Court Opinion

ID: 9611831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:00:49.262806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:37.136340
License: Public Domain

CONNOR and RABINOWTTZ, JJ.,
joining, dissenting in part.
While the extent of the majority holding is unclear, it applies Glasgow v. State, 469 P.2d 682 (Alaska 1970), retroactively, at least to the case at bar. Although the majority would leave the matter thus — in apparent uncertainty — I believe that in fairness to all concerned this court should take a position on the extent of Glasgow’s retroactive application. It is for this reason that although I concur in Parts I and II of the majority opinion, I cannot subscribe to its retroactive application of Glasgow and must, therefore, dissent from Part III and the court’s judgment.
In deciding whether a decision of this court will be applied retroactively, three factors must be weighed: “(a) the purpose to be served by the new standards; (b) the extent of the reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards; and (c) the effect on the administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new standards.” Judd v. State, 482 P.2d 273, 278 (Alaska 1971). On this my brothers and I are agreed. It is only in the use of these criteria that we differ.
I
The standards announced in Glasgow comprehend several purposes. The integrity of the truth-finding process is only one of these purposes, and it is hardly the paramount consideration in enforcing the right to speedy trial.1 Other important goals are the prevention of prolonged pretrial incarceration and the minimizing of the anxiety and insecurity inflicted upon accused persons by long-standing charges.2 An additional purpose, not mentioned in Glasgow as such, is to check oppressive action by public officials which may occur through deliberately withholding a criminal trial. Of these purposes, only one could relate to the integrity of the conviction, and even then not in every case.
A failure to honor the other purposes underlying the speedy trial guarantee may be deleterious on distinct public policy bases, but a conviction obtained after such a tardy trial may be just as relible as one which occurs through prompt adjudication.
A lack of speedy trial does not in all cases affect the reliability of the conviction. In some cases, of course, it may have that effect. In numerous cases it would be impossible to determine. In other cases the critical evidence of guilt may consist of documentary evidence, objectively developed scientific evidence, or circumstantial evidence which has been amassed through meticulous procedures. Even the direct testimony of witnesses may be verifiable because their memories were recorded contemporaneously with the observed events. In all of these cases the mere lapse of time is of no discernible importance.
The possibility of faded memory is, therefore, only one of the many aspects presented by the lack of a speedy trial. In some cases the time of trial may have no appreciable effect upon the fairness of the truth-finding process. In still other instances delay may actually work in favor of the accused, not to his detriment.
It should be remembered that the state must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Delay of trial may not only weaken memory, it may render witnesses less appealing, harder to locate, and less inclined to implicate the accused. For these reasons, defendants frequently find it advan*957tageous to accede to prosecutorial delay. Nor is the accused entirely without means for protecting his case from the effects of delay. He and his counsel can interview witnesses and otherwise gather evidence while the charges are still fresh.
In short, it cannot safely be assumed that mere lapse of time will necessarily render convictions unreliable. This is particularly true in the case before us, where little over a year elapsed between charge and trial. In countless similar cases convictions have been obtained without the suggestion being advanced that delay alone rendered the integrity of the truth-finding process questionable.
II
Reliance by law enforcement officials and the judiciary on pre-Glasgow doctrine was probably much greater than the majority opinion implies. One examining the authorities might well have concluded, in good faith, that Goss v. State, 390 P.2d 220 (Alaska 1964), and the principles set forth therein were still good law. Goss was, of course, the law of this state until it was overruled in relevant part by Glasgow on May 29, 1970. Moreover, under Knudsen v. City of Anchorage, 358 P.2d 375, 377-380 (Alaska 1960) it was reasonable to conclude that this court felt itself bound in interpreting Article I, Section 11 of the Alaska Constitution 3 to give an accused no greater rights than had previously been given by the United States Supreme Court in construing the Sixth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.4 This holding of Knudsen was likewise overruled in Glasgow.5
Some eight months previously this court had partially overruled Knudsen in holding a defendant had the right to the presence of his counsel while police took a handwriting sample from him, a step the United States Supreme Court had been unwilling to take. Roberts v. State, 458 P.2d 340, 342 (Alaska 1969).6 Yet, considering what had been the peculiarly dormant nature of the right to speedy trial, even a particularly perceptive legal scholar might well have failed to anticipate the degree to which this court would make the right to speedy trial more meaningful in the Glasgow decision. One might still have believed Goss and the discernible federal authorities binding. Moreover, the language in Roberts is permissive, not mandatory. The opinion merely holds that we may, not that we necessarily will, employ more rigorous standards than required by the United States Supreme Court.
The right to speedy trial had received scant attention from the United States Supreme Court prior to Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213, 87 S.Ct. 988, 18 L. Ed.2d 1 (1967).7 As Mr. Justice Brennan *958stated recently, “[W]e have yet even to trace its contours.” Dickey v. Florida, 398 U.S. 30, 40-41, 90 S.Ct. 1564, 26 L.Ed.2d 26, 34 (1970) (concurring opinion). Klop-fer, which in 1967 for the first time applied the right to speedy trial through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the states, concerned the constitutionality of a particular application of an unusual North Carolina criminal procedural device denominated a “nolle prose-qui with leave.” 8 In this state there is no procedure even remotely analogous. The only other case decided by the United States Supreme Court prior to Glasgow was Smith v. Hooey, 393 U.S. 374, 89 S.Ct. 575, 21 L.Ed.2d 607 (1969). That case concerned a six-year delay during which the defendant, imprisoned in another state, made repeated demands to be brought to trial in the forum state. The facts of that case were sufficiently unlike those in Glasgow as to provide little guidance for judges or counsel. It is only by looking to the spirit of Klopfer, Smith v. Hooey, and other significant constitutional decisions, discussed in Glasgow, that one can piece together the various sources which underlie the Glasgow decision.
One examining the pre-Glasgow law on this subject might well have been lulled into a false sense of security about the urgency of the speedy trial guarantee in Alaska. I would, therefore, hold that there was considerable probability of justifiable reliance by courts and law enforcement officials on pre-existing principles, abandoned or overruled in Glasgow v. State.
Ill
If Glasgow v. State is interpreted as fully retroactive on the precedential basis of this case, the most serious aspect of the majority’s opinion will be its implications for the administration of justice.9 The results of a retroactive application of Glasgow are not hard to imagine. The effect would be to bestow an unexpected windfall upon a number of ill-deserving convicted felons. If the lack of a speedy trial under Glasgow standards goes to the integrity of the guilt determination, there is little alternative but to grant post-conviction relief to anyone who was not in times past afforded a constitutionally speedy trial. In applying the results of today’s holding, we may end up reaching back many years, to a time when the speedy trial guarantee was ill-defined, and, relatively speaking, often slighted. The consequence of today’s holding may well be to free various persons who were legally convicted many years ago under constitutional standards then obtaining. Moreover, this gratuitous liberation would be accomplished without regard to the actual guilt of the defendants or the strength and cogency of the evidence produced against them at trial. I cannot join in the creation of such a doctrine.
While Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963) is indeed fully retroactive, see, e. g., Kitchens v. Smith, 401 U.S. 847, 91 S.Ct. 1089, 28 L.Ed.2d 519 (1971), this has resulted only in new trials for indigents previously denied their right to counsel. While, to be sure, in some cases in which the trials occurred long ago, retrial will be impossible and dismissal will be the inevitable result, even this is a far cry from the foreseeable consequences of today’s holding. In Glasgow the remedy selected was dismissal of the indictment, with prejudice. Reprosecu- *959' tion was totally barred. The effect of such a holding is clearly more drastic, in terms of freeing convicted felons on grounds totally irrelevant to the adequacy of the evidence against them, than was Gideon.
It is for such reasons that “the effect on the administration of justice” is one of the recognized criteria for determining retro-activity in constitutional adjudication. If the law is to grow, new principles must be nurtured and older ones must be abandoned. The technique of prospective overruling permits orderly progress in the law. The unsettling effect of new doctrine is cushioned by limiting the retroactive operation of newly formed rules. In the case before us I can find no reason for possibly vacating, on a haphazard basis, the criminal convictions of numerous persons who in fact may have suffered scant, if any, injury.
For these reasons I must dissent from Part III of the majority decision. Since the vast majority of the delay in this case occurred prior to the date of the decision in Glasgow v. State, supra, I would affirm appellant’s conviction.

. If integrity of the truth-finding process were the primary aim, the statutes of limitation, which limit the time within which a criminal charge must be brought, might have to be declared unconstitutional. This would follow from the fact that the period for speedy trial laid down in Glasgow is much shorter than that permitted for bringing a criminal charge under the statutes of limitation. In Alaska the general statute of limitation is 5 years. AS 12.10.010

. Glasgow v. State, 469 P.2d 682, 685 (Alaska 1970).

. “In all criminal prosecutions, tlie accused shall have the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of twelve, except that the legislature may provide for a jury of not more than twelve nor less than six in courts not of record. The accused is entitled to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be released on bail, except for capital offenses when the proof is evident or the presumption great; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

. “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusations; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

. Glasgow v. State, 469 P.2d 682, 686 (Alaska 1970).

. Much, but not all, of the remaining holding of Knudsen was subsequently overruled in Baker v. City of Fairbanks, 471 P.2d 386, 398-401 (Alaska 1970). But of. Hanby v. State, 479 P.2d 486, 489 n. 6 (Alaska 1970).

. Prior to 1967 but three cases in that Court had dealt at any length with the speedy trial guarantee. United States *958v. Ewell, 383 U.S. 116, 86 S.Ct. 773, 15 L.Ed.2d 627 (1966); Pollard v. United States, 352 U.S. 354, 77 S.Ct. 481, 1 L. Ed.2d 393 (1957) ; Beavers v. Haubert, 198 U.S. 77, 25 S.Ct. 573, 49 L.Ed. 950 (1905).

. This procedure is defined and discussed at some length by the Court in Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213, 214-216, 87 S.Ct. 988, 18 L.Ed.2d 1, 3-4 (1967).

. Although the majority opinion fails to set forth the limits of Glasgow’s retro-activity, I cannot in good faith ignore the suggestion that Glasgow; ought to be fully retroactive. While the following discussion concerns full retroactivity in order to indicate graphically the effect of such a holding, it must be borne in mind that a more limited retroactive application will merely reduce the deleterious consequences; not eliminate them.