Court Opinion

ID: 9480710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:55:55.391477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:51.234337
License: Public Domain

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I do not disagree with anything expressed in the per curiam opinion. I write separately only to express the view that even if we err in our conclusion in Part III of the per curiam opinion that the District Court abused its discretion in finding Simms to be an essential witness, the result would be the same. As the Court notes, “a witness is ‘considered unavailable whenever his whereabouts are known but his presence for trial cannot be obtained by due diligence.’ ” P. 773, supra (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(3)(B)). The record in the present case does not support a finding of due diligence. The supposed unavailability of Simms was the result of his being held in the custody of Fairfax County, Virginia authorities for the misdemeanor of shoplifting socks from a drugstore. His bond was set at $1000. Not only could he have been released into the custody of anyone who had put up $1000, refundable upon his return to jail after testimony, but also his attendance was obtainable through a writ of habeas corpus ad testificatum issuable by the District Court. Such a writ had been issued for Simms’s presence. Virginia authorities had not complied with the writ. The government took no action to have the writ enforced, as it could have done under United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340, 98 S.Ct. 1834, 56 L.Ed.2d 329 (1977).
What the government claims to be due diligence in the present case is some unspecified number of telephone conversations between members of the United States Attorney’s office and some Virginia authorities. At the time of the motion and the representations that these telephone calls constituted due diligence, the prosecution was well aware that the trial of the present case would continue for several *776weeks. Yet the prosecution asserts that to “litigate” the power of the federal court to obtain a shoplifter from the Virginia custodian for testimony in the federal murder-conspiracy-narcotics trial would have delayed the commencement of trial as much as did the motion to continue. The prosecution offers no reason why the trial could not have begun parallel to the obviously easy efforts that would have been required to obtain the presence of the shoplifter. I would further note that these events occurred at a time when one or more of the appellants had already been in custody awaiting disposition of these charges for almost seventeen months.
Whatever it would take to constitute “due diligence” in an appropriate case, the present record evidences no diligence at all. Therefore, while I join the Court’s opinion that the District Court abused its discretion in concluding that Simms was an essential witness at the time of the continuance, to me the abuse of discretion involved in finding that the government acted with due diligence eclipses the first abuse. While I am reluctant to suppose that the prosecuting attorneys acted from improper motives, I cannot help but wonder on this record why they evidenced such a cavalier attitude toward the rights not only of the defendants but of the public to a speedy disposition of serious criminal charges.