Opinion ID: 3051380
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Delays Before the First Trial

Text: Lewis’s first trial began on February 20, 2001 — two years, four months, and nineteen days after his initial arraignment. This total period of delay accumulated through a series of smaller distinct periods of delay, nearly all of which occurred over Lewis’s objection. At Lewis’s October 1998 arraignment, his first counsel, Peter Robinson, requested that the case be declared complex and sought additional time for trial preparation. At the same hearing, the government alerted the district court that “the UNITED STATES v. LEWIS 2421 main defendant, Mr. Wong, has been apprehended in Mexico. He is represented by a U.S. attorney. He may waive extradition, so we may have him back here in the not too distant future.” The court granted the continuance on the basis of complexity, a ground that is excluded from inclusion in the seventy-day time-frame in which a defendant’s trial must begin under the STA. See 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(8). On February 11, 1999, Lewis notified the district court that he was ready for trial, and requested his trial date to be set within the seventy days mandated by the STA. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1). Wong, however, still had not been extradited from Mexico. The government asked for an additional thirty days to pursue that effort and the district court granted the request over Lewis’s objection. The STA also excludes from the seventy day time-frame a reasonable period of delay when a defendant is joined for trial with a co-defendant. See 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7). A month later, on March 18, 1999, Lewis asked the court to set April 19, 1999 as the trial date. Government counsel objected to the date, stating to the court that he “can’t predict how quickly [the officials handling Wong’s extradition] are going to move. I can only indicate to the court that they have been very quick in resolving the status of his extraditability to this country.” The court set June 7, 1999 as the trial date, with pre-trial motions to be heard on May 6, 1999. On April 15, 1999, the government filed another motion for continuance on the basis that Wong had still not been extradited. Lewis objected and argued that the government had shown repeated inaccuracy as to the speed with which Wong could be extradited. To jump-start the trial, Lewis informed the court that he would be willing to stipulate to essentially all the complex factual and legal issues related to Wong so that it would be unnecessary to try the two defendants together. 2422 UNITED STATES v. LEWIS At the same time, the government filed an additional motion requesting permission to present Morrison’s testimony non-sequentially. The STA excludes delay “resulting from any pretrial motion.” 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1)(F). This motion would remain pending for twenty months. During a May 6, 1999 hearing, the court granted the government’s motion for continuance, and re-scheduled the trial for September 20, 1999. The court granted this motion on the bases of complexity and Wong’s continuing absence. The government filed a second superseding indictment on June 14, 1999, joining two co-conspirators as defendants. The addition of these co-defendants resulted in an additional delay of the trial, and on August 11, 1999, the court granted a further continuation on that basis. The court granted this continuation over the objection of Lewis’s counsel, who informed the court that he would be moving on August 1, 2000 to the Netherlands to begin work with the International War Crimes Tribunal. Further delay, he warned the court, might force him to withdraw as counsel. The court at this time also declined to hear an oral motion by Lewis to sever his trial from his co-defendants, requesting written motion papers instead. On December 27, 1999, Lewis complied by filing a written motion to sever. The district court rejected the motion and re-scheduled the trial for July 3, 2000. That following May, one of the co-defendants submitted a motion to continue the trial for sixty days. Lewis objected and renewed his motion to sever, in part because of his counsel’s impending move to Europe. On June 8, 2000, the court heard the motions, denied Lewis’s motion to sever and granted the continuance. Lewis’s counsel withdrew from the case. Without the years of background and preparation possessed by the first counsel, Lewis’s new attorney requested additional time UNITED STATES v. LEWIS 2423 to organize himself for trial. The new trial date was set for January 22, 2001. The government successfully extradited Wong on August 30, 2000. He subsequently pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government against Lewis. Lewis moved to dismiss the indictments due to violations of the STA. The court denied the motion, finding that only twenty eight days between the arraignment and the motion were not properly excludable under the statute. Of the two years Lewis spent waiting for trial to that point, the court found twenty months excludable under the statute due to the government’s pending motion to allow Agent Morrison to testify non-sequentially.