Court Opinion

ID: 9472742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:09:25.429295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:07.183913
License: Public Domain

FERGUSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent. The majority holds today that any period of delay created by the pendency of a pretrial motion, whether reasonable in length or not, is excludable time under section 3161(h)(1)(F) of the Speedy Trial Act. 18 U.S.C. §§ 3161 et seq. I disagree. The majority opinion sets the Speedy Trial Act on its head and will allow trial judges to delay ruling on pretrial motions indefinitely.
In holding that even unreasonable delay is excludable time under section 3161(h)(1)(F), the majority relies primarily on the face of the statute and notes that “Congress knew how to require that a period of delay be reasonable when it wished to do so.” Maj. op. at 622. In Heckler v. Edwards, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 1532, 1538, 79 L.Ed.2d 878 (1984), however, the Supreme Court instructed that we are not to give surface literal meaning to a statutory provision when that interpretation is not consistent with the “sense of the thing.” The “sense” of the Speedy Trial Act is to insure defendants a speedy trial.
I agree with Judge Keeton in United States v. Hawker, 552 F.Supp. 117 (D.Mass.1982):
If applied literally, § 5(b)(1)(F) [of the Final Plan for Prompt Disposition of Criminal Justice within the District of Massachusetts] would exclude all time between filing and conclusion of hearing on any pretrial motion, without regard for how long the period might be and even if hearing had been intentionally deferred to avoid pressures of the speedy trial requirement. Such an interpretation of the Plan would cause it to be in noncompliance both with the manifest objective of the Speedy Trial Act and with the text of 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1)(F), referring to “prompt disposition.’’ ' I conclude that *626§ 5(b)(1)(F) of the Plan is subject to a qualification, not stated explicitly anywhere in the text but plainly implicit in the sense of the entire Plan, that the period of excludable delay under this provision shall not be longer than is consistent with a reasonably prompt hearing.
Id. at 124-25 (footnote omitted) .(emphasis added).
The majority adopts what it calls the “automatic” exclusion rule of other circuits. The cases cited by the majority, however, do not hold that unreasonable pretrial delay is automatically excludable. Indeed, one of the cases cited by the majority, United States v. Horton, 705 F.2d 1414 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 496, 78 L.Ed.2d 689 (1983), specifically notes that an unreasonable delay might justify deviating from the automatic exclusion rule:
It is true that there follows a reference to “other prompt disposition” of the motion, one that might be taken to imply that such matters should be promptly disposed of and that might justify, in an egregious case, disregarding some portion of the pendency period. Such a case might be presented by repeated unsuccessful requests for hearings or by other credible indication that a hearing had been deliberately refused with intent to evade the sanctions of the Act. Nothing of the sort is evident here.
Id. at 1416. And in United States v. Campbell, 706 F.2d 1138 (11th Cir.1983), the Eleventh Circuit backed away from the seemingly absolute exclusion language it used in United States v. Stafford, 697 F.2d 1368 (11th Cir.1983):
In United States v. Cobb, 697 F.2d 38, 43-46 (2d Cir.1982), the Second Circuit superimposed a “reasonableness” limitation upon the open-ended exclusion for pretrial motions resulting in hearings____ Because we find the delay from April 3 to May 11 was under the circumstances of this case reasonable, we need not decide whether, as the Cobb court suggests, exclusion might sometimes be inappropriate if the delay before the hearing is held unreasonable.
706 F.2d at 1143 n. 12. Similarly, neither of the two cases from the Eighth Circuit, United States v. Fogarty, 692 F.2d 542 (8th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1040, 103 S.Ct. 1434, 75 L.Ed.2d 792 (1983) (61-day delay pending pretrial motions), nor United States v. Brim, 630 F.2d 1307 (8th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 966, 101 S.Ct. 3121, 69 L.Ed.2d 980 (1981) (57-day delay pending pretrial motions), address a claim that delay from a pretrial motion should have been excluded because the delay was unreasonable.
Thus, the majority becomes the first court actually confronted with the issue to reject a reasonableness limitation for section 3161(h)(1)(F). In so doing, the majority dismisses the holding of the Second and Third Circuits in United States v. Novak, 715 F.2d 810, 820 (3rd Cir.1983), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 1293, 79 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984), and United States v. Cobb, 697 F.2d 38, 44 (2d Cir.1982), as well as our language in United States v. Van Brandy, 726 F.2d 548, 551 (9th Cir.1984). See also United States v. Janik, 723 F.2d 537, 543 (7th Cir.1983) (“[T]he phrase ‘other prompt disposition’ implies that the court may not delay a criminal trial indefinitely by deferring a hearing on a pretrial motion indefinitely. The government does not, and could not, contend otherwise.”).
I believe that the “reasonably necessary” approach adopted by the Second and Third Circuits and approved by this circuit in Van Brandy is correct and is compelled by the legislative history of the Act.
Congress recognized that section 3161(h)(1)(F) could become the exception to the Speedy Trial Act that swallowed the rule. The Senate Committee warned that “if basic standards for prompt consideration of pretrial motions are not developed, this provision could become a loophole which could undermine the whole Act.” S.Rep. No. 212, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. 34 (1979). The Senate Committee went on to state it did not “intend that additional time be made eligible for exclusion by postponing the hearing date or other disposition of the motions beyond what is reasonably necessary.” Id. (emphasis added). This language clearly indicates that, contrary to the majority’s interpretation, the “prompt disposition” language of section 3161(h)(1)(F) was intended to impose a reasonableness limitation both on time excluded pending dispositions by hearing and that excluded pending dispositions other than by hearing.
The majority today opens the door for trial courts to circumvent the constraints of the Speedy Trial Act by any number of unreasonable pretrial delays. It does so by *627ignoring the legislative history of the Speedy Trial Act and the well-reasoned opinions of every other circuit that has directly addressed the issue. While I sympathize with the majority’s search for a per se rule, see maj. op. at 623, I cannot agree that the desire for an “easy” rule can justify the abrogation of the major purpose of the Speedy Trial Act — to insure the defendant a speedy trial. I would reverse.
ORDER
The petition for a rehearing is denied. Judge Ferguson votes to grant the petition for a rehearing, and files a dissent from denial of a rehearing.
The petition for a rehearing and suggestion of a rehearing in banc has been delivered to each of the active judges of this court. No active judge has called for a vote on the suggestion of a rehearing in banc. The suggestion of a rehearing in banc is rejected.
This order, and Judge Ferguson’s dissent, are to be published.