Court Opinion

ID: 9477752
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:30:15.782868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:01.677930
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority about all the matters in contention here except Otero’s right to a hearing on his speedy trial claim. With respect to Otero’s request for a hearing it seems to me that the majority’s focus on the trees tends to obscure the forest.
There has been an almost unprecedented and thoroughly extraordinary delay of nearly ten years between indictment and trial. As the majority notes, the government has conceded that this was “presumptively prejudicial.” Further, as the majority also points out, the government now only contends rather weakly that “arguably, defendant’s status necessitated the delay in bringing him to trial.” Given *842these factors alone, a hearing to establish some ascertainable facts about the long hiatus seems essential. At the very least, there should be a hearing to establish the facts before the declaration of Otero’s “fugitive” status in 1979.
The majority responds to these imperatives by finding various deficiencies in the defendant’s pleadings or arguments or by relying on his failure to take timely action on the speedy trial claim. Although Otero twice expressly requested an evidentiary hearing, he no doubt could have proceeded much more effectively — and this is reflected in his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. But none of the defendant’s alleged defaults are sufficiently weighty to overbalance a ten-year delay that was presumptively prejudicial.
Under these circumstances, the government is obliged to offer some credible explanation of its failure to arrest the defendant and bring him to trial. Perhaps he was throughout the period a fugitive that the government with reasonable efforts could not have apprehended. But we can now only speculate that this was the case. I think the matter must be remanded for a hearing to ascertain reasons for the delay.
With respect to the matters noted, I respectfully dissent.