Court Opinion

ID: 9461112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:06:04.313176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:53.769659
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the holding that David Douglas was not denied his right to a speedy trial. However, I cannot agree with the Court’s reasoning, believing, as I do, that the Court departs from established precedent in this Circuit and in the process erodes the foundations of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a speedy trial.
The Court holds that the one year delay in this case has been justified by the reasons advanced by the government. Such a contention can find no support in the reported cases of this Circuit or of the Supreme Court. We have only recently held that a government policy of prosecuting certain “important” cases before other less “important” cases cannot justify delay in the trial of the less *218“important” cases. United States v. Rucker, 150 U.S.App.D.C. 314, 318, 464 F.2d 823, 827 (1972). This is but the logical corollary of the well-settled principle that governmental negligence or over-crowded dockets cannot justify delay in trial.1 The Supreme Court has quite clearly and recently stated that the government, both courts and prosecutors, have the “primary burden” of assuring that all cases are promptly brought to trial.2 It follows that the District Court’s desire to complete a complicated labor union case and his attendance to other duties cannot justify the delay in Douglas’ trial.
The unavailability of the chief prosecution witness can justify some of the delay.3 However, it is unclear whether that unavailability extended beyond May. The weight of the evidence indicates that the government could have arranged to have Ms. Kenna return to Washington for the trial. In fact, Ms. Kenna did return to Washington for two days in June and stated in the remand hearing that she could have testified for the government if the assistant U.S. Attorney had arranged it with her. Furthermore, while I believe that unavailability of a witness is a valid justification for delay, there are limits to the amount of delay which such unavailability can justify. Here I find that three months of the delay were justified by Ms. Kenna’s family problems in Oregon; I am loathe to extend this to six months. We must presume that the government after waiting three months for the witness and having delayed the trial by then for nine months must make the most diligent efforts to produce that witness for trial.
The suggestion in the Court’s opinion that Douglas himself is to blame for part of the delay because of his “confusion” as to his “counsel situation” flies in the face of both the facts in this case and the law of this Circuit. Douglas’ lack of counsel was caused by certain deficiencies in the system by which counsel are appointed for indigent defendants. We condemned these deficiencies in United States v. Medley, 146 U.S.App.D.C. 396, 452 F.2d 1325 (1971) and yet it would appear that little has been done to correct the situation.4 Douglas’ original court-appointed lawyer, who, by her own admission, had little experience in criminal litigation,5 apparently felt that Douglas had dismissed her and silently assumed for six months that other counsel had been appointed and was actively representing Douglas. Neither the District Court nor any other governmental personnel notified her that she remained Douglas’ attorney after she failed to represent him at his arraignment. Douglas, incarcerated and admittedly an alcoholic, could do little to remedy the situation. He alleges he wrote letters to the District Court and to another attorney protesting the situation. To blame Douglas for this “confusion” is to take an excessively crabbed view of the government’s responsibility to provide counsel to indigent defendants. To consider that delay in trial occasioned by this “confusion” is justified is to ignore the principle that the government and *219not the defendant has the “primary burden” of bringing a case to trial. To do either of these things is to perpetuate and encourage practices which render the system of appointing counsel for indigent defendants fatally defective.6
The Court goes on to state that the delay of one year and three days in this case is “not greatly excessive.” This statement is directly contradicted by our decision in Hedgepeth v. United States, 124 U.S.App.D.C. 291, 364 F.2d 684 (1966) which held that delays of more than a year are to be considered prima facie evidence of a violation of the right to a speedy trial. If we begin to inch away from the Hedgepeth presumption, we will erode the very concept of a working line in speedy trial litigation. I will not concur in such an erosion.
Not content to rest at that, the Court goes on to say that Douglas has suffered no prejudice because of this delay. While I believe that Douglas has shown insufficient prejudice to justify the severe remedy of dismissal of the indictment,7 I am far less convinced that Douglas suffered no prejudice whatever or that there was not at least the potential for prejudice which under other circumstances might well be sufficient prejudice to justify a dismissal of the indictment. There can be no doubt that if Douglas was incarcerated pending this trial on the basis of another conviction, he can suffer no prejudice to his person by reason of delay in this trial because of that incarceration. However, here Douglas was incarcerated pending
trial not directly on the basis of another conviction but rather because his parole on an earlier conviction had been revoked because of the burglary charge for which he was tried below. Douglas was given a parole hearing on that revocation in March of 1972. However, the accused at a parole revocation hearing does not have the full panoply of rights guaranteed at a criminal trial.8 Thus, the possibility existed that Douglas’ parole would be revoked and yet he would be found not guilty on the burglary charge at his full criminal trial. If he was in fact found not guilty at trial, that fact could not fail to impress the parole board and affect his incarceration on the earlier conviction. Indeed, in this case the parole board requested Douglas’ attorney to apprise them of the outcome of the trial. It follows that Douglas was to some extent incarcerated pending trial on the basis of the burglary charge for which he was convicted below. That is prejudice to his person, cognizable under the Sixth Amendment.9 However, in Douglas’ case the ovei-whelming evidence of guilt trivializes this prejudice since Douglas lost little when deprived of the opportunity to clear himself and regain parole.
The Court finds “no merit” in Douglas’ claim that his defense was prejudiced by the delay even though he did not have counsel for six months of that period due to the negligence of the authorities responsible for appointing counsel for indigent defendants. This prejudice to Douglas’ defense is not directly *220related to the delay itself but since it to some extent caused the delay, it can be said to be part of the delay, and hence a prejudice to Douglas’ defense cognizable under the Sixth Amendment.10 This prejudice, was minimal in this case since Douglas has not offered even the slightest indication that his defense was retarded in either investigation or preparation by the six month interval. I am, therefore, constrained to uphold the conviction.

. See, e.g., Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 531, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972) United States v. Calloway, 164 U.S.App.D.C. -, 505 F.2d 311 (1974) ; United States v. West, 164 U.S.App.D.C. -, 504 F.2d 253 (1974).

. Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 529, 92 S. Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972).

. Id. at 531, 92 S.Ct. 2182; United States v. Holt, 145 U.S.App.D.C. 185, 189-190, 448 F.2d 1108, 1112-1113, cert. denied, 404 U.S. 942, 92 S.Ct. 292, 30 L.Ed.2d 257 (1971) (Deventhal, J.).

. See also United States v. West, 164 U.S. App.D.C.-, 504 F.2d 253 (1974). This delay in obtaining appointed counsel was not the result of “the deliberate pace of the system of safeguards designed to protect the accused,” Blunt v. United States, 131 U.S.App.D.C. 306, 310, 404 F.2d 1283, 1287 (1968), cert. denied, 394 U.S. 909, 89 S.Ct. 1021, 22 L.Ed.2d 221 (1969), but was the result of Douglas being “lost in the shuffle,” United States v. Dunn, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 91, 97, 459 F.2d 1115, 1121 (1972). See also Hinton v. United States, 137 U.S.App.D.C. 388, 393, 424 F.2d 876, 881 (1969).

. Tr. on Remand at 55.

. These deficiencies have been noted in United States v. Medley, 146 U.S.App.D.C. 396, 452 F.2d 1325 (1971) and United States v. West, 164 U.S.App.D.C. -, 504 F.2d 253 (1974).
They represent only recent examples of the failure of the system of appointing counsel for indigent defendants which have come to my attention. We are not presently advised how extensive these practices are.

. Unjustified delay of a year even coupled with timely assertion of a right to a speedy trial will hardly ever require the draconian remedy of dismissal of the indictment in the absence of substantial prejudice to the accused. See United States v. Medley, 146 U. S.App.D.C. 396, 452 F.2d 1325 (1971) ; Harling v. United States, 130 U.S.App.D.C. 327, 401 U.S. 392 (1968).

. Of. United States v. DeCoster, 159 U.S. App.D.C. 326, 487 F.2d 1197 (1973), establishing standards for determining whether a defendant has been denied his or her right to effective assistance of counsel. That right and the right to a speedy trial are both located in the Sixth Amendment and both serve to insure that the prejudice to individuals caused by public accusation of a crime is mitigated by a speedy and fair trial. Delay in trial caused by failure of effective

. See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 487-490, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972).

. Cf. Smith v. Hooey, 393 U.S. 374, 378, 89 S.Ct. 575, 21 L.Ed.2d 607 (1968) ; United States v. Rucker, 150 U.S.App.D.C. 314, 316, 464 F.2d 823, 825 (1972). These cases also establish that fa defendant incarcerated pending trial on another charge or conviction may still be prejudiced by delay of that trial due to the anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation. *220assistance of counsel thus causes in turn prejudice to the accused cognizable under the Sixth Amendment. For a discussion of Sixth Amendment prejudice, see generally, Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 532, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972) ; United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 320, 92 S.Ct. 455, 30 L.Ed.2d 468 (1971) ; Dickey v. Florida, 398 U.S. 30, 41-43, 90 S.Ct. 1564, 26 L.Ed.2d 26 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring).