Court Opinion

ID: 9424709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:12:27.138866+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:51.977743
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall join,
concurring in the result.
I assume that if the three-year delay in this case had occurred after the indictment had been returned, the right to a speedy trial would have been impaired and the indictment would have to be dismissed. I disagree with the Court that the guarantee does not apply if the delay was at the pre-indictment stage of a case.
From March 15, 1965, to February 6, 1967, appellees acting through Allied Enterprises, Inc., sold and installed home intercom, fire control, and burglar detection devices in the District of Columbia metropolitan area. Their business endeavors were soon met with a spate of lawsuits seeking recovery for consumer fraud and, on February 6, 1967, their brief career was ended by a cease-and-desist order entered by the Federal Trade Commission. Public notoriety continued to surround appellees’ activities and, in a series of articles appearing in the Washington Post in September and October of 1967, their business was mentioned as being under investigation by the United States Attorney. The special grand jury that was impaneled on October 9, 1967, to investigate consumer fraud did not, however, return an indictment against *327appellees. Sometime between the summer of 1968 and January 1969, appellees delivered their business records to the United States Attorney, but an indictment was not returned against them until April 21, 1970. The indictment charged some 19 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, and transportation of falsely made securities in interstate commerce all between September 3, 1965, and January 19, 1966.
Appellees moved “to dismiss the indictment for failure to commence prosecution . . . within such time as to [satisfy the] . . . rights to due process of law and to a speedy trial . . . .” The United States Attorney sought to excuse the delay, alleging that his office had been understaffed at the time and that it had given priority to other types of crimes. The District Court granted appellees’ motion1 and the United States appealed. 18 U. S. C. § 3731 (1964 ed., Supp. V).
The majority says “that it is either a formal indictment or information or else the actual restraints imposed by *328arrest and holding to answer a criminal charge that engage the particular protections of the speedy trial provision . . . Ante, at 320.
The Sixth Amendment, to be sure, states that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.” But the words “the accused,” as I understand them in their Sixth Amendment setting, mean only the person who has standing to complain of prosecutorial delay in seeking an indictment or filing an information. The right to a speedy trial is the right to be brought to trial speedily which would seem to be as relevant to pre-indictment delays as it is to post-indictment delays. Much is made of the history of the Sixth Amendment as indicating that the speedy trial guarantee had no application to pre-prosecution delays.
There are two answers to that proposition. First, British courts historically did consider delay as a condition to issuance of an information.
Lord Mansfield held in Rex v. Robinson, 1 Black. W. 541, 542, 96 Eng. Rep. 313 (K. B. 1765), that the issuance of an information was subject to time limitations: “If delayed, the delay must be reasonably accounted for.” In Regina v. Hext, 4 Jurist 339 (Q. B. 1840), an information was refused where a whole term of court had passed since the alleged assault took place. Accord: Rex v. Marshall, 13 East 322, 104 Eng. Rep. 394 (K. B. 1811).
Baron Alderson said in Regina v. Robins, 1 Cox’s C. C. 114 (Somerset Winter Assizes 1844), where there was a two-year delay in making a charge of bestiality:
“It is monstrous to put a man on his trial after such a lapse of time. How can he account for his conduct so far back? If you accuse a man of a crime the next day, he may be enabled to bring forward his servants and family to say where he was and what he was about at the time; but if the *329charge be not preferred for a year or more, how can he clear himself? No man’s life would be safe if such a prosecution were permitted. It would be very unjust to put him on his trial.”
Second, and more basically, the 18th century criminal prosecution at the common law was in general commenced in a completely different way from that with which we are familiar today. By the common law of England which was brought to the American colonies, the ordinary criminal prosecution was conducted by a private prosecutor, in the name of the King. In case the victim of the crime or someone interested came forward to prosecute, he retained his own counsel and had charge of the case as in the usual civil proceeding. See G. Dession, Criminal Law, Administration and Public Order 356 (1948). Procedurally, the criminal prosecution was commenced by the filing of a lawsuit, and thereafter the filing of an application for criminal prosecution or rule nisi or similar procedure calling for the defendant to show cause why he should not be imprisoned. The English common law, with which the Framers were familiar, conceived of a criminal prosecution as being commenced prior to indictment. Thus in that setting the individual charged as the defendant in a criminal proceeding could and would be an “accused” prior to formal indictment.2
*330The right to a speedy trial, which we have characterized “as fundamental as any of the rights secured by the Sixth Amendment,” Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U. S. 213, 223, protects several demands of criminal justice: the prevention of undue delay and oppressive incarceration prior to trial; the reduction of anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation; and limiting the possibilities that long delay will impair the ability of an accused to defend himself. Smith v. Hooey, 393 U. S. 374, 377-378 (1969). See also People v. Prosser, 309 N. Y. 353, 356, 130 N. E. 2d 891, 894 (1955). The right also serves broader interests:
“The Speedy Trial Clause protects societal interests, as well as those of the accused. The public is concerned with the effective prosecution of criminal cases, both to restrain those guilty of crime and to deter those contemplating it. Just as delay may impair the ability of the accused to defend himself, so it may reduce the capacity of the government to prove its case. See Ponzi v. Fessenden, 258 U. S. 254, 264 (1922). Moreover, while awaiting trial, an accused who is at large may become a fugitive from justice or commit other criminal acts. And the greater the lapse of time between commission of an offense and the conviction of the offender, the less the deterrent value of his conviction.” Dickey v. Florida, 398 U. S. 30, 42 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring).
At least some of these values served by the right to a speedy trial are not unique to any particular stage of the criminal proceeding. See Note, 43 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 722, 725-726 (1968); Note, 77 Yale L. J. 767, 780-783 (1968) ; Comment, 11 Ariz. L. Rev. 770, 774-776 (1969). Undue delay may be as offensive to the right to a speedy trial before as after an indictment or information. The anx*331iety and concern attendant on public accusation may weigh more heavily upon an individual who has not yet been formally indicted or arrested for, to him, exoneration by a jury of his peers may be only a vague possibility lurking in the distant future. Indeed, the protection underlying the right to a speedy trial may be denied when a citizen is damned by clandestine innuendo and never given the chance promptly to defend himself in a court of law. Those who are accused of crime but never tried may lose their jobs or their positions of responsibility, or become outcasts in their communities.
The impairment of the ability to defend oneself may become acute because of delays in the pre-indictment stage. Those delays may result in the loss of alibi witnesses, the destruction of material evidence, and the blurring of memories. At least when a person has been accused of a specific crime, he can devote his powers of recall to the events surrounding the alleged occurrences. When there is no formal accusation, however, the State may proceed methodically to build its case while the prospective defendant proceeds to lose his.3
The duty which the Sixth Amendment places' on Government officials to proceed expeditiously with crim*332inal prosecutions would have little meaning if those officials could determine when that duty was to commence. To be sure, “[t]he right of a speedy trial is necessarily relative. It is consistent with delays and depends upon circumstances.'’ Beavers v. Haubert, 198 U. S. 77, 87 (1905). But it is precisely because this right is relative that we should draw the line so as not to condone illegitimate delays whether at the pre- or the post-indictment stage.4
Our decisions do not support the limitations of the right to a speedy trial adopted in the majority’s conclusion that “the [Sixth] amendment [does not extend] to *333the period prior to arrest.” Ante, at 321. In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 444 (1966), we held that it was necessary for the police to advise of the right to counsel in the pre-indictment situation where “a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.” That case, like the present one, dealt with one of the rights enumerated in the Sixth Amendment, to which an “accused” was entitled. We were not then concerned with whether an “arrest” or an “indictment” was necessary for a person to be an “accused” and thus entitled to Sixth Amendment protections. We looked instead to the nature of the event and its effect on the rights involved. We applied the Miranda rule even though there was no “arrest,” but only an examination of the suspect while he was in his bed at his boarding house, the presence of the officers making him “in custody.” Orozco v. Texas, 394 U. S. 324, 327. We should follow the same approach here and hold that the right to a speedy trial is denied if there were years of unexplained and inexcusable pre-indictment delay.
Dickey v. Florida, supra, similarly demonstrates the wisdom of avoiding today’s mechanical approach to the application of basic constitutional guarantees. While he was in custody on an unrelated federal charge, the petitioner was identified by a witness to the robbery. Petitioner remained in federal custody, but the State did not seek to prosecute him until September 1, 1967, when he moved to dismiss the detainer warrant which had been lodged against him. An information was then filed on December 15, 1967, and petitioner was tried on February 13, 1968. Although the trial took place less than two months after the filing of the information, we held that there had been a denial of the right to a speedy trial because of the delay of more than seven years between the crime and the information.
*334In a concurring opinion, Mr. Justice Brennan discussed the broader questions raised by that case:
“When is governmental delay reasonable? Clearly, a deliberate attempt by the government to use delay to harm the accused, or governmental delay that is 'purposeful or oppressive,’ is unjustifiable. . . . The same may be true of any governmental delay that is unnecessary, whether intentional or negligent in origin. A negligent failure by the government to ensure speedy trial is virtually as damaging to the interests protected by the right as an intentional failure; when negligence is the cause, the only interest necessarily unaffected is our common concern to prevent deliberate misuse of the criminal process by public officials. Thus the crucial question in determining the legitimacy of governmental delay may be whether it might reasonably have been avoided— whether it was unnecessary. To determine the necessity for governmental delay, it would seem important to consider, on the one hand, the intrinsic importance of the reason for the delay, and, on the other, the length of the delay and its potential for prejudice to interests protected by the speedy-trial safeguard. For a trivial objective, almost any delay could be reasonably avoided. Similarly, lengthy delay, even in the interest of realizing an important objective, would be suspect.” 398 U. S., at 51-52.
In the present case, two to three years elapsed between the time the District Court found that the charges could and should have been brought and the actual return of the indictment. The justifications offered were that the United States Attorney’s office was “not sufficiently staffed to proceed as expeditiously” as desirable5 and *335that priority had been given to other cases. Appellees say that the present indictment embraces counts such as an. allegedly fraudulent telephone conversation made on December 16, 1965. They argue that there is a great likelihood that the recollection of such events will be blurred or erased by the frailties of the human memory. If this were a simpler crime, I think the British precedent which I have cited would warrant dismissal of the indictment because of the speedy trial guarantee of the Sixth Amendment. But we know from experience that the nature of the crime charged here often has vast interstate aspects, the victims are often widely scattered and hard to locate, and the reconstruction of the total scheme of the fraudulent plan takes time. If we applied the simpler rule that was applied in simpler days, we would be giving extraordinary advantages to organized crime as well as others who use a farflung complicated network to perform their illegal activities. I think a three-year delay even in that kind of case goes to the edge of a permissible delay. But on the bare bones of this record I hesitate to say that the guarantee of a speedy trial has been violated. Unless appellees on remand demonstrate actual prejudice, I would agree that the prosecution might go forward. Hence I concur in the result.

 In dismissing the indictment, the District Court said:
“It appears to the Court that the matters complained of occurred between March 1965 and January 1966. It further appears that these matters were known from early 1967 or a matter of common knowledge in late 1967. There appears no reason why a three-year delay from 1967 was justified by the necessity of research and examination delving into the various transactions, they could have been discovered and handled much, much sooner, certainly probably during the year 1967 or at the latest early 1968.
“The defendants have been indicted on 19 counts, each of which I believe carries a ten-year sentence, each of which is a separate, distinct transaction which would justify consecutive sentences, and by the very nature of this outrageous scheme if the allegations could be believed, the ability to remember, to build up in one’s recollection, to produce the necessary defense, is bound to have been seriously prejudiced by the delay of at least some three years in bringing the prosecution that should have been brought in 1967, or at the very latest early 1968.
“The Court, therefore, views that there has been a lack of speedy prosecution in this case, and will grant the motion to dismiss.”

 See 1 J. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England 493-496 (1883):
“In England, and, so far as I know, in England and some English colonies alone, the prosecution of offences is left entirely to private persons, or to public officers who act in their capacity of private persons and who have hardly any legal powers beyond those which belong to private persons.” Id., at 493.
For an annotated version of the inception and evolution of the British system, see M. Schwartz, Cases and Materials on Professional Responsibility and the Administration of Criminal Justice 2-3 (Nat. Council on Legal Clinics 1961).

 Judge Wright recognized this in his concurring opinion in Nickens v. United States, 116 U. S. App. D. C. 338, 343, 323 F. 2d 808, 813 (1963):
“Indeed, a suspect may be at a special disadvantage when complaint or indictment, or arrest, is purposefully delayed. With no knowledge that criminal charges are to be brought against him, an innocent man has no reason to fix in his memory the happenings on the day of the alleged crime. Memory grows dim with the passage of time. Witnesses disappear. With each day, the accused becomes less able to make out his defense. If, during the delay, the Government’s case is already in its hands, the balance of advantage shifts more in favor of the Government the more the Government lags. Under our constitutional system such a tactic is not available to police and prosecutors.”

 “[A] preprosecution delay can result in the loss of physical evidence, the unavailability of potential witnesses, and the impairment of the ability of the prospective defendant and his witnesses to remember the events in question. Indeed, the possibility of such prejudice may be greater in preprosecution-delay cases than in post indictment-delay cases. The typical prospective defendant is probably unaware of the fact that criminal charges will eventually be brought against him. Thus, he will have no reason to take measures to preserve his memory or the memories of his witnesses. ‘The importance of these considerations becomes clear when measured against the state’s ability to collect and document evidence as it carries out its criminal investigation, thereby preserving its probative firepower until the time of eventual arrest.’
“The causal factor also can be present in a preprosecution delay. Many preprosecution delays are caused by the reluctance of the government to terminate an undercover investigation. If the knowledge obtained by an undercover agent is used as the basis for an arrest or for the issuance of a complaint, the identity of the agent may be exposed and his effectiveness destroyed. Consequently, the government will often delay arresting an individual against whom its case is complete if the agent is still obtaining evidence against other individuals. In such a situation, the government has made a deliberate choice for a supposed advantage. While this advantage is arguably not sought vis-a-vis the defendant asserting the speedy-trial claim, the fact remains that the advantage arises out of a deliberate and avoidable choice on the part of law-enforcement authorities.” Note, 20 Stan. L. Rev. 476, 489.

 The District Judge pointed out that the then Assistant Attorney General had indicated “that he didn’t need any more help” and that the United States Attorney retreated from this factual assertion.