Court Opinion

ID: 9704521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:38:01.293196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:03.182520
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
dissenting, with whom KELLY, Associate Judge, joins:
I would affirm the ruling of the trial judge dismissing the indictment for lack of a speedy trial.
Given another analysis by the majority I might agree that appellate delay is not a factor to be taken into consideration in determining when the right to a speedy trial has been denied under the Sixth Amendment. I obviously could not disagree that the Fifth Amendment right to due process is implicated when appellate delay would prevent a fair trial after reversal of a conviction. However, I find no meeting ground with the majority at the *363point where, having raised the spectre of fundamental “due process” considerations, it relegates such considerations to a status requiring less scrutiny than that advanced for “speedy trial” considerations (witness the bell-shaped curve with ebbing ends). To me the issue of a fair trial — which certainly may embrace a speedy one — is so basic that,. once subject to question, deserves scrutiny of the strictest kind.
Mr. Alston was arrested in October 1974. He was released on parole in April 1977. On July 1,1978 the trial court dismissed the indictment which the court today reinstates. The pendency of appellate proceedings, regardless of their significance for Sixth Amendment purposes, has been instrumental in helping to place Alston’s hopefully “free-from-error” trial almost six years beyond the date of his arrest.
Under the majority’s analysis the determination of whether this trial can be, for due process purposes, a fair one must be made on a case-by-case basis. The key factor for evaluation is relevant prejudice (which to me means prejudice to the defendant). I do not see how prejudice to a defendant or a defense can be evaluated without reference to the lapse of time between the arrest (as opposed to the date of the notice of appeal) and the date of the new trial. Simply stated, the problem with the majority’s analysis is that its preoccupation with segmented time periods clouds the ultimate question — is the retrial fundamentally unfair because of the cumulative effect of all the delays, including the appellate delay? To break the time periods down and try to assign responsibility or fault for each one before the prejudice can be shown begs the question. In a due process analysis, unlike a speedy trial analysis, the question is not whether there was legitimate reason for the delay, or to whom it is assigned, but whether the overall impact of that delay, coupled with other delays, is to deny the defendant a fair trial after • remand. The focus on the reasons for appellate delay and the prejudice arising solely at that time, shifts attention away from both the critical issue — prejudice as a result of delay — and the critical point in time— that of retrial.
Moreover, since prejudice is the sole determinative factor in a due process analysis, I would think it must be ascertained at the critical point in time, under the applicable standard, by the trial court in the first instance. I question whether we are in a position to say that the findings of Judge Hess, made in accordance with the speedy trial Barker v. Wingo * test, are “plainly wrong” under another standard of evaluation. I also question whether we, in deciding a second appeal (this brought by the government),' can find from our vantage point that appellant would have suffered no prejudice at the time of the retrial we have made possible. It seems to me that this would be a decision, again for the trial court under guidelines suggested by this court.
Finally, our decision today creates simply too much confusion in requiring our courts to meet speedy trial challenges by separate evaluations, under separate standards, using separate dates, for trial and appellate purposes. While the majority graphically and convincingly describes the institutional considerations that make appellate litigation distinct from trial litigation, I would for the purposes of this case, at least, accept the speedy trial analysis of the trial judge.
I respectfully dissent.

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