Court Opinion

ID: 9774023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:06:57.72769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:00.925547
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Both in its original brief and motion for rehearing, the State argues that, aside from the prosecutors assigned to the court in which the appellant was tried, the district attorney’s staff had other members who would have been ready to try the case if it had been assigned to them. It was not.
Assistant district attorney Pam Moore testified that her work in preparing the case for presentation to the grand jury was sufficient for the State to be ready for trial in the courtroom. She had previous experience as a prosecutor, but while this case was pending she was assigned to the grand jury and not to the trial of the case.
The State contends that an assistant district attorney who presents a case to a grand jury should be viewed as the prosecutor who is “ready for trial”, thus making the State “ready” within the meaning of the Speedy Trial Act. That theory, however, would render the Act meaningless from the standpoint of an indicted defendant, for every indictment would connote “readiness” by the State.
The State’s motion argues that all of its staff prosecutors are ready to try a case as soon as the grand jury returns an indictment. The administrator in charge of the district attorney’s trial section testified in support of that argument.
The trial of the case, however, was neither the function nor assignment of the administrator or the assistant district attorney who presented the matter to the grand jury.
The prosecutors whose function and duty was to try the case in the courtroom testified that they were not prepared to do so as of the time appellant claimed his rights under the Speedy Trial Act. It is those prosecutors whom the Act requires to be ready; not other staff members or administrators who theoretically might have been *127ready if only they had been given the assignment.
Appellant was arrested December 2,1980. On December 5, he was charged with possession of prohibited weapons, a felony. Instead of a pistol and container of gasoline, the “weapons” were a toy water pistol and container of water, requiring the State to abandon the felony charge. A new indictment was obtained January 27, 1981, alleging only a Class A misdemeanor, terroristic threat.
Since both the felony and misdemeanor charges arose out of the same transaction and appellant was detained in custody prior to the filing of either charge, the criminal action against him commenced at the time of his arrest. Art. 32.A.02, Sec. 2.(a).
Once a criminal action has commenced, Section 1 of the Act requires the State to be ready for trial within:
(1) 120 days if the defendant is accused of a felony;
(2) 90 days if accused of a Class A misdemeanor;
(3) 60 days if accused of a Class B misdemeanor.
The State’s motion for rehearing reasons that the time period applicable to any case depends upon the category of the charge against the defendant when the criminal action commences; not the category of charge upon which the defendant is to be tried and from which he seeks relief under the Speedy Trial Act. We do not ascribe that intent to the Act.
A significant purpose of the Act is to establish a means by which a defendant may obtain dismissal of the charges on which the State seeks to try him, if the State is not ready within the time prescribed. Since the target of a “speedy trial dismissal motion” is the indictment, information, or complaint under which the defendant is accused, we do not construe his rights as being dependent upon charges previously abandoned and on which the State never sought a trial.
This court concluded that each of the time periods prescribed in Section 1 of the Act pertains only to the indictment, information, or complaint on which the State seeks to try the case at the time the defendant asserts his right to speedy trial; not those previously dismissed or abandoned by the State.
In the instant case, the State sought trial on a Class A misdemeanor charge. The 90-day time period was applicable.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.