Court Opinion

ID: 9461986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:29:15.929081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:20.991633
License: Public Domain

WILKEY, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the result reached as to all defendants and in the opinion of the court as I understand it. For the precedential value this case may have in the future, I do wish to state my understanding of the holding of the court in regard to the six defendants who were indicted both in Florida and previously in the District of Columbia.
The critical reason the court finds that the prosecution for these defendants must be dismissed for denial of speedy trial is the unconscionable delay between the dismissal of the indictment here and the new indictment in Florida:
Since we hold that the decision to dismiss in the District of Columbia and begin the case anew in Florida was dictated by tactics and not by necessity the government must be charged with these nine months of delay. In short, without laboring the matter or making further reference to computations of time, we hold that as to the defendants who were named in the District of Columbia indictments there was unnecessary and unconscionable delay for which the government was responsible.
The Government had apparently resolved to bring the case in another jurisdiction at the time it sought from Judge Gesell dismissal without prejudice of the indictment. The prosecutors who had twice presented the case to grand juries in the District of Columbia were presumably thoroughly familiar with the case; they could have been named special assistants to the Attorney General, been sent to Florida, and presented the case to a grand jury in that District within a week. Later, after thorough preparation local Assistant U. S. Attorneys could have prosecuted at trial. There was no need whatsoever for a nine-month delay for prosecutors in Florida to familiarize themselves with the facts of this difficult and complicated case.
This is not to say that in every case the date of the first indictment is the initial measuring point for speedy trial purposes. There could, for example, be a bona fide dismissal followed by a reindictment after discovery of important new evidence, in which event I would think the time for speedy trial would not run from the date of the first charge. But here all indictments seem to be linked, with nothing new except additional defendants, so it is not unfair to hold the Government should have continued without interruption once it began.
If the opinion of this court holds that the prosecution was unjustified in “court shopping,” I do not agree with this portion of the opinion. The trial judge knew the Government intended to bring a similar case in another jurisdiction, and did not think it improper. To me it was entirely a responsible and wise act for the Government, faced with the “deteriorating health” of one of its principal witnesses because of multiple gunshot wounds, to move this case to the more salubrious climate of Florida. And, the “unreliable witness” may have become more reliable once removed from these environs. Before and after the time of *467these indictments there were other cases in the District of Columbia in which a number of witnesses had to be protected from assassination, one or two unsuccessfully, and some judges were likewise afforded armed protection. If the prosecution felt that their witnesses could be protected better in Florida or at least would feel less intimidated once away from the District of Columbia, I think it was in the public interest for the prosecution to move the case there. The Government’s fault, in my judgment, lies solely in the fact that they did not move swiftly enough once the decision was reached.