Court Opinion

ID: 9493170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:00:21.445775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:41.763813
License: Public Domain

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in both Judge Hood’s opinion and Judge Gilman’s concurrence in this matter, but I write separately to emphasize one additional point.
I wish to make the record perfectly clear that the district court judge whose delay in responding to Moss’ motion to suppress we today rule was excessive is not the same district judge who presided over the prosecution of Moss under the second indictment. While it is true that, in light of our ruling today, the second district court should not have allowed the prosecution to go forward under the second indictment, the true error lies -with the district court which, inexplicably, allowed Moss’ motion to suppress to languish unanswered on the docket for many months in clear violation of the Speedy Trial Act. It is the first district court’s omission that causes us to reach the unpalatable result we announce today.
*433GILMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
Ordering that a serious drug indictment be dismissed with prejudice solely because of a procedural violation is highly unpalatable. But just as enforcement of the rules established in Miranda and in search and seizure cases sometimes requires the exclusion of critical evidence for the prosecution — because there is no other adequate means of deterring unacceptable governmental behavior — the gross violation of the Speedy Trial Act in this case requires that the indictment be dismissed with prejudice. I believe that no other outcome would be consistent with the effective enforcement of the Act.
I.
The Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3161-3174, was Congress’s response to, among other things, public outrage over crimes committed by dangerous offenders who were already facing trial on other charges, but were free on bail pending the resolution of what Congress considered needlessly protracted pretrial proceedings. See, e.g., United States v. Leppo, 634 F.2d 101, 104 (3d Cir.1980) (discussing the history of the Speedy Trial Act, and noting that one of the Act’s principal purposes was to help reduce the risk of recidivist offenses by defendants while out on bail). See also United States v. Hastings, 847 F.2d 920, 924 (1st Cir.1988) (“A speedy trial is necessary to preserve the means of proving the charge, to maximize the deterrent effect of the prosecution and conviction, and to avoid, in some cases, an extended period of pretrial freedom by the defendant during which he may flee, commit other crimes, or intimidate witnesses.”) (quoting Anthony PARTRIDGE, LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF TITLE I of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974 12 (1980)). Another purpose of the Speedy Trial Act, of course, was to provide further protection for defendants’ constitutionally-guaranteed right to a speedy trial. See United States v. Crane, 776 F.2d 600, 602 (6th Cir.1985).
Although the Act is more commonly implicated when the prosecutor causes the delay, the text of the statute clearly expresses Congress’s concern that, without prodding, judges would not bring defendants to trial with sufficient speed. See 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(8) (requiring dismissal when a violation of the Speedy Trial Act is attributable to the court). The result was a statute that establishes a seventy-day deadline to bring defendants to trial, and makes this deadline a ticking time bomb. This deadline, however, is not completely inflexible. A district court may, as necessary, stop the Speedy Trial Act “clock” temporarily by entering an order upon appropriate findings that the “ends of justice” will be served by the delay and that the ends of justice “outweigh the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial.” 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(8)(A).
What a district court may not do, however, is allow the deadline to expire and then later attempt to rationalize the delay as having been required by the interests of justice. See United States v. Crane, 776 F.2d 600, 606 (6th Cir.1985) (“A district judge cannot wipe out violations of the Speedy Trial Act after they have occurred by making the findings that would have justified granting an excludable delay continuance before the delay occurred.”) (citation omitted); United States v. Moran, 998 F.2d 1368 (6th Cir.1993) (“[P]osthoc rationalization is not permitted.”).
Moss filed his motion to suppress on November 8, 1995. There was nothing unusual or arcane about the motion. It was simply a motion to suppress evidence in a drug case, predicated on the police officers’ purported failure to “knock and announce” their presence before entering his house to execute their search warrant. Not counting the signature page, the motion’s supporting brief was five pages long.
The district court conducted its hearing on January 30, 1996, and then took the motion under advisement. Moss’s attorney asked the court to delay fling the *434transcript of the hearing so that both Moss and the government could prepare and file “responses” — apparently post-hearing memoranda. The district court agreed that the transcript would be filed by February 8, 1996, and required Moss and the government to file their “responses” by February 22, 1996 and March 1, 1996, respectively. Why the district court considered it necessary to receive post-hearing memoranda in order to decide such a routine motion is unclear. In any event, the Speedy Trial Act itself suggests rather strongly that the district court should not have let Moss and the government take an entire month to file them. Cf. Moran, 998 F.2d 1368, 1370-71 (6th Cir.1993) (observing that the Speedy Trial Act “expressly excludes only the period ‘from the filing of the [pretrial] motion through the conclusion of the hearing on, or other prompt disposition of, such motion.’ ”) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1)(F)); 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1)(J) (establishing thirty days as the presumptive maximum amount of time during which “any proceeding concerning the defendant” may reasonably be “under advisement by the court.”).
A year passed, and the motion to suppress had still not been ruled on. Scheduled trial dates came and went, each rescheduled because the motion to suppress was still under advisement. On January 29, 1997 — one day short of a year from the date of the hearing on the motion to suppress — Moss filed his motion to dismiss the indictment pursuant to the Speedy Trial Act. The government responded on March 4, 1997, conceding that the Speedy Trial Act required the indictment’s dismissal, but requesting that the inevitable dismissal be without prejudice.
Despite the government’s concession that the Speedy Trial Act required dismissal, the district court delayed ruling on Moss’s motion to dismiss for over four more weeks. Finally, on April 2, 1997, the district court (which had still never ruled on the motion to suppress), entered a two-page order dismissing the indictment without prejudice. In its order, the district court concluded that the charges against Moss — possession of 79.5 grams of crack cocaine with the intent to distribute it— were “serious.” That conclusion is correct. See, e.g., United States v. Wright, 6 F.3d 811, 814 (D.C.Cir.1993) (concluding that distribution of fifty or more grams of cocaine base, distribution of five or more grams of cocaine base, and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and/or conspiracy to distribute fifty or more grams of cocaine base are all “serious” offenses for Speedy Trial Act purposes, even if they are somewhat “commonplace”).
The district court’s order then goes on to state that “the facts and circumstances surrounding the present case warrant a dismissal without prejudice.” Unfortunately, the district court did not expand on this statement, and it provided no explanation for its failure to rule on Moss’s motion to suppress. Finally, the district court concluded that “the reindictment of the Defendant will hamper neither the administration of justice nor the Speedy Trial Act.” Again, the district court offered no explanation for this conclusion, apart from two sentences in which it suggested that Moss “has not shown that the length of the delay adversely affected his ability to defend himself at trial,” and that as a result, Moss “suffers no prejudice as a result of the delay.” The order, however, failed to make any mention of the fact that Moss had been in custody for over a year while his motion to suppress was under advisement.
II.
Dismissal of the indictment is required for any violation of the Speedy Trial Act. See 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2) (providing specifically that if a defendant “is not brought to trial within [the seventy-day time limit] as extended by section 3161(h), the information or indictment shall be dismissed on motion of the defendant”). The only question for the court is *435whether the dismissal is to be with or without prejudice. As a number of courts have observed, the Speedy Trial Act as originally drafted would have required all dismissals to be with prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Caparella, 716 F.2d 976, 978-79 (2d Cir.1983). The statute as actually enacted, however, makes dismissal without prejudice an option, demonstrating that “Congress did not intend any particular type of dismissal to serve as the presumptive remedy for a Speedy Trial Act violation.” United States v. Taylor, 487 U.S. 326, 334, 108 S.Ct. 2413, 101 L.Ed.2d 297 (1988). Instead, the Speedy Trial Act leaves the decision to the district courts, directing them to consider “the seriousness of the offense; the facts and circumstances of the case which led to the dismissal; and the impact of a reprosecution on the administration of [the Speedy Trial Act] and on the administration of justice.” 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2). When a district court properly considers those factors and its supporting factual findings are not clearly erroneous, “the district court’s judgment of how opposing considerations balance should not lightly be disturbed.” Taylor, 487 U.S. at 337, 108 S.Ct. 2413.
Nevertheless, “discretionary choices are not left to a court’s ‘inclination, but to its judgment; and its judgment is to be guided by sound legal principles.’ ” Id. at 336, 108 S.Ct. 2413 (quoting Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 421, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975) (quoting United States v. Burr, 25 F.Cas. 30, 35 (C.C.Va. 1807) (Marshall, C.J.))). Indeed, in order to ensure that the Speedy Trial Act is administered effectively, and to preserve the possibility of meaningful appellate review, a district court is required to “carefully express its decision whether or not to bar reprosecution in terms of the guidelines specified by Congress.” Id. at 343. In the present case, the district court’s two-page order, which for the most part consists simply of bare conclusions stating why dismissal without prejudice was the more appropriate option in this case, does not comply with this standard and makes meaningful appellate review nearly impossible.
I recognize that the Speedy Trial Act generally does not prefer either dismissal with prejudice or dismissal without prejudice as a remedy, and that the Supreme Court has specifically admonished that “[dismissal without prejudice is not a toothless sanction” because “it forces the Government to obtain a new indictment if it decides to reprosecute, and it exposes the prosecution to dismissal on statute of limitations grounds.” Taylor, 487 U.S. at 342, 108 S.Ct. 2413. But the fact that Congress expressly provided for both forms of dismissal suggests rather strongly that Congress contemplated that there were going to be cases in which dismissal with prejudice would be the only reasonable option. In light of the truly egregious and inexplicable violation of the Act under the present circumstances, I believe that this is one of those cases.
The district court’s delay in this case was completely unacceptable, and more than three years later, it is still unexplained. Its order dismissing the case without prejudice recites the correct legal standard, but then does little to apply the facts of this case to that standard, and it is, therefore, not entitled to the deference to which it might otherwise be due.
Even though the court’s opinion states that “a district court that does not set forth written findings with regard to these factors has abused its discretion and will be reversed,” Op. at 431 (quoting United States v. Pierce, 17 F.3d 146 (6th Cir.1994) (citing Taylor, 487 U.S. at 336, 108 S.Ct. 2413)), I do not understand our decision today, or this court’s decision in Pierce, to require dismissal with prejudice simply because a district court has not set forth written findings, or has set forth written findings that are insufficiently detailed. If the problem were simply that the court failed to set forth sufficiently detailed findings, the appropriate remedy would ordinarily be a remand to the district court *436with instructions to provide findings that are adequate. See United States v. Fox, 788 F.2d 905, 909 (2d Cir.1986).
Instead, I believe that the indictment must be dismissed with prejudice because there is no conceivable justification for the district court’s complete inactivity while Moss’s motion to suppress was under advisement, and because it clearly appears to have been the result of “precisely the sort of administrative neglect which the Speedy Trial Act was intended to discourage and sanction,” United States v. Angelini, 553 F.Supp. 367, 369 (D.Mass.1982). Even taking into account the seriousness of the offense with which Moss was charged, I do not believe that dismissal without prejudice, considering the length and lack of justification for the delay in this case, would give adequate effect to the mandate of Congress as set forth in the Speedy Trial Act. As far as can be discerned from the record, the district court took Moss’s motion to suppress under advisement and then simply sat on the case for a year. These circumstances call for a dismissal of the indictment with prejudice, and the district court abused its discretion in finding to the contrary.
III.
I recognize full well the unfortunate irony of dismissing with prejudice a case in which the defendant was convicted and sentenced to a very substantial term of incarceration, all in order to enforce a statute that was enacted in large part to protect the public from dangerous offenders released on bail. But in enacting the Speedy Trial Act, Congress made plain its belief that bringing defendants to trial promptly is essential to the interests of justice, and that the remedy of dismissal— and in some cases dismissal with prejudice — is necessary to carry out its mandate. I therefore concur in the judgment directing the district court to dismiss Moss’s indictment with prejudice.