Court Opinion

ID: 9463882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:18:59.987328+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:20.200141
License: Public Domain

TIMBERS, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the judgment and opinion of the Court in all respects with the exception of Part III, as to which I respectfully dissent, since I believe that Ferro’s failure to raise his claim under Article IV(e) of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (the Agreement) until his supplemental brief on appeal — never in the district court — constituted a waiver under Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(f).
A claim founded on a violation of Article IV(e) of the Agreement stems from the government’s administrative treatment of the defendant after indictment and before trial. As such, it is a defense “based on defects in the institution of the prosecution” within the meaning of Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(b)(1) and “must be raised prior to trial” or it is waived under Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(f). Those defenses “capable of determination without the trial of the general issue” which may be raised at the defendant’s option prior to or at trial — the principal examples being double jeopardy, res judicata, statute of limitations and immunity— concern matters as to which only the fact of the prosecution’s institution and not the details attending it are relevant. Furthermore, Article I of the Agreement states as its purpose “to encourage the expeditious and orderly disposition of ... charges . . . .” In light of this, Ferro’s Article IV(e) claim fairly may be characterized as a species of speedy trial claim. It is well established that a speedy trial claim must be timely asserted. See, e. g., Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 531-32 (1972); United States v. Lustman, 258 F.2d 475 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 358 U.S. 880 (1958).1
I disagree with the majority’s construction of the Agreement so as to render an Article IV(e) claim not subject to waiver. Such construction is not required by the Agreement or by any decision of the Supreme Court of which I am aware. On the contrary, the orderly administration of criminal justice, in my view, requires that Rule 12 and the Agreement be accommodated. The manifest purpose of Article IV(e) is deterrence. It bespeaks a judgment that only the ultimate sanction of dismissal of the indictment will insure the government’s compliance with the Agreement’s purpose of securing the expeditious disposition of charges which require the lodging of detainers. Since the government hardly can rely on defendants to fail to raise Article IV(e) claims in pre-trial motions,2 no material interference with the *638deterrent purpose of Article IV(e) would result from the application of Rule 12(f).
Finally, the majority’s holding that Ferro may invoke Article IV(e) for the first time on appeal on the ground that “[tjhere is no showing that Ferro knew, prior to trial, that the detainer had been lodged against him”, ante 635, strikes me as blinking at the hard facts. Whatever may have been the state of Ferro’s knowledge of the detainer, he obviously knew of his own transfer to New York at the end of January 1974 and his return to Ohio prior to trial pursuant to Judge Travia’s order of June 26, 1974. Under these circumstances, Ferro clearly had knowledge of facts sufficient to put him on notice of the existence of the claim which he waived under Rule 12(f). Cf. Shotwell Manufacturing Co. v. United States, 371 U.S. 341, 362-63 (1963); United States v. Reynolds, 300 F.Supp. 503, 505-06 (D.D.C.1969).
I therefore dissent from the dismissal of indictment 74 Cr. 322 as to Ferro and would include his two count conviction under that indictment in the remand for determination as to the applicability of the Eastern District Plan for the Prompt Disposition of Criminal Cases. Ferro himself, in his brief before us, suggested such a remand with respect to both indictments.

. Even if the pre-trial motion requirement of Rule 12(f) were inapplicable, surely Ferro waived his claim under Article IV(e) for failure to have raised it at trial. See 8 Moore’s Federal Practice fl 12.03[1] (2 ed. 1976); United States v. Friedland, 391 F.2d 378 (2 Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 867 (1969).

. Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(c) provides that the district court may set the time for making pre-trial motions. The Rule 12(f) waiver provision applies to any Rule 12(b)(1) motion not made at *638that time. It is not difficult to conceive of a situation in which a return to custody giving rise to an Article IV(e) claim might occur after the disposition of motions under Rule 12. Precisely that situation arose here. Ferro made a motion to dismiss indictment 74 Cr 322 on May 14, 1974. The motion was denied on June 4. He was not returned to Ohio until after June 26. But since the Article IV(e) claim did not come into existence until his return to custody, there was nothing to be waived by his earlier motion to dismiss. The obvious course would have been for the district court to entertain a second motion. Nothing in Rule 12 forecloses such a motion, since no Rule 12(f) waiver would have occurred. Significantly, Ferro could have included his Article IV(e) claim in the motion to dismiss which he made on November 20, 1974.