Court Opinion

ID: 9872291
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 20:58:00.141651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:46:26.161035
License: Public Domain

VandeWalle, Chief Justice,
concurring specially.
[¶ 10] Under the facts of this case I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion. I agree that ordinarily the ninety-day period in which to hold a trial after the right to a speedy trial has been demanded begins with the receipt of the demand by the court and the prosecutor. But I leave for another day the question of whether or not a prisoner is denied the right to a speedy trial if the Department of Corrections negligently or, worse, purposely fails to mail “forthwith” the prisoner’s request for disposition of pending charges to the court and to the prosecutor. Whether or not that issue would be framed under the Interstate Agreement on De-tainers and the Uniform Mandatory Disposition of Detainers Act or the right to a speedy trial under Article 6 of the Amendments to the United States Constitution or Art. 1, § 12 of the North Dakota Constitution, the Department of Corrections is part of the “State” and its actions may deny the *855prisoner a right to a speedy trial as well as the prosecutor or the court could deny that right.
[¶ 11] Here, as the majority opinion notes, there were eleven days between the time Gibson submitted his request for a speedy trial to the Department and the time the Department mailed the request to the district court and the state’s attorney. We are unaware of the normal time that prisoners’ letters submitted for mailing are actually mailed by the Department. Trial was scheduled ninety-six days after Gibson submitted his request to the Department to mail. Significantly, there is no evidence other than the eleven-day interval between the time the request was submitted to the Department and the time it was mailed that the Department negligently or purposely did not mail the request “forthwith.” That time interval is simply not enough to draw any inferences or presumptions that the request was not mailed “forthwith.”
[¶ 12] Gerald W. VandeWalle, C.J.
Daniel J. Crothers