictment, leave no doubt that he did nothing to facilitate the Commonwealth's task. Under these circumstances, the state court was not obliged to assign responsibility for this relatively short period of delay to the Commonwealth. 8 We therefore refrain from counting these four months in the petitioner's favor.