Court Opinion

ID: 9705907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:26:16.086804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:11.972309
License: Public Domain

*567WOLLMAN, Justice
(dissenting).
Although I concur fully in Justice Morgan’s dissenting opinion, because I believe it is a grave error to reverse this conviction I add a few comments of my own.
When the delay in this case, and we must remember that we are talking about the period from January of 1973 to October of 1973, is measured against the standards set forth in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101, it seems abundantly clear that the trial court’s decision must be affirmed.
First, the length of the delay was not so inordinate as to give rise to a presumption of prejudice. Defendant was charged with murder. Notwithstanding this fact, he was released on bail following a bond reduction hearing held in February of 1973. Granted that defendant was no doubt subject to the anxieties and apprehensions one who is under a charge of murder might normally be expected to experience, nevertheless he was not incarcerated during the time in question.
Second, the circumstances giving rise to the delay certainly justify the delay. The record reveals that there was plea bargaining between the state’s attorney and Mr. Janklow during the early part of 1973; indeed, that is the reason why the state’s attorney took the rather unusual step of himself moving that defendant’s bond be reduced. By the time the plea bargaining negotiations apparently came for naught, Mr. Janklow was in the process of winding up his practice and preparing to take a new position as a prosecutor for the Attorney General’s office. Mr. Simpson did not become actively involved in the representation of defendant until sometime in April of 1973. If there is one thing that is clear from the record it is the fact that Mr. Simpson was not prepared to go to trial on May 21,1973. There is adequate support in the record for the trial court’s finding that Mr. Simpson asked for a delay of trial early in May of 1973 to give him time to prepare his defense. Likewise, it is clear that Mr. Simpson first notified defendant in early July of 1973 that he had received Mr. Jank-low’s file in the case and that July 16,1973, was the first meeting between Mr. Simpson and defendant with respect to preparation for trial. Moreover, the only inference that can be fairly drawn from the record is that Mr. Simpson at no time desired to go to trial between the time he was engaged to represent defendant and October 31, 1973. Finally, I find nothing in the record that would in any way support an inference that the state was responsible for the delay in question.
Third, I find nothing in the record to support a finding that defendant’s professed desire for an early trial date was ever communicated to the state following the postponement of the May 1973 trial date. As the Court stated in Barker v. Wingo, supra,
“The defendant’s assertion of his speedy trial right, then, is entitled to strong evi-dentiary weight in determining whether the defendant is being deprived of the right. We emphasize that failure to assert the right will make it difficult for a defendant to prove that he was denied a speedy trial.” 407 U.S. at 531, 92 S.Ct. at 2192, 33 L.Ed.2d at 117.
As I read the record, the state’s attorney was completely justified in relying upon the implicit assumption that Mr. Simpson had obtained the consent of his client in asking for successive delays in setting a trial date. To be sure, it would have been a much better procedure for the request for continuances to be put on record before the trial court, with an adequate record being made of defendant’s acquiescence in his counsel’s request for additional time to prepare for trial. We need not reverse defendant’s conviction to make this point, however, for even the most casual of prosecutors should recognize the teachings of recent decisions to the effect that the duty rests upon the state to bring matters on for early trial.
Finally, as I have already indicated above, I find no evidence in the record of any serious prejudice to defendant resulting from the delay in question. Granted that the absence of a showing of prejudice to the defense at trial is not determinative of a *568claim that the right to speedy trial has been denied, Moore v. Arizona, 414 U.S. 25, 94 S.Ct. 188, 38 L.Ed.2d 183, the absence of a showing of any prejudice in the instant case weighs heavily against defendant’s claim that his right to a speedy trial was unconstitutionally denied.
By reversing this conviction on the ground set forth in the majority opinion, I fear that the court has failed to carry out properly the difficult and sensitive balancing process that the Court in Barker v. Wingo spoke of:
“We regard none of the four factors identified above as either a necessary or sufficient condition to the finding of a deprivation of the right of speedy trial. Rather, they are related factors and must be considered together with such other circumstances as may be relevant. In sum, these factors have no talismanic qualities; courts must still engage in a difficult and sensitive balancing process. But, because we are dealing with a fundamental right of the accused, this process must be carried out with full recognition that the accused’s interest in a speedy trial is specifically affirmed in the Constitution.” 407 U.S. at 533, 92 S.Ct. at 2193, 33 L.Ed.2d at 118.
Although there may be much merit in imposing a duty upon trial courts to make a complete record in future cases of a defendant’s acquiescence in his attorney’s desire for a continuance, I would not retrospectively impose such a duty by voiding an otherwise valid conviction in a most serious criminal case.
I would affirm the conviction.