Court Opinion

ID: 9463217
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:00:51.247318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:59.158740
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge
(concurring in the dissent).
I join in Judge Hill’s dissenting opinion even though it is based to a large extent on Cowan — an opinion in which I joined. As long as Cowan stands, I am bound by it. But time has convinced me that Cowan’s reading of Rule 48(a) to inject the trial court into the Executive’s decision to dismiss a pending criminal case is wrong. My solo forecast in United States v. Cox, 5 Cir. (En Banc), 1965, 342 F.2d 167 (Brown, J. concurring at 182) now seems truer than ever that Rule 48(a) is “confined to the protection of the rights of the defendant”. It does not loose the Judge to weigh what the so-called public interest is, or whether it is satisfied.
Confession being good for the soul, I now relent my joining in that part of Cowan which is otherwise a great opinion by a great Judge and probably one of his last major Judicial contributions.