Court Opinion

ID: 9482603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:55:24.735197+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:05.877581
License: Public Domain

*633KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached in the opinion of the majority, but write separately to express my view that 18 U.S.C. § 3161(i) applies to this case.
The majority concludes that 18 U.S.C. § 3161(e) is applicable to cases in which a defendant’s guilty plea is withdrawn by the court after a defendant has successfully collaterally attacked his plea. I disagree. A literal reading of section 3161(e) indicates that section 3161(e) does not apply in that instance. Section 3161(e) measures the time limitation when a “defendant is to be tried again.” The defendant in this case cannot be tried again because he has never been tried. Section 3161(e) applies when a defendant is to be retried following a collateral attack on his prior trial, but section 3161(e) does not apply to a collateral attack of a guilty plea because no trial has occurred.
In cases where a guilty plea is collaterally attacked, I believe that section 3161(i) is the appropriate section to measure compliance with the Speedy Trial Act. Section 3161(i) provides for calculation of the speedy trial time limitation in situations where a defendant has “entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere subsequently withdrawn.” This language encompasses situations in which a guilty plea is successfully collaterally attacked. The relief sought in such cases is to withdraw or vacate the guilty plea. Thus, section 3161(i) is the appropriate measure of the speedy trial time limitation in cases of collateral attack on a guilty plea. In this case, defendant entered a guilty plea on January 23, 1990. That plea was withdrawn on May 9, 1990 when the District Court vacated defendant’s sentence and permitted withdrawal of defendant’s guilty plea pursuant to defendant’s section 2255 motion. In accordance with section 3161(i), the defendant is deemed indicted and the speedy trial time limitation began on the day the May 9, 1990 order became final.
Neither the Speedy Trial Act nor its legislative history define when an order becomes final. See A. Partridge, Legislative History of Title I of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974 (Fed.Judicial Center 1980) 186-188. The Supreme Court has determined that a judgment is final when “the availability of appeal has been exhausted or has lapsed,” Bradley v. Richmond School Board, 416 U.S. 696, 711 n. 14, 94 S.Ct. 2006, 2016 n. 14, 40 L.Ed.2d 476 (1974), and an order likewise should become final at that time. Therefore, the District Court’s order became final when the time for an appeal by the government expired. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure govern an appeal of an order granting a section 2255 motion. See 28 U.S.C. § 2242. Fed. R.App.P. 4 requires the government to file an appeal within sixty days after entry of a judgment.1 Thus, pursuant to Rule 4, the May 9, 1990 order became final sixty days later and defendant was deemed to be indicted on that date for purposes of calculating the speedy trial time limitation. The seventy-day speedy trial time limitation would not have expired as of August 2, 1990, defendant’s trial date.
Accordingly, I would affirm the District Court.

. In United States v. Gilliss, 645 F.2d 1269 (8th Cir.1981), the Eighth Circuit held that an order occasioning a retrial became final ten days after entry of the order when the time for post-judgment motions expired. I fail to understand how the Eighth Circuit selected this ten-day period, and believe that an order becomes final when the time to appeal has expired.