Court Opinion

ID: 9945003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-26 20:00:36.889941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:19.771215
License: Public Domain

In the
    United States Court of Appeals
                   For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________

No. 22-2470
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                   Plaintiff-Appellee,
                                 v.

LINNEL BLOUNT, JR.,
                                               Defendant-Appellant.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
           Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
            No. 19 CR 376 — Charles R. Norgle, Judge.
                     ____________________

  ARGUED FEBRUARY 21, 2024 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 26, 2024
                ____________________

   Before EASTERBROOK, BRENNAN, and KIRSCH, Circuit
Judges.
     EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. During the COVID-19 pan-
demic many federal courts, including the Northern District of
Illinois, deferred holding jury trials until it was safe for so
many participants (judge, jurors, witnesses, counsel, and oth-
ers) to assemble indoors. The court entered a series of orders,
all called General Order 20-0012, that suspended criminal jury
trials from March 17, 2020, through April 4, 2021 (with a short
2                                                    No. 22-2470

time in between during which jury trials were allowed with
restrictions to reﬂect medical recommendations). Each of
these orders stated that health and safety considerations
made trials too risky and that any resulting delay should be
treated as excludable under the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C.
§§ 3161–74. Several versions of this order expressly relied on
statements by the Centers for Disease Control and state pub-
lic-health oﬃcials.
    Linnel Blount, Jr., was indicted on drug and gun charges
in 2019. He demanded a jury trial, which was set for February
4, 2020, but postponed to March 24 at his request. General Or-
der 20-0012 prevented the holding of a jury trial on March 24,
so the district judge deferred the trial further. Over the next
year the judge excluded countable time, in the ends of justice,
under 18 U.S.C. §3161(h)(7). The judge took General Order 20-
0012 as a given and did not make independent ﬁndings.
   On March 29, 2021, as criminal jury trials were about to
resume, the parties ﬁled a joint status report asking for more
time to plan. But before a jury trial could be held, Blount
waived his jury demand and agreed to a bench trial. It com-
menced on July 26, 2021. He was convicted and sentenced to
63 months’ imprisonment. His sole argument on appeal is
that the indictment should have been dismissed under the
Speedy Trial Act, because the ends-of-justice rulings rested on
General Order 20-0012 rather than “individualized” and
“case-speciﬁc” circumstances.
    Blount’s immediate problem is that his lawyer never asked
the district court to dismiss the indictment. Under 18 U.S.C.
§3162(a)(2) such a motion is essential. See, e.g., United States
v. Littrice, 666 F.3d 1053, 1059 (7th Cir. 2012); United States v.
Gearhart, 576 F.3d 459, 462 (7th Cir. 2009). Blount’s counsel in
No. 22-2470                                                      3

the district court opposed some extensions of time and asked
for a speedy trial but did not move to dismiss. Blount’s appel-
late lawyer tries to avoid the consequences of that omission
by contending that the judge should have read between the
lines of Blount’s pro se ﬁlings to perceive a motion to dismiss.
Yet a between-the-lines approach contradicts the statute. A
motion to dismiss is essential, or it is not. Finding such a re-
quest implicit in other documents would be equivalent to say-
ing that a motion to dismiss is not essential after all. Courts
should not insist that unrepresented litigants use technical le-
gal language, but that principle does not assist a litigant who
has a lawyer yet chooses to bombard the court with pro se ﬁl-
ings anyway.
    What’s more, a district judge is not required to read the
pro se ﬁlings of a represented defendant at all, let alone read
between the lines to ﬁnd motions never made. A litigant rep-
resented by counsel, as Blount was, cannot simultaneously
represent himself. That’s called hybrid representation, which
district judges need not accept. McKaskle v. Wiggins, 465 U.S.
168, 183 (1984); United States v. Chavin, 316 F.3d 666, 671–72
(7th Cir. 2002). A judge has discretion to read and act on pro
se ﬁlings by represented litigants but is not obliged to do so.
United States v. Cross, 962 F.3d 892, 899 (7th Cir. 2020).
    Lest this conclusion set the stage for a collateral attack con-
tending that Blount’s lawyers (he had several) furnished inef-
fective assistance, we add that a motion to dismiss would not
have succeeded. The Speedy Trial Act requires a district judge
to explain why the ends of justice call for delay, and it enu-
merates factors to consider, but it does not say that judges
must recapitulate considerations that have already been es-
tablished by the court as an institution. Whether it was
4                                                     No. 22-2470

prudent to hold jury trials during segments of the pandemic
did not concern Blount’s background, his charges, or his wit-
nesses; it concerned COVID-19 and principles of epidemiol-
ogy, which do not diﬀer from one prosecution to another.
Blount did not propose to hold a jury trial over Zoom or ex-
plain how that could have worked—and the feasibility of tri-
als by video also is not defendant-speciﬁc. The reason the
ends of justice supported delay was societal, not personal.
    At least four courts of appeals have held in precedential
opinions that epidemiological considerations permitted the
delay of criminal jury trials during the height of the COVID-
19 pandemic and that district judges may rely on institutional
ﬁndings such as General Order 20-0012. See, e.g., United States
v. Pair, 84 F.4th 577, 585 (4th Cir. 2023); United States v. Leveke,
38 F.4th 662, 670 (8th Cir. 2022); United States v. Orozco-Barron,
72 F.4th 945, 958 (9th Cir. 2023); United States v. Keith, 61 F.4th
839, 851 (10th Cir. 2023). Accord, United States v. Roush, 2021
U.S. App. LEXIS 36082 (6th Cir. Dec. 7, 2021). We agree with
these decisions and add the Seventh Circuit to the list.
                                                         AFFIRMED