Court Opinion

ID: 9519575
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:18:58.832444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:30.568122
License: Public Domain

Boslaugh, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the decision in this case solely upon the ground of a lack of prejudice to the defendant. However, in view of the fact that the defendant has already ■been in jail for 311 days, the sentence of 1 year’s im*192prisonment in the Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex is excessive and I would reduce the sentence to 2 months’ imprisonment in the county jail of Thayer County, Nebraska. See §§ 28-532 and 29-2308, R. R. S. 1943; Haney v. State, 119 Neb. 862, 228 N. W. 939.
McC'own, Spencer, and Smith, JJ.
An indigent 18-year-old youth, never convicted of a felony, who had never served any time in jail before, was charged with breaking and entering. He was confined in the county jail for 311 days without trial. He was confined in jail 268 days before counsel was appointed for him. During that period of time his requests for appointment of counsel were resisted by the county attorney, and denied by the court on the ground that his parents were not indigent. He remained in jail for 259 days after arraignment before trial. These events took place in Thayer County, Nebraska, where the docket is not crowded and the State offers no excuse for the delay.
The statutory minimum sentence to the Penal and Correctional Complex for this offense was one year. The defendant was sentenced to one year in the Penal and Correctional Complex, which was in addition to the 311 days he had already spent in jail. There was, at that time, no statutory authority for the sentencing court or the Director of Corrections to credit the time already spent in jail on a sentence to the Penal and Correctional Complex. That situation has now been corrected insofar as the Director of Corrections is concerned. See L..B. 1307, § 37(1), 1969 Legislative Session, effective August 25, 1969. We find no authorization as yet for the sentencing court to give credit for jail time where a minimum sentence to the Penal and Correctional Complex is required and imposed.
In Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U. S. 213, 87 S. Ct. 988, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1967), the Supreme Court said: "We hold here that the right to a speedy trial is as fundamental as any of the rights secured by the Sixth Amend*193ment. That right has its roots at the very foundation of our English law heritage.” Admittedly, the dimensions of the right to a speedy trial must be largely determined by the facts and circumstances of each individual case. It should be pointed out also that the impact of the constitutional requirement is vitally affected where the defendant is in jail rather than free on bail.
The opinion supporting the conviction and sentence here relies heavily on section 29-1202, R. R. S. 1943, which fixes two terms of court as the maximum period after which the defendant is entitled to be discharged for want of a speedy trial. That section has remained completely unchanged at least since 1873. See G. S. 1873, p. 813. In 1873, however, terms of court were set by statute. Terms of court within the first Judicial District in 1873 varied from one year, as in Thiayer County, to three a year in Otoe County. See G. S. 1873, p. 258. In 1873, a defendant arraigned on August 28, in Thayer County would not have been entitled to statutory discharge -until June 1876, while in Otoe County, he would have been entitled to discharge in March 1874. Such inequity and lack of uniformity continue today.
In 1875, the new Constitution provided that times of holding court should be fixed by the judges of the district courts until otherwise provided by law. Constitution of 1875, Article XVI, § 26. The current statute requires judges of the district court in the last two months of each year to fix the time of holding terms of court during the ensuing year. § 24-303, R. R. S. 1943. There is no limitation as to the number or frequency of terms. Section 24-505, R. R. S. 1943, requires county courts to hold a regular term of court each calendar month for the trial of civil cases. We have held that this statute does not fix terms of court for criminal cases on the issue of a speedy trial. See State v. Bruns, 181 Neb. 67, 146 N. W. 2d 786.
We are advised that in 1968, the terms of the district court in Thayer County were February 21 and Sep*194tember 11; and in 1969, were February 19 and September 17. We are also advised that there are some district courts holding only one term of court per year. Information is not readily available as to courts holding more than two terms a year. In Thayer County itself, depending upon the date of the arrest and charge, the time for statutory discharge for lack of a speedy trial would vary from 12 to 19 months. In a one term a year district, it might vary from 2 to almost 3 years. When county court and district court terms may and do vary over the entire state, the utter lack of uniformity is apparent. This is surely no way to measure time limits dealing with the constitutional requirements of a speedy trial! The artificial distinctions based on terms of court constitute an anachronism urgently requiring legislative attention. ABA Standards Relating to Speedy Trial, § 2.1, provides: “A defendant’s right to speedy trial should be expressed by rule or statute in terms of days or months running from a specified event. Certain periods of necessary delay should be excluded in computing the time for trial, and these should be specifically identified by rule or statute insofar as is practicable.”
The terms of court approach to expressing the time limitations is still used in most states. This approach is obviously a residual appendage carried over from circuit riding days. See commentary to ABA Standards Relating to Speedy Trial, § 2.1. It should be noted also that ABA Standard 2.1, in referring to time limits uses the words “days or months.” The commentary also points out that in the seven jurisdictions, which in 1967 expressed the time in days or months rather than in terms of court, the times range from 75 days to 6 months. The President’s Crime . Commission has proposed that the period from arrest to trial of felony cases be not more than 4 months. The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, 155 (1967).
*195In any event, the time limits set in section 29-1202, R. R. S. 1943, are maximum time limits within which a defendant must be tried. This court has authority to determine whether the constitutional right to a speedy trial has been denied where the delay involved was less than the maximum fixed by statute. As we said in State v. Bruns, supra: “But the legislature has not undertaken to fix any minimum time in such matters. What is a fair and reasonable time in each particular case is always in the discretion of the court. No hard and fast rule can be applied in all cases.”
We recognize that under present constitutional, statutory, and judicial standards, each individual case must be determined on its own facts. Not only the time involved in the delay, but the reasons for the delay, prejudice to the defendant, and a waiver of the constitutional right by the defendant may all be involved.
On the issue of reasons for the delay, the appropriate test is whether a purposeful or oppressive violation of Sixth Amendment-rights occurred. Where the delay was by accident or oversight, and not purposeful and oppressive, courts should and have, in many instances, refused to find the delay constitutionally objectionable. See United States ex rel. Solomon v. Mancusi, 412 F. 2d 88 (1969). In the case before us, however, there can be little reasonable question but that the delay resulted not by mere accident or oversight, but from affirmative objections on the part of the county attorney to the appointment of counsel for an 18-year-old indigent defendant, and the trial court’s refusal to appoint counsel from August 13, 1968, until April 2, 1969. The defendant first requested counsel on August 2, 1968, less than 30 days after his arrest and confinement. That request was denied. The defendant even filed a written application for appointment of counsel and an affidavit in support thereof on February 6, 1-969, in which he specifically stated that he had been held in jail continuously since July 7, 1968. At the regular call of the docket on Feb*196ruary 19, 1969, that matter was continued to March 7, 1969, at which time the application for appointment of counsel was again overruled. Counsel was finally appointed on April 2, 1969, 8 months to the day after the defendant’s first request for counsel.
Counsel promptly filed a motion to dismiss for denial of due process and a speedy trial. That motion was heard one month later and denied, and the trial was held 43 days after counsel was finally appointed. Under such circumstances, the record is powerfully persuasive that the delay here cannot be classified as accidental or an oversight, but was, instead, purposeful and oppressive.
The opinion supporting the conviction and sentence here also finds no evidence that there was any prejudice to the defendant. The possibility of prejudice from the delay is an important factor in close cases, but the very assumption of the Sixth Amendment is that unreasonable delays are, by their nature, prejudicial. It is not generally necessary for the defendant to demonstrate affirmatively how he has been prejudiced by an unreasonable delay. Hedgepeth v. United States, 364 F. 2d 684 (1966).
We think it clear that the prejudice referred to in most speedy trial cases refers to prejudice at trial, but there are other types of prejudice as well. In United States v. Ewell, 383 U. S. 116, 86 S. Ct. 773, 15 L. Ed. 2d 627 (1966), the court said: “This guarantee is an important safeguard to prevent undue and oppressive incarceration prior to trial, to minimize anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation, and to limit possibilities that long delay will impair the ability of an accused to defend himself.” It can hardly be doubted that the defendant here was subjected to “undue and oppressive incarceration.” If the defendant had been found not guilty, there could have been no prejudice “at trial.” Yet we think no one would disagree that in that event the undue and oppressive incarceration would have been “prejudicial.”
*197The opinion supporting affirmance of the conviction and sentence here concludes that the undue incarceration did not result in any prejudice to the defendant because “the trial court made it clear that the time spent in jail awaiting trial was given full consideration at the time sentence was passed.” The problem here, however, is that if a sentence to the Penal and Correctional Complex was to be given, a minimum sentence of one year was required, and the trial court had no statutory authorization for reducing a required minimum sentence to the Penal and Correctional Complex by the amount of time the prisoner had been confined in jail pending trial. See, Volker v. McDonald, 120 Neb. 508, 233 N. W. 890, 72 A. L. R. 1267; Opinions of the Attorney General 1955-56, p. 127.
Here an 18-year-old defendant, never before in jail and never previously convicted of a felony, received the minimum one-year sentence required by law if he was to be sentenced to the Penal and Correctional Complex. The court had no statutory authorization to credit jail time on that minimum penitentiary sentence. Under such circumstances, the fact that the trial court fully considered the jail time in passing sentence ought not to be construed as proof that the sentence would otherwise have been two years or longer. The fact that the court stated that he could not consider the defendant for probation is inconclusive. It is noteworthy that although the defendant received the minimum penitentiary sentence, his sentence might have been a fine, or imprisonment in the county jail for not exceeding six months. See § 28-532, R. R. S. 1943. The facts here emphatically do not remove a reasonable possibility of prejudice, much less affirmatively establish a complete lack of prejudice. If the defendant were to serve the one-year sentence here with full credit for good time while serving it, he would be released in less than the time he spent in jail before trial. Even assuming that the Director of Corrections exercises his new statutory *198authority to credit jail time, the 'mere processing procedure will mean additional incarceration. We think the record before us vividly demonstrates not only the reasonable possibility, of prejudice, but the probability of prejudice.
With respect to waiver, the opinion for affirming the conviction and sentence discusses cases in which this court and others have held that the right to speedy trial is waived if an accused failed to make some effort to secure a speedy trial. That opinion states: “There is no evidence that defendant demanded or requested a speedy trial or made any effort to obtain a speedier trial.” We think it only necessary to point out that an indigent defendant who has been denied counsel for 8 months and who inquired at the time of arraignment as to when his trial might be, can hardly be said to have waived his constitutional right to a speedy trial. It is the prosecution and not the defense that is charged with bringing a case to trial. See Hedgepeth v. United States, supra.
Under the circumstances of this case, the defendant was denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial, and that denial was purposeful, oppressive, and prejudicial. The judgment should be reversed and the defendant discharged.
Three judges of this court have concurred in affirming the conviction and sentence. One judge has concurred in the conviction and the decision to affirm it, but has found the sentence excessive, and that it should be reduced to 2 months imprisonment in the county jail. Under the facts and circumstances here, and without retreating in any respect from the views expressed in this opinion, we also find the sentence excessive. See §§ 28-532 and 29-2308, R. R. S. 1943. We therefore join in reducing the sentence here to 2 months imprisonment in the county jail in Thayer County, Nebraska.
Per Curiam.
Four Judges of this court concur in sustaining the jury verdict and the finding of guilty in this case. Four *199Judges of this court concur in finding that the sentence is excessive.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed and the sentence is modified. The sentence is reduced to a period of 2 months in the county jail.
Affirmed as modified.