Opinion ID: 612988
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The January 27, 2006 and May 12, 2006 orders

Text: O'Connor next challenges an order the district court entered on January 27, 2006, continuing the trial date from May 15, 2006, to July 17, 2006, citing trial preparation as the reason and invoking the ends-of-justice provision. This continuance must be read in light of another granted earlier in the case and one that came later. At the court's October 28, 2005 status conference, the defense attorneys told the court they would need several more months to review the voluminous discovery in the case and would not be ready for trial until the spring. With the consent of counsel, the court set a trial date of May 15, 2006, and entered an ends-of-justice exclusion of all time through that date for continuity of counsel, motions and trial preparations. On January 27, 2006, the court reset the May 15 trial date to July 17, citing trial-preparation needs. Later, on May 12, 2006, the court adjourned the trial again, this time to January 22, 2007. O'Connor challenges this order as well. Five of the defense attorneys had notified the court that they would be unavailable to try the case on July 17, so the court convened a status conference on May 12 to take up their request for an adjournment. At this conference counsel advised the court that the earliest they would all be available for trial was January 2007. The court expressed concern about the length of the delay but acquiesced and rescheduled the trial for January 22, 2007. The court entered an ends-of-justice exclusion through that date, again citing trial preparation and continuity of counsel as the reasons for the continuance. Taking this context into account, we think the court made an adequate record of the reasons for the January 27 and May 12 continuances as required by § 3161(h)(7)(A). The Speedy Trial Act simply requires the court to put on the record its reasons for finding the continuance warranted[;] ... it does not require that the court recite the statutory factors or make findings as to each of them on the record. United States v. Adams, 625 F.3d 371, 380 (7th Cir.2010). We have held that the Speedy Trial Act does not require the court `to cite ... sections [of the Act] or to track the statutory language in a lengthy legal opinion,' but rather to make findings `sufficiently specific to justify a continuance[] and comport with the purposes of the Act.' Napadow, 596 F.3d at 405 (quoting United States v. Jean, 25 F.3d 588, 594 (7th Cir.1994) (alterations in Napadow )). It's clear from the transcript of the court's conferences with counsel that these continuances were based on the complexity of the case, the magnitude of the discovery, and the attorneys' schedules. Considered together, the docket entries and the transcript adequately reflect the court's reasons for allowing these two ends-of-justice continuances.