Court Opinion

ID: 9461114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:06:06.528626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:53.803366
License: Public Domain

Chief Judge BAZELON:
I fully concur in Judge Solomon’s well' reasoned opinion. I simply wish to add a word, however, about the government’s failure to comply with Rule 46(g) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The failure to file pretrial detention reports represents an unwarranted rejection of a mechanism designed to insure that the cases of incarcerated defendants are not ignored or forgotten in the administration of criminal justice.
Rule 46(g) provides in pertinent part that:
The attorney for the government shall make a bi-weekly report to the court listing each defendant . . . who has been held in custody pending indictment, arraignment or trial for a period in excess of ten days. . As to each defendant so listed the attorney for the government shall make a statement of the reasons why the defendant is still held in custody.
The Rule is intended to serve as an automatic means by which the attention of the U. S. Attorney and the trial court is focused on lagging cases in which defendants are incarcerated and, of particular importance, on the reasons why *258each defendant is still in custody.1 Compliance with the Rule would help both the trial court and the U. S. Attorney to fulfill their joint responsibility “for the expeditious trial of criminal cases.” Barker v.. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 527 fn. 27, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 2190, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (quoting Hodges v. United States, 408 F.2d 543, 551 (8th Cir. 1969)). For instance, Rule 46(g) reports would encourage trial judges with congested calendars to transfer cases of incarcerated defendants to other judges. Similarly, with regular Rule 46(g) reports the U. S. Attorney’s office could legitimately be expected to place priority on the preparation of those cases in which defendants had been incarcerated for extended periods of time.2
In this case, the failure of the responsible government officials to file the required reports left West with the entire burden of calling attention to his need for a speedy trial.3 As the court today makes clear, this is a burden that the majority of defendants can simply not be expected to bear. Because they are unschooled, most may not even be aware of their rights under the Sixth Amendment, much less of the complex doctrines that have grown out of the courts’ interpretation of that amendment. The failure to file Rule 46(g) reports greatly increases the chances that some defendants, because indigent and ignorant, will effectively be denied the protection of the Sixth Amendment. This is fundamentally at odds with the spirit both of the Constitution and of elementary fairness. As the Supreme Court noted in Barker v. Wingo, “The right to ‘a speedy . . . trial’ ... is not to be honored only for the vigilant and the knowledgeable.” 407 U.S. at 527, fn. 27, 92 S.Ct. at 2190 (quoting Hodges v. United States, 408 F.2d 543, 551 (8th Cir. 1969)). Nor, might I add, should it be honored only for those defendants fortunate enough to have dedicated and competent counsel.

. As noted in Judge Solomon’s opinion, page 255 supra, the D.C.Code provides that the Distriet of Columbia Bail Agency as well as the Tí. S. Attorney play a role in the preparation of the Rule 46(g) reports. The fact that the responsibility may be a shared one of course makes the absence of the reports no more justifiable.

. In Barker v. Wingo, the Supreme Court recognized the special prejudice suffered by incarcerated defendants:
The time spent in jail awaiting trial has a detrimental impact on the individual. It often means loss of a job; it disrupts family life; and it enforces idleness. Most jails offer little or no recreational or rehabilitative programs. The time spent in jail is simply dead time.
407 U.S. 532-533, 92 S.Ct. 2193 (1972).

. Only after the period of West’s incarceration did the U. S. Marshal and the Clerk’s Office of the District Court begin their practice, pursuant to Local District Court Rule 2-7(e), of preparing a biweekly jail list. Rule 2-7(e) provides in part that:
At all arraignments and on every other Monday thereafter the United States Mar-slial shall provide each judge with the names of all defendants before him that are being held in jail, the reasons for this confinement, and the length of this confinement.
On inquiry, this court was informed that the jail lists that are actually prepared indicate the names of defendants held, their status (e. g. the date on which trial has been set), and their dates of indictment and commitment. Currently, the lists are prepared by the Clerk’s Office of the District Court.
In two respects these jail lists appear to be inadequate substitutes for the reports mandated by Rule 46(g). First, they do not fulfill Rule 46(g)’s requirement that there be provided “a statement of reasons why the defendant is still held in custody.” Secondly, we have learned on inquiry that the U. S. Attorney’s Office — required to prepare the reports under Rule 46(g) — does not even receive copies of the Rule 2-7(e) jail list from the Clerk’s Office. The II. S. Attorney is in a peculiarly well-suited position to hurry cases toward trial but is apparently still without the regular notice which Rule 46(g) compels him to take as to which cases most need expediting.