Opinion ID: 1673940
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: statutory right to a trial within 270 days

Text: Section 99-17-1 of the Mississippi Code requires that a defendant be tried within 270 days after arraignment, [u]nless good cause be shown... . Miss. Code Ann. § 99-17-1 (Supp. 1991). In Vickery v. State , this Court noted that continuances for good cause toll the running of the 270-day period, unless the record is silent regarding the reason for delay, and then the clock ticks against the State because the State bears the risk of non-persuasion on the good cause issue. Vickery v. State, 535 So.2d 1371, 1375 (Miss. 1988); Nations v. State, 481 So.2d 760, 761 (Miss. 1985). Good cause had been held to include congested trial court dockets, under certain circumstances. Williamson v. State, 512 So.2d 868, 876 (Miss. 1987). And, the Court pointed out in Vickery that continuances which are granted to the defendant stop the running of the clock and are deducted from the total number of days before trial. Vickery v. State, 535 So.2d 1371, 1376 (Miss. 1988). As already noted, the defendant himself contributed to the delay in the commencement of his trial. Polk was arraigned on May 5, 1989, and filed a motion for change of venue on May 19, 1989. The motion was not granted until sometime in late August, as Polk conceded; however, a formal order was not entered by the trial court until January 23, 1990. Nonetheless, on August 30, 1989, Polk moved to hold a Frye hearing on the DNA evidence. The lower court set the hearing as soon as the docket allowed, which was on January 8, 1990, and a formal order was entered on February 26, 1990. The fourteen days before Polk's motion for a change of venue was filed should definitely count against the State in calculating the number of days before Polk was brought to trial. However, the time between the filing of the motion and the resolution of that issue is a delay attributable to the defendant, and that time is deducted from the total. Even if the clock began to run after the informal decision to grant Polk's motion for a change of venue, in late August, 1989, the clock stopped again when Polk requested a Frye hearing on the admissibility of forensic DNA analysis, on August 30, 1989. The clock started once again at the conclusion of that hearing, then, on January 8, 1990, and the trial was started on March 5, 1990  well within the 270-day limit set by statute. Because the words of the statute are plain, we need look no further. The State met its burden of proving that the delays were for good cause, as required by the statute and interpreted by this Court. The third assignment of error raised by Polk is, likewise, without merit.