Court Opinion

ID: 9854088
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:00:34.359019+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:55.044396
License: Public Domain

Justice ExuM
dissenting.
While I agree with almost all the majority says about the speedy trial issue, I respectfully disagree with the conclusion *55drawn from what is said. Defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure of the State to provide him a speedy trial under Amendments VI and XIV to the United States Constitution and Section 18, Article I, of the North Carolina Constitution should have been allowed.
I agree with the majority that upon defendant’s showing of a delay of eighteen months, it was incumbent upon the State to present “evidence, preferably through the district attorney, fully explaining the reasons for the delay.” I agree, too, that the factor of waiver also weighs in defendant’s favor inasmuch as he made demand early in the proceedings against him for trial.
The factor of prejudice, I believe, weighs neither in favor of nor against defendant. It is true that he could not name the witnesses whom he claimed, were unavailable or relate what their testimony might be; nor did he say what efforts were made to have them present. He seems to attribute, however, these very inabilities to the long lapse of time saying in effect that because of it the witnesses had “moved away and can’t be contacted” and that his own memory of the occasion-had largely faded. He must have suffered at least from prolonged anxiety, public distrust and, more specifically, distrust by those in whose custody he was held on unrelated charges — these being some of the things which, the majority recognizes, a speedy trial is designed to avoid.
Only one factor — the reason for the delay — ia left to weigh against defendant on his motion. Because the State failed to come forward with any adequate reason, as was incumbent upon it to do upon defendant’s showing, defendant’s motion should have been allowed.
The majority circumvents this failure of the prosecution below by judicially noticing certain statistical data from the Administrative Office of the Courts. I agree that this data may be judicially noticed, but I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the data demonstrates “the district attorney did not negligently or arbitrarily delay trying defendant. . . .” At most the data shows that the District Attorney was busy in Watauga County during the pendency of this prosecution and fully utilized the time available to him. The question, though, is not whether he was busy, generally, but why he did not busy himself with the case against this defendant. Had the District *56Attorney relied at trial upon the information judicially noticed by the majority, and shown further that he reasonably gave the matters which he did handle precedence over defendant’s case, I would have no quarrel with denying the motion for a speedy trial. The District Attorney might have shown, for example, that the cases to which he gave preference were older than defendant’s, or that they involved people in jail because of charges pending against them in Watauga County, or that they involved witnesses or other evidence which if not promptly utilized may not later be available. There could be other various reasons why the cases he did dispose of should have been handled before defendant’s. The point is that no such reasons appear in this record and the statistical data relied on by the majority does not supply them.