Opinion ID: 410185
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claimed Violation of Separation of Powers.

Text: 24 The district court's second ground of decision was that the Speedy Trial Act violates the separation of powers by abridging the courts' inherent power to administer their dockets. See 515 F.Supp. at 631. In support of this argument, the district court marshaled a line of state court decisions invalidating efforts by state legislatures to fix mandatory deadlines for the disposition of pending cases. See Resolute Insurance Co. v. Seventh Judicial District Court of Oklahoma County, 336 F.Supp. 497, 503 (W.D.Okl.1971) (construing Oklahoma constitution); Sands v. Albert Pike Motor Hotel, 245 Ark. 755, 434 S.W.2d 288 (1968); Holliman v. State, 175 Ga. 232, 165 S.E. 11, 14-15 (1932); State ex rel. Kotsas v. Johnson, 224 Ind. 540, 69 N.E.2d 592, 595 (1946); Riglander v. Star Construction Co., 98 App.Div. 101, 90 N.Y.S. 772 (1905); Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. Long, 122 Okl. 86, 251 P. 486 (1926). See also Lindauer v. Allen, 85 Nev. 430, 456 P.2d 851 (1969). 25 Representative of these cases is Schario v. State, 105 Ohio St. 535, 138 N.E. 63 (1922). The Ohio legislature enacted a statute providing that convictions for a certain criminal offense could be appealed only within thirty days of judgment, and then only if the appellate court heard the appeal within thirty days of its filing. The Supreme Court of Ohio struck down the statute on the ground that the legislative branch of the government is without constitutional authority to limit the judicial branch of the government in respect to when it shall hear or determine any cause of action within its lawful jurisdiction. 138 N.E. at 64. The court said: 26 Whether or not justice is administered without denial or delay is a matter for which the judges are answerable to the people, and not to the General Assembly of Ohio. Manifestly, when a case can be heard and determined by a court must necessarily depend very largely upon the court docket, the gravity of business submitted to the court, the nature, the importance, and the difficulties attending the just and legal solution of matters involved. It would be obviously unfair to the court, as well as to other parties interested in the early and expeditious determination of their causes, to require a court to suspend or delay equally important matters therefore submitted to the court for its consideration and determination in order to give preference to some particular case or character of cases. At least, that is a matter that should be most properly and wisely left to the sound discretion of the court. 27 Whether or to what extent the federal courts possess a power of self-administration which invokes the separation of powers doctrine is apparently a question of first impression. Federal cases have sometimes recognized that a federal trial court possesses inherent power to control its own docket to ensure that cases proceed before it in a timely and orderly fashion. United States v. Correia, 531 F.2d 1095, 1098 (1 Cir. 1976). See Landis v. North American Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254, 57 S.Ct. 163, 165, 81 L.Ed. 153 (1936). Such references, however, merely underscore a federal trial court's discretion in the issuance of stays and continuances and the limited scope of appellate review of such decisions. It is another matter altogether to argue that federal courts possess inherent power over their dockets to the exclusion of direct congressional efforts to improve the administration of justice. 28 Arguably, whatever control federal courts wield over their dockets is merely a power to make procedural rules in the absence of congressional directives. Cf. Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 353 n.11, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 1225 n.11, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959) (The power of this Court to prescribe rules of procedure exists only in the absence of a relevant Act of Congress). If so, the time limits and dismissal sanction of the Speedy Trial Act assuredly constitute a valid procedural directive which preempt any contrary assertion of inherent power by the court. As such, they must be obeyed. 29 There may be grounds, however, for distinguishing between procedure and administration and recognizing a limited power of institutional self-administration in the federal judiciary. See generally Levin & Amsterdam, Legislative Control over Judicial Rulemaking: A Problem in Constitutional Revision, 107 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1 (1958). 9 For present purposes, we assume without deciding that federal courts possess some measure of administrative independence such that congressional intervention would, at some extreme point, pass( ) the limit which separates the legislative from the judicial power. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 147. It does not follow, however, that the Speedy Trial Act represents such an extreme. See Comment, 91 Harv.L.Rev. 1925 (1978). 30 The principle of the separation of powers does not set the three branches of government apart in absolute isolation. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 707, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 3107, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974). As Justice Jackson wrote in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952): While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon the branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity. Id. at 635, 72 S.Ct. at 870 (concurring opinion). 31 Because the separation of powers is not an absolute, but a working principle of government, the Supreme Court takes a pragmatic, flexible approach when called upon to adjudicate clashes between coordinate branches. Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 442, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 2789, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977). 10 In determining whether the Speedy Trial Act disrupts the constitutional balance between Congress and the courts, the proper inquiry focuses on the extent to which (the Act) prevents the (judiciary) from accomplishing its constitutionally assigned functions. Id. at 443, 97 S.Ct. at 2790. A considerable degree of congressional intervention in judicial administration is constitutionally permissible if such intervention is justified by an overriding need to promote objectives within the constitutional authority of Congress. Id. (citation omitted). 32 While the district court purported to apply the mode of analysis prescribed in Nixon v. Administrator, see 515 F.Supp. at 635, we think that its discussion merely assailed the wisdom of the Speedy Trial Act. Its opinion criticizes the premise that the Legislature is better suited to regulating judicial procedure than the courts themselves. Id. at 636-37. It argues that Congress, in passing the Act, accorded too much weight to speedy criminal trials and too little weight to the burden which the Act's time limits place upon the courts and the resulting disruption of their civil dockets. See id. at 637-38. By way of example, the opinion notes that if the Act had been given effect in this case, a long-scheduled civil antitrust case would necessarily have been rescheduled-a result which the court deemed the height of judicial inefficiency and inequity. Id. at 640. 33 Under Nixon v. Administrator, the first question should be whether the prescription of speedy trial deadlines is within the constitutional authority of Congress. The district court implied that since the Sixth Amendment protects the right to a speedy trial in inexact terms, 11 Congress may not properly fix definite time limits for trial. 515 F.Supp. at 639. The Sixth Amendment, however, merely secures certain minimal trial rights against encroachment by government. In no way does it prevent Congress from according the accused more protection than the Constitution requires, nor does it preclude Congress from acting on the public's interest in speedy justice. See Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 523, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 2188, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972). Both the power of Congress to constitute inferior federal courts in which may be vested some or all of the judicial power of the United States, U.S.Const.Art. I, § 8, cl. 9, and the power to make laws deemed necessary and proper to the execution of § 8 powers vested in Congress, id. Art. I, § 8, cl. 18, would appear to authorize Congress to enact laws, such as the dismissal sanction, to enforce the time limits of the Speedy Trial Act. 34 Once it is established that trial rights are a proper subject of legislation, the question becomes whether the particular provisions of the Speedy Trial Act intrude upon the zone of judicial self-administration to such a degree as to prevent( ) the (judiciary) from accomplishing its constitutionally assigned functions. We do not think that the Act's impact upon the courts can fairly be described in such extreme terms. First, the Act qualifies its mandatory dismissal sanction for untimeliness by providing that the court may dismiss without prejudice, subject to certain criteria specified in the Act. 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2). Second, the Act excludes certain unavoidable delays from computation in the determination of speedy trial deadlines. Id. § 3161(h). Third, the Act excludes from the statutory periods delay resulting from a continuance granted by the trial court upon a finding that the ends of justice served by (the continuance) outweigh the best interests of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial. Id. § 3161(h)(8)(A). To be sure, the latter authority cannot be exercised because of general congestion of the court's calendar, id. § 3161(h)(8)(C) (emphasis added), but arguably it is available for resolving specific, temporary scheduling conflicts if the ends of justice so require. Finally, the Act permits the judicial council of a circuit to suspend the time limits imposed by the Act when a district court, due to the status of its court calendars, cannot meet the time constraints by the efficient use of existing resources. Id. § 3174. 35 As noted above, the district court indicated that it could not meet the time limits prescribed by the Act without rescheduling a complex antitrust suit, at great inconvenience to the parties, the witnesses, and the court. The record, however, does not indicate when the antitrust case began or ended. Defendant in the instant case was tried without a jury on a stipulation of facts. The trial was over in a matter of minutes, and the record does not exclude the possibility that it could have been held during a regular or special recess in the antitrust suit without unduly disrupting that trial or violating the requirements of the Speedy Trial Act. 36 Moreover, we take notice of the fact that the District of Maryland is a multi-judge court. It does not appear of record that no other judge of that court could have tried Brainer within the seventy-day period mandated by the Act. Even in a district court, which employs an individual calendar system, all judges must share responsibility for the prompt disposition of criminal cases, must employ a team approach to those cases, and, when necessary, must reassign them in order that they may be tried according to the commands of the Sixth Amendment and Criminal Rules 48(b) and 50. Hodges v. United States, 408 F.2d 543, 551-52 (8 Cir. 1969) (Blackmun, Circuit Judge). See also United States v. Fay, 505 F.2d 1037, 1041 (1 Cir. 1974); United States v. DeLeo, 422 F.2d 487, 496 (1 Cir. 1970). These comments are equally applicable to the district courts' duty under the Speedy Trial Act. 37