Court Opinion

ID: 9479009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:05:56.346726+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:46.474317
License: Public Domain

SELYA, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I join in Parts II, IY and V of Judge Bownes’s opinion and concur in the court’s judgment. Yet, I write separately as to one aspect of Part III, because I cannot and do not subscribe to the view that, in ordinary circumstances, a defendant’s voluntary ingestion of drugs excuses his absence from trial. I fear that my colleagues overstate the defendant’s prerogatives in such a situation, and understate his responsibilities.
Fed.R.Crim.P. 43(b)(1), quoted ante note 2, was promulgated specifically “to prevent an accused from defying with impunity the process of th[e] law, ... paralyzing the proceedings of courts and juries ... [and] turning them into a solemn farce.” United States v. Peterson, 524 F.2d 167, 184 (4th Cir.1975). The defiance which the rule seeks to interdict can be indirect as well as direct: just as one who flees waives the right to be present at trial, one who acts voluntarily in reckless disregard of the requirement that he appear must be held to the same standard of waiver. In either event, there is a deliberate action resulting in a deliberate absence which “indicates nothing less than an intention to obstruct the orderly processes of justice.” United States v. Tortora, 464 F.2d 1202, 1208 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1063, 93 S.Ct. 554, 34 L.Ed.2d 516 (1972); cf. Irons v. F.B.I., 811 F.2d 681, 686-87 (1st Cir.1987) (discussing waiver implied by conduct). In the same way that voluntary ingestion of drugs has been held not to render an accused incompetent to stand trial, e.g., United States v. Newman, 733 F.2d 1395, 1401 (10th Cir.1984); Manley v. United States, 396 F.2d 699, 700 n. 2 (5th Cir.1968), ultro-neous drug use should not be available as the linchpin for claims of involuntary absence from trial. When nonattendance results from controllable circumstance, waiver should generally follow.3
In a nutshell, I agree wholeheartedly with Justice Brennan that “there can be no doubt whatever that the governmental prerogative to proceed with a trial may not be defeated by conduct of the accused that prevents the trial from going forward.” Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 349, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1063, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring), quoted with approval in Taylor v. United States, 414 U.S. 17, 20, 94 S.Ct. 194, 196, 38 L.Ed.2d 174 (1973) (per curiam). While the court must inquire as to whether defendant’s absence from trial was intended or unintended — a defendant’s unforeseen allergic reaction to newly prescribed medication, for example, would be involuntary, whereas a purposeful overdose of the same medication would be a deliberate attempt to abuse the judicial process, and voluntary — I, unlike my brethren, tend to think absence arising out of a defendant’s volitional midtrial ingestion of drugs likely “voluntar[y]” within the meaning of Fed.R.Crim.P. 43(b)(1).
Notwithstanding the foregoing, I do not doubt that the district court abused its discretion on this occasion. For reasons *866which Judge Bownes skillfully details, ante at 859-860, the trial judge was too quick on the trigger. From aught that appears, the prosecution would have suffered no cognizable harm had the court taken a reasonable amount of time — say, one day — in attempting to pinpoint the defendant’s whereabouts. And on the facts of this case, the failure to grant Latham an evi-dentiary hearing to explain his absence was clearly erroneous. For these reasons — and not because I am willing to assume that a defendant’s absence from his trial because he purposely ingested drugs is likely to be considered “involuntary” — I agree that a new trial is appropriate on the conspiracy count. Accordingly, I concur in the judgment of the court.

. The majority finds it "make[s] no sense” that a defendant would voluntarily ingest enough cocaine to cause his hospitalization in order to avoid or delay his trial. Ante at 858. While this may not be the act of a prudent person (after all, "man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions,” Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, Vol. I, No. 408 (1820)), it may have made perfect sense to the defendant. The reported cases show that defendants have attempted a variety of delaying tactics over the years, some potentially life-threatening. See, e.g., United States v. Barton, 647 F.2d 224 (2d Cir.) (defendant underwent medically necessary but non-emergency surgery immediately before trial), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 857, 102 S.Ct. 307, 70 L.Ed.2d 152 (1981); United States v. Pastor, 557 F.2d 930 (2d Cir.1977) (defendant intentionally waited several hours before seeking medical attention for alleged heart attack in order to frustrate trial); People v. Rogers, 150 Cal.App.2d 403, 309 P.2d 949 (1957) (defendant either feigned or induced insulin shock in order to delay trial). Without the benefit of an eviden-tiary hearing, of course, we cannot know the particulars of Latham’s case.