Opinion ID: 1990859
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Second Excludable Period: October 6, 2004, to August 14, 2006 (678 days)

Text: On September 27, 2004, the district court entered an order setting the case for trial commencing on November 8. On October 5, Williams filed a motion for continuance. Williams filed other motions as well, and the trial was originally rescheduled to begin on February 7, 2005, [b]y agreement of the parties. Williams filed additional motions for continuance and other motions in 2005 and 2006. He contends that these motions resulted in an excludable period of 614 days, ending on June 12, 2006, when a pretrial hearing was held and trial was set to commence on September 5. We disagree with Williams' reasoning regarding the end of this excludable period. At a hearing on November 21, 2005, Williams' counsel made an oral motion for a continuance due to the continued unavailability of a key defense witness who resided in another state. Williams confirmed that he was asking for the continuance. Counsel could not provide a specific date when the witness would be available, but agreed to give the judge a timeline regarding the process of serving the witness with a subpoena in another state. The court granted the indefinite continuance. We agree with the reasoning of the Court of Appeals in State v. Dailey [43] which was derived from our holding in State v. Andersen, [44] that when a defendant has sought and obtained an indefinite continuance, it is his or her affirmative duty to end the continuance by giving notice of request for trial. Otherwise, the court can end the continuance by setting a trial date or specifically ordering that the continuance has ended. When the court ends an indefinite continuance by setting a trial date, the excludable period resulting from the indefinite continuance ends on the date set for trial and not the date on which the trial date is set. [45] We find no indication in the record that Williams took affirmative action to end the indefinite continuance prior to the court's order of June 12, 2006. Applying the foregoing reasoning, we conclude that the excludable period which began on the day immediately following the filing of Williams' initial motion for continuance on October 5, 2004, did not end on June 12, 2006, when the court set a trial date. Rather, the excludable period was ongoing as of August 14, when Williams filed a motion to dismiss on speedy trial grounds, thus commencing a third excludable period. We therefore conclude that the second excludable period began on October 6, 2004, and ended on August 14, 2006, a period of 678 days. Because the second and third excludable periods overlap, we include August 14, 2006, in our count of the number of days in the second excludable period only.