Court Opinion

ID: 9549772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:24:36.659812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:54.242396
License: Public Domain

HUNTLEY, Justice,
dissenting.
I concur in the cogent and concise analysis of Justice McFadden. I respectfully take strong issue with the analysis of the majority.
Idaho Code § 19-3501 provides that the Court must order the prosecution be dismissed “if the trial has not been postponed upon his [the defendant’s] application.” Nowhere does the statute provide that there is an exception if the courts are at fault in the management of their calendars. Not only do we have adequate magistrates in this state to handle these matters, Idaho’s thirty-three district judges are available to sit on these cases in an emergency. The very purpose of the statute is to require that the agencies of government, including both the prosecutor and the courts, provide a defendant a speedy trial.
The suggestion in the majority opinion that the court is a “neutral” party is unsupported either in case law or in logic. The caption of the case is the State of Idaho v. Sindak. The courts, for the purpose of managing their calendars, are part of the state and not part of the defense. The majority opinion totally eviscerates the statute and destroys the policy of both the legislature and what should be the policy of the Supreme Court, that misdemeanor defendants receive a speedy trial.
In this case there was a lack of speedy trial due solely to one reason, and that is, faulty calendar management, which I say in an uncritical way in that our courts regularly process thousands of cases each year and do so in a timely manner. One of the major reasons they are processed in a timely manner is that they are required to be processed in a timely manner. It is regrettable that we would destroy that laudable public policy of both the legislature and the courts in order to affirm the conviction of one defendant in one case.