Court Opinion

ID: 9644264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:51:34.512584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:10.646079
License: Public Domain

MANDERINO, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority opinion. In determining the speedy trial issue, the Court premises its reasoning on the novel and unwarranted assumption that the con*313stitution guarantees the appellant a speedy trial by a lawyer rather than the judicial branch of government. According to the majority opinion, defense counsel did not ask for any continuances or otherwise request any delay in scheduling the trial of his client, he simply took no affirmative action to hasten appellant’s trial which was not scheduled by the court system.
In March of 1972, eighteen months before appellant was brought to trial, he filed a pro se petition requesting a speedy trial. Because this petition was turned over to defense counsel and nothing was done, the majority holds that the delay of that eighteen-month period is attributable to the appellant. I must strongly dissent.
When one presents a petition to a court the court should act on the petition, not defense counsel. It is completely irregular for a petition addressed to the judicial branch to be ignored. Here, appellant’s petition called for action by the judicial branch and no action was taken. Under the strange reasoning of the majority, a court need not act on a proper petition if the district attorney’s office forwards a copy to the defense lawyer. Defense counsel in this case could very well have been justified in expecting that the court would act on the speedy trial petition.
The majority opinion indicates that appellant’s trial, through no fault of the appellant, was not scheduled for a period of thirty-one months, including the period of eighteen months after appellant requested a speed trial and received no answer from the system to whom the petition was properly addressed. It is incumbent upon the court to act on a petition properly before it. It must, therefore, dissent from the majority’s disposition of this matter.
NIX, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.