Court Opinion

ID: 9642106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:48:33.422241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:26:08.208577
License: Public Domain

NEBEKER, Associate Judge,
concurring in result:
While I concur in the result, I arrive at that conclusion on the basis of the record before us (D.C.Code 1973, § 11 — 721(e)) and not, as do my brethren, through a first impression appellate finding that appellant was prejudiced by inordinate governmental delay. From the record itself it is clear that appellant was charged, in June 1975, with misdemeanor embezzlement of some bed linens; that her trial date was continued nine times, eight of which were attributable to prosecutorial or court neglect or court congestion; that three of these continuances (none attributable to appellant) occurred after she had made known, by motion to dismiss, her desire for a speedy trial; and that the total time between arrest and trial was nineteen months, six of which occurred after her motion to dismiss. Upon this record, combined with the failure of the government to justify the delays, I conclude that the government failed to discharge its “constitutional duty to make a diligent, good faith effort to bring [appellant to trial].” Smith v. Hooey, 393 U.S. 374, 383, 89 S.Ct. 575, 579, 21 L.Ed.2d 607 (1969). With the majority’s suggestion that the case should turn, in part, upon appellant’s “anxiety and concern” pending trial, however, I am constrained to disagree.
Prejudice to an appellant is an extremely important factor in the overall balancing process mandated by Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972). While prejudice is neither “a necessary [nor] sufficient condition to the finding of a deprivation of the right of speedy trial,” 407 U.S. at 533, 92 S.Ct. at 2193, its assessment must nevertheless be as accurate as our judicial system permits. To achieve fairness and justice to both litigants, our judicial system permits an appellate court to review only the record before it.
The majority concedes that the record is devoid of indications of trial prejudice and prejudice which might have arisen from pretrial incarceration. The majority opinion, however, proceeds on a predicate that on appeal the government has a burden of showing a negative — lack of anxiety. It seems to say that an assertion of the right one year after arrest is consistent with an appellate level claim of anxiety during that previous year. That assumption need not follow, for anxiety about pending charges may not be present at all or merely arise only when the speedy trial claim is asserted. Anxiety may indeed have been indulged in *795the hope that delay may, as it often does, weaken the government’s case. In any event, it seems highly unrealistic to me that the government — or any party — on appeal can establish a negative without access to matter not of record, particularly where the matter is subjective to another. Here the government is called upon to demonstrate a lack of anxiety — a subjective state of mind and emotion. I fail to see how it can do so where the matter was not broached in the trial court. My point is best illustrated by the majority reference to the lack of evidence respecting appellant’s experience with the criminal justice system. There is no evidence, of course, since appellant’s inexperience was not raised in the motion to dismiss. Anxiety was not “alleged” below, ante p. 792 — she alleges it only on appeal. Equally beyond the record is appellant’s latter-day assertion of anxiety in which this court evidently proposes to indulge as a basis for “type (ii) prejudice.” In these matters, I believe, it is not for us to “have [a] basis for doubting,” ante p. 792. That is a trial court function.
The majority conclusion that appellant suffered anxiety and concern is flawed in other respects. Her attorney, familiar with the Superior Court, may well have advised her on each occasion not to expect that the court would reach her case. Moreover, an expectation that the charges would promptly be resolved well may have caused her even greater anxiety and concern than the postponement of that resolution; she may have breathed a sigh of relief each time the court failed to reach her case. Again, we just do not know her state of mind. As to this appellant, the record offers no reason to assume that her seven appearances caused her greater anxiety and concern than what she otherwise would have experienced.
I do not suggest that an appellant’s anxiety and concern pending the resolution of criminal charges cannot appropriately be considered by an appellate court. Barker v. Wingo, supra, and Moore v. Arizona, 414 U.S. 25, 94 S.Ct. 188, 38 L.Ed.2d 183 (1973), mandate otherwise. But a court’s consideration of these factors in an individual case must stem from the record before it and not from assumptions converted into appellate findings of fact. Findings that an individual appellant has suffered such prejudice are peculiarly within the province of the trial court. Such subtle non-trial prejudice is, of course, elusive of accurate measurement. But to the extent that it may be assessed, only the trial judge is in a position to assess it after seeing and hearing the appellant and receiving evidence from the parties. Only after the trial judge has ruled on the matter can an appellate bench properly review the factual predicates for asserted prejudice. See United States v. MacDonald, 435 U.S. 850, 98 S.Ct. 1547, 1551-52, 56 L.Ed.2d 18 (1978); Day v. United States, D.C.App., 390 A.2d 957 (decided July 10, 1978).
In the posture of the instant case (and many like it), of course, the limited Superi- or Court view of the facts occurred long before the case was ripe for appellate review — in this case, more than five months before trial. Any assessment of prejudice at that point necessarily would be complete. Yet the incompleteness need not lead us to an usurpation of the trial court function. In my view it would be a better practice for a timely speedy trial claim which is not granted before trial to be reserved for resolution in the event of conviction. The claim of prejudice as well as any other facts requiring resolution could then be determined. I read the Supreme Court’s characterization of the nature of the speedy trial right in United States v. MacDonald, supra, as inviting such post-verdict proceedings. Moreover, should this court find the record insufficient for decision, it can remand the record for such further proceedings as might be necessary. D.C.Code 1973, § 17-306. The absence of a sufficient record, however, does not confer upon this court the ability (much less jurisdiction) to engage in fact finding.
An atypical case may be dismissed without the appellant having demonstrated prejudice. Moore v. Arizona, supra. To be sure, many speedy trial claims are raised with no prejudice present at all. One must *796expect that an accused, recognizing that the court system is overburdened, will attempt to use a speedy trial claim when delay has caused him no harm and indeed may have helped. The courts, being aware of the possibility, are thus most reluctant to rule in favor of such claims. It is the extraordinary case which is dismissable on speedy trial grounds. It is for that reason that the accused has a burden, by asserting the right, of identifying his case as one where delay and prejudice coalesce so as to require special attention. A relatively prompt assertion of the right (here one year from the presentment of the charge1) coupled with the other unique factors revealed in the record make this ease sufficiently atypical — though it is a close one — for dismissal on speedy trial grounds.

. This court seems to have wedded itself to what I deem to be an unfortunate, if not inexpressive mechanical rule, that a one year lapse gives “prima facie” merit to a speedy trial claim. See Strickland v. United States, D.C.App., 389 A.2d 1325 (1978) (Harris, J., separate statement). Whatever prima facie merit means, it would seem to imply that absent an extraordinary showing of need for greater dispatch an earlier assertion of the right would have no or little merit. Thus I deem appellant’s one-year motion to dismiss as relatively prompt, particularly in view of the nearly six-month delay thereafter before trial began.