Court Opinion

ID: 9484499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:55:12.087733+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:16.919483
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
The majority proceeds as if United States v. Lewis, 980 F.2d 555 (9th Cir.1992), left open the question we address today. It did not. Lewis held that “time that the trial judge expressly designates for the preparation of motions” is excludable under the Speedy Trial Act. Id. at 564 (emphasis added). Lewis is not limited to situations when the judge’s designation order comes in response to a request by one of the parties; nothing in the language or reasoning of the opinion supports any such distinction. To be sure, Lends didn’t expressly rule out such a distinction, just as it didn’t expressly rule out a distinction based on the fact that the defendant’s surname there began with an “L.” But if Lewis is distinguishable here, then there’s no case we can’t distinguish if we set our minds to it.†
The majority purports to find an opening in Lewis by observing that the case “does not answer the question of what actions by a trial *661judge qualify as the ‘express designation’ of time for the preparation of pretrial motions and what actions do not.” Maj. op. at 654-55. But Lewis holds quite clearly that an order by the court is an express designation; Lewis doesn’t answer the question the majority poses only if you don’t read it.
In any event, what’s so complicated about figuring out the meaning of “express designation”? The phrase is hardly glossolalia; it’s made up of two simple English words— “express” and “designation.” Express means “clearly indicated; explicit,” Random House Dictionary 467 (rev. ed. 1975); “designation” is “the act of designating,” id. at 360, which in turn is defined as “to mark or point out; specify,” id. There is no mystery here, no ambiguity, no occasion for clever interpretation, no need to consider policy, no excuse for plumbing the depths of legislative bistory, nothing at all that would justify this outburst of judicial creativity. An order by a district court giving the parties time to prepare pretrial' motions is quite clearly an “express designation” of time for that purpose. How, indeed, would a court go about making an “express designation” except by cutting an order? The majority has manufactured an ambiguity in a simple English phrase to free itself from the plain teaching of Lewis.
The majority creates a conflict not only., with our own recent precedent but with the only other circuit to rule on the issue. See United States v. Barnes, 909 F.2d 1059 (7th Cir.1990); United States v. Montoya, 827 F.2d 143 (7th Cir.1987). Despite the artful phrasing in the majority opinion, no circuit has come close to accepting the position we adopt today; we’re on our own. I can see absolutely no justification for this wholesale disregard of precedent. I dissent.

 I’m mystified by the majority's dictum that Lewis also might not apply to motions made by the government. See maj. op. at 657 n. 10. Not only is this inconsistent with Lewis, it introduces an unjustified asymmetry in the operation of the Speedy Trial Act. The Act, unlike the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial, is not purely a means for protecting defendants; it is intended to move the criminal justice system along for the benefit of everyone involved-including the public. See, e.g., United States v. Antonio, 705 F.2d 1483, 1485 (9th Cir.1983). The majority's suggestion gives defendants precisely the type of unilateral opportunity to drag Out the process that Congress passed the Act to curb.