Court Opinion

ID: 9467319
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:45:25.798439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:17.326738
License: Public Domain

*1116HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
Ordinarily, I think it inappropriate for judges to write in support of losing votes for an en banc rehearing. The situation presented here, however, is not ordinary, for the question which five of the ten judges in regular active service sought to have the en banc court consider has never been addressed in any of the panel opinions. In this very extraordinary case, I think the parties and the public are entitled to know the question which five of the judges sought to have argued before, and determined by, the full court.
Of course, preindictment delay may be relevant to a Fifth Amendment claim of deprivation of due process. That is true whether or not there had been an earlier indictment or arrest which had been terminated by dismissal or release. The relevance of such an interval between two separate proceedings to a Sixth Amendment claim of denial of a speedy trial, however, has never been adjudicated by this court. I would prefer not to express what may appear to be a considered opinion of it without plenary consideration of it by the full court, but denial of the rehearing forecloses that possibility. My tentative agreement with the position of the United States in its petition for rehearing was sufficiently firm, however, to prompt me to request a poll of the court on the suggestion of rehearing en banc and to vote for it.
Under these circumstances, it seems to me appropriate for Judges Russell, Widener, Hall and Phillips to give expression to their views and for me to file this tentative addendum in agreement with them that the interval between Dr. MacDonald’s release by the Army and his later indictment is irrelevant to a consideration of his Sixth Amendment claim.