Court Opinion

ID: 9430512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:53.637523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:24.747106
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Marshall, and Justice Blackmun join,
dissenting.
The purpose of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, as amended in 1979 and in 1984, 18 U. S. C. §3161 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. II), is to quantify and make effective the Sixth Amendment right to a a speedy trial. S. Rep. No. 96-212, p. 6 (1979); S. Rep. No. 93-1021, p. 1 (1974). To this end, the Act entitles a criminal defendant to dismissal of the charges pending against him if he is not brought to trial within 70 days of his initial appearance or indictment. 18 U. S. C. §§ 3161(c), 3162. In computing the running of this 70-day period, the Act permits certain periods of time to be excluded. These exclusions are designed to take account of specific and recurring periods of delay which often occur in criminal cases; they are not to be used either to undermine the time limits established by the Act, or to subvert the very purpose the Act was designed to fulfill. Nonetheless, this is precisely the result achieved by the majority’s reasoning, as it allows trial judges indefinitely to delay disposing of pretrial motions. For this reason, I dissent.
As interpreted by the majority, § 3161(h)(1)(F) (subsection (F)) excludes the entire period between the filing of the pretrial motion and the date on which the motion is finally taken under advisement. For motions requiring a hearing, all time *334is excluded from the date the motion is filed through the conclusion of the hearing. Ante, at 329-330. There is no requirement that the hearing be held promptly, and the reason for the delay is irrelevant. Regardless of whether a hearing is postponed due to a stipulated continuance, the sudden illness of counsel, or the trial judge’s decision to play golf, until the hearing is concluded, the 70-day clock remains at a standstill. Moreover, if at the conclusion of the hearing the trial judge determines that more information would be helpful to his resolution of the motion, or if the prosecutor simply announces his intention to file supplemental papers, the period of excludable delay continues indefinitely until the court receives all of the papers it reasonably expects. Only at that point is the motion considered to be “actually under advisement,” and even then, § 3161(h)(l)(J) (subsection (J)) provides for an additional 30 days before the clock begins running again.
For pretrial motions that do not require a hearing, the majority reads subsection (F) to exclude the entire period of time from the filing of the motion through its “prompt disposition.” Ante, at 329. As construed by the Court, however, the word “prompt” does not refer to the speed at which the trial court is required to handle the motion; instead, it merely serves to designate the “point at which time will cease to be excluded.” Ibid. That is to say, Congress inserted the word “prompt” simply to distinguish the time at which the motion is taken under advisement from the “final” disposition, or resolution, of the pretrial motion by the court, and thus prevent trial courts from avoiding the 30-day limitation imposed by subsection (J) by claiming that the unlimited delay sanctioned by subsection (F) applies until the court finally disposes of (i. e., decides) the pretrial motion. Ante, at 329.
As I see it, the majority has misread both subsection (F) and the Act as a whole. I read subsection (F) to require all pretrial motions, regardless of whether they require a hearing, to be disposed of promptly. There is no reason to be*335lieve that Congress did not intend the word “prompt” to mean exactly what it normally means, “performed readily or immediately”; “given without delay or hesitation.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, p. 1816 (1976). Reading the word “prompt” in subsection (F) as a synonym for “quick” rather than as an antonym for the word “final” is a far more logical reading of the statute, and is more in keeping with the overall purpose of the Speedy Trial Act. I also find no merit to the contention that the phrase “other prompt disposition” only applies to pretrial motions to be decided without a hearing. After all, there cannot be an “other prompt disposition” of a motion unless there was a prompt disposition in the first place, and the plain language of subsection (F) shows that Congress intended hearings on pretrial motions to be conducted just as promptly as any other disposition of such motions.
This reading of subsection (F) is consistent with the structure of the Speedy Trial Act taken as a whole. Subsection (F) allows for the exclusion of the period of delay occurring between the making of the pretrial motion and its submission to the trial court for decision. It is this portion of the pretrial proceedings that the Act commands must be “prompt,” and the reason for such a requirement is clear: it forces the parties to submit all necessary papers, and the court to hold any necessary hearings and decide what information it needs, in a timely and orderly manner. As shown above, the use of the word “prompt” in this context does more than simply distinguish this point in time from the time when the motion is finally decided (i. e., the “final” disposition of the motion); instead, it describes the pace at which both the parties and the court are to act in ensuring that the trial judge can rule on the pretrial motion as quickly as possible. The promptness requirement, in other words, expressly is designed to prevent endless and needless delays in the assembly of the relevant material necessary for the trial court to make a reasoned decision on the submitted pretrial motion.
*336Subsection (F) thus requires prompt submission of material to the court and efficient scheduling of pretrial hearings, and once the court receives all of the papers and arguments it reasonably expects, the motion is considered to be “actually under advisement by the court.” Consistent with the purpose of the Act and the promptness requirement imposed by subsection (F), subsection (J) then gives the trial court no more than 30 days in which to consider the parties’ contentions and finally to decide the motion. The period during which the court has the motion “under advisement” is governed by subsection (J), and contrary to the majority’s holding, ante, at 328-329, its 30-day limitation period has no bearing on the speed with which the motion is submitted to the court for decision.
Construing subsection (F) as mandating the prompt scheduling of hearings and submission of material in order for the trial court to take the matter under advisement is supported not only by the language of the statute and the structure of the Act, but also by the legislative history. In explaining the 1979 Amendments to the Act which established subsection (F) in its present form, the Senate Judiciary Committee noted that this portion of the Act “must be read together with the proposed change in clause (ii) of subsection (h)(8)(B) involving ‘preparation’ for ‘pretrial proceedings’.” S. Rep. No. 96-212, p. 33 (1979).1 The Committee expressly re*337jected as “unreasonable” the suggestion that “all time consumed by motions practice, from preparation through their disposition, should be excluded,” finding instead that “in routine cases, preparation time should not be excluded where the questions of law are not novel and the issues of fact simple.” Id., at 33-34. Even in cases involving “novel questions of law or complex facts,” the Committee concluded that only “reasonable preparation time for pretrial motions” would be necessary. Id., at 34. Despite the narrow reading of the legislative history by the majority, therefore, the Senate Committee clearly meant exactly what it said when it declared that it did not intend that “additional time be made eligible for exclusion by postponing the hearing date or other disposition of the motions beyond what is reasonably necessary.” Ibid.2
*338Adhering to both the plain language of the statute and its legislative history, the majority of courts considering this question have held that subsection (F) permits the exclusion of only a reasonable amount of time for the trial court to take a pretrial motion under advisement, and that any other result would defeat the purposes of the Act. See United States v. Ray, 768 F. 2d 991, 997-999 (CA8 1985); United States v. Mitchell, 723 F. 2d 1040, 1046-1047 (CA1 1983); United States v. Janik, 723 F. 2d 537, 543-544 (CA7 1983); United States v. Novak, 715 F. 2d 810, 819-820 (CA3 1983), cert. denied sub nom. Ware v. United States, 465 U. S. 1030 (1984); United States v. Cobb, 697 F. 2d 38, 43-45 (CA2 1982); United States v. Smith, 563 F. Supp. 217, 219-220 (Md. 1983), aff’d, 750 F. 2d 1233 (CA4 1984), cert. denied, 471 U. S. 1057 (1985); United States v. Hawker, 552 F. Supp. 117, 124-125 (Mass. 1982). Similarly, the Judicial Conference of the United States recognizes that “[i]n some circumstances, the duration of this exclusion may be subject to a reasonableness requirement.” Committee on the Administration of the Criminal Law of the Judicial Conference of the United States, Guidelines to the Administration of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, as Amended (Dec. 1979 rev., with amendments through Oct. 1984), 106 F. R. D. 271, 289 *339(1984). Finally, commentators have also noted the necessity for this construction, finding that without it, there would be no need for trial courts to process motions in a timely fashion, thus undermining the purposes of the Act. See Misner, The 1979 Amendments to the Speedy Trial Act: Death of the Planning Process, 32 Hastings L. J. 635, 654-655 (1981); Note, Speedy Trial: A Constitutional Right in Search of Definition, 61 Geo. L. J. 657, 679, and n. 136 (1973), reprinted in Hearings on S. 754 before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 61, 83, and n. 136 (1973).
I agree with this wealth of statutory, judicial, and scholarly authority, and would hold that the Speedy Trial Act requires a trial court to take all pretrial motions under advisement in a prompt manner, and as a result, that only that period of delay found to be reasonably necessary to such a prompt handling of the motion is properly excludable under subsection (F). By holding that the entire period of delay from the filing of a pretrial motion until that motion is taken under advisement is excludable from the 70-day speedy trial computation, the majority allows this exception to swallow the rule and in so doing, undermines the entire Act. As Judge Ferguson concluded in his dissent below, “[w]hile I sympathize with the majority’s search for a per se rule . . . I cannot agree that the desire for an ‘easy’ rule can justify the abrogation of the major purpose of the Speedy Trial Act — to insure the defendant a speedy trial.” 746 F. 2d 619, 627 (1984). I would reverse the judgment of the Ninth Circuit, and remand for a determination of whether the delay in this case was reasonable.

 Title 18 U. S. C. § 3161(h)(8)(B) governs the factors a judge is to consider in determining whether to grant an “ends of justice” continuance authorized by § 3161(h)(8)(A). Subsection (h)(8)(B)(ii) provides:
‘Whether the case is so unusual or so complex, due to the number of defendants, the nature of the prosecution, or the existence of novel questions of fact or law, that it is unreasonable to expect adequate preparation for pretrial proceedings or for the trial itself within the time limits established by this section.”
The majority characterizes this subsection as dealing only with “time spent preparing pretrial motions’’ Ante, at 327, n. 8 (emphasis in original). This description ignores the plain language of the subsection, which states that it applies to “preparation for pretrial proceedings or for the trial *337itself.” Furthermore, the majority’s statement that its “holding concerns time after the submission of pretrial motions” shows how far removed from the purposes of the Speedy Trial Act its opinion lies. By treating the interval between the time when pretrial motions are submitted to the court and the time when the court takes the motion “under advisement” as a time not governed either by the promptness requirement of subsection (F) or the 30-day limitation imposed by subsection (J), the Court carves out a period in which the 70-day limit imposed by the Act does not apply. This construction permits potentially excessive and abusive use of the Act’s exclusions, and results in the denial of a speedy trial to a criminal defendant — the precise result which the Act was designed to avoid.

 The majority is correct that Congress placed a great deal of reliance on the development of local guidelines relating to motions practice to establish the specific periods of allowable delay under subsection (F). Ante, at 328. I disagree, however, that Congress left this potentially unlimited period of time to be governed solely by such rules. Although Congress might have intended for the district courts and circuits to quantify the precise limits acceptable under this portion of the Act, Congress made sure that, even without the development of such standards, no more time than what is “reasonably necessary” for the prompt submission of the motion to the trial court for decision would be excluded from the running of the 70-day clock established by the Act.
Moreover, even if the majority is correct that “Congress clearly envisioned that any limitations should be imposed by circuit or district court *338rules rather than by the statute itself,” ante, at 328, the majority fails to consider the applicable local rules relevant to this case. These provide that “[a]ll pre-trial hearings shall be conducted as soon after the arraignment as possible, consistent with the priorities of other matters on the court’s criminal docket.” U. S. District Court, Northern District of California, Plan for Prompt Disposition of Criminal Cases, Sec. II(4)(F)(4) (revised, Apr. 7, 1980), California Rules of Court 822-824 (West 1986). Although this rule does not offer any specific guidance, it is sufficient to invoke the “reasonably necessary” standard intended by Congress.
Finally, the majority states that it is deferring to the Ninth Circuit’s determination that the local rules were not violated in this ease. Ante, at 328, n. 9. This finding is not supported by the record, for although the lower court cited to the local rules, 746 F. 2d 619, 623 (1984), there is no indication that the panel ever applied the rules to the facts of this case, let alone that it found that the rules had not been violated.