Court Opinion

ID: 9468749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:22:45.369421+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:02.218613
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
While I concur in parts II and III of the court’s opinion, I regret that I cannot join in part I. The Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3161 and 3162, was enacted despite considerable resistance from both prosecutors and judges. The Act has not been uniformly popular among trial judges because it imposes strict time constraints that must be observed in conducting criminal trials. Under prior rules time constraints were much more flexible and better suited to the almost impossible calendar management problems that constantly plague the district courts. Congress no doubt had this in mind when it not only drafted a strict rule with teeth, but in addition imposed the unusual requirement that trial courts specifically state their reasons for exercising the only important discretion available to them under the new Act. Congress recognized that legitimate counter-pressures inevitably would develop, allowing discretion in the granting of continuances to reduce the new rule to a carbon copy of the old flexible standard. Furthermore, it is not only the overworked trial courts that are hit hard by the strict new rule. Prosecutors have a vested interest in a return to the more relaxed standards of the past to accommodate their own excessive work loads. Congress was aware of all these matters and clearly showed that it intended there be no evasion of the new standards. Only vigilance by Courts of Appeals can prevent the erosion of the congressional mandate without Congress’ consent.
As the majority of this court correctly observed, the burden is on the government, not the defendant, to justify any continuance that extends the strict 70-day limit of the Act. The language of the Act spells out the degree of specificity that must be reflected in the trial court’s findings. The majority tacitly concedes that the trial court did not comply with the congressional mandate. They even describe the order as “crypt” in form. It is not difficult to sympathize with the court’s sustaining this action. We should not, unless unavoidable, play into the hands of those who wish to exploit the courts merely to be disruptive or to gain publicity. However, it is quite possible that if the trial court had carried out its task in the manner mandated by Congress, it properly could have reached the result it did. The evil lies in our approval of a form of order which permits undisciplined avoidance of the 70-day limit and undisciplined review of trial court orders extending. the limits Congress imposed on courts and prosecutors.
*870This record shows little effort by the prosecutors to work out an arrangement that would meet both the demands of the Speedy Trial Act and the very sensitive situation presented by these peculiar facts. We are left with the impression that it could not be done. However, Congress clearly indicated that it did not intend that either this court or the trial court speculate when extending, over objection, the time a criminal defendant must wait to be brought to trial. I only hope that this case will be confined to its peculiar facts and will not be the harbinger of an eventual erosion of this important statute rooted in constitutional imperatives.
I would reverse for failure to comply with Section 3161(h)(8).