Court Opinion

ID: 9573059
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:47:23.05604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:31.121257
License: Public Domain

KLEINSCHMIDT, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I think the majority does not give sufficient weight to the policy and purpose of Hinson v. Coulter, 150 Ariz. 306, 723 P.2d 655 (1986). That case was designed to put an end to a specific abuse. The state, overburdened, had fallen into the practice of violating Rule 8 trial deadlines in DUI cases by dismissing cases without prejudice and refiling them long after the defendant had originally been arrested or summoned to answer. Our supreme court said that if the state did not comply with Rule 8, DUI cases must be dismissed with prejudice. It specifically adopted this method to ensure that the legislative intent of removing drunk drivers from the highways was implemented. Id. at 311, 723 P.2d at 660.
This policy of the timely removal of drunk drivers from the roads is a strong one, and admits of no distinction between juveniles and adults. Nor is there any ambiguity about the method the supreme court has selected to effectuate that policy. I, like the trial judge, see nothing harmful to the juvenile process in requiring that juveniles accused of DUI be dealt with with reasonable dispatch.
I am aware of the difficulty the state is faced with in trying to bring offenders to trial within the constraints of Hinson, and I am also aware that as Justice Holohan feared in his dissent in Hinson, the dismissal of prosecutions against drunk drivers may be counterproductive. As the majority points out, Hinson may even now be under reconsideration. Hinson, however, is too clear to be ignored. It is beyond our power to abandon it, and unless and until it is abandoned I see good reason to apply it to juvenile offenders.
The state argues that great flexibility is desirable in treating juvenile offenders and that the application of Hinson interferes with that flexibility. It points especially to the procedure provided for in A.R.S. sec*597tion 8-230.01 and Rule 2(b) and (c), Arizona Rules of Procedure for Juvenile Court, by which a juvenile probation officer may conduct an interview with a juvenile and his parents before deciding whether to file a delinquency petition, or, as an alternative, to adjust the complaint. Several factors undercut this argument.
First, the record shows that the vast majority of juveniles who are arrested for DUI are treated in municipal courts or justice courts and that referrals to the juvenile court for this offense, and review for adjustment, are rare.
Further, a strong argument can be made that any time consumed in the juvenile screening process provided for by the rules is delay occasioned by or on behalf of the defendant and is excludable under Rule 8.4 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure. Assuming such time is excludable, the application of Hinson in those few cases which are handled in the juvenile court will not interfere with the flexibility that is served by the screening and adjustment process.
More importantly, however, the juvenile judge in 1 CA-JV 90-007 expressly found nothing in the application of the Hinson speedy trial rule that was inimical to the juvenile process. To the contrary, it was his belief that delay in disposing of juvenile cases was harmful to juveniles and interfered with their rehabilitation.
WAIVER OF HINSON
The state has an additional argument in Juvenile Number CR 90-007. It says that even if Hinson applies to juveniles, the juvenile in this case waived his right to object to a failure to bring him to trial within 150 days because his lawyer failed to inform the court of the impending expiration of the 150-day time limit.
The majority believes that the juvenile is not bound by his lawyer’s conduct in failing to object, and that he, the juvenile, cannot waive his insistence on being tried within 150 days unless he personally made a knowing waiver of his right to be tried in a timely manner.
I do not agree that the juvenile must have made a knowing waiver of his right to be tried within the time limits of Rule 8. It is true that the Supreme Court of the United States in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), recognized that the fundamental constitutional right to a speedy trial “is unique in its uncertainty as to when and under what circumstances it must be asserted or may be deemed waived.” 92 S.Ct. at 2191. It went on to hold that it would not conclusively presume a waiver of a fundamental right from inaction, but that the failure to demand a speedy trial is one factor to take into account in determining whether the right to a speedy trial has been waived.
Rule 8 is narrower and more restrictive than the constitutional right to a speedy trial. State v. Tucker, 133 Ariz. 304, 308, 651 P.2d 359, 363 (1982). That being true, a violation of Rule 8 need not be a violation of any fundamental constitutional right. Barker v. Wingo, therefore, has no direct application to this case. Indeed, in State v. Killian, 118 Ariz. 408, 577 P.2d 259 (App.1978), Division Two of this court has expressly held that Rule 8 does not grant a defendant a fundamental right and that counsel can waive its provisions on behalf of his client. I believe that Killian, which is directly on point, was correctly decided.
There are many other instances in which counsel’s failure to act waives some important right of his client, even though the client may have no knowledge or comprehension of what is transpiring. For example, counsel’s failure to object to inadmissible evidence waives the objection. State v. Woratzeck, 134 Ariz. 452, 657 P.2d 865 (1983); State v. Lubetkin, 78 Ariz. 91, 276 P.2d 520 (1954). A failure to object to testimony identifying the defendant as the perpetrator of the crime waives any right that the defendant might have to have the testimony stricken. State v. Nevarez, 108 Ariz. 414, 499 P.2d 709 (1972). Counsel’s failure to request a specific jury instruction waives all but fundamental error for failure to properly instruct. State v. Harris, 151 Ariz. 236, 727 P.2d 14 (1986). Counsel’s failure to object to proceeding without a court reporter waives a record of the *598proceedings and results in the presumption that the missing record would support the action of the trial court. State v. Zuck, 134 Ariz. 509, 658 P.2d 162 (1982). Under Rule 16.1, Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure, all pretrial motions not timely brought are precluded. Por a general discussion of waiver of rights, see Dix, Waiver as an Independent Aspect of Criminal Procedure: Some Comments on Professor Westen’s Suggestion, 1979 Ariz.St.LJ. 67; Spritzer, Criminal Waiver, Procedural Default and the Burger Court, 126 U.Pa. L.Rev. 473 (1978).
Having concluded that counsel’s conduct could waive the juvenile’s Hinson rights, I turn to the substance of the state’s claim that counsel’s conduct did waive those rights. The state says the juvenile’s adjudication hearing was set beyond the 150-day time limit in the belief that Hinson and Rule 8 did not apply. It argues, citing State v. Guerrero, 159 Ariz. 568, 769 P.2d 1014 (1989), that if the juvenile intended to raise the Hinson issue, he should have informed the court at the time the hearing was set, and his acquiescence in the date set was a waiver of his right to an earlier trial. It points out that Rule 8.1(d) requires a defendant’s attorney to advise the court of expiring time limits and that a refusal to dismiss is an appropriate sanction for a knowing failure to do so. State v. Techy, 135 Ariz. 81, 659 P.2d 40 (App. 1982).
The juvenile responds by pointing out that Tucker holds that where, as here, there were no intervening delays between arrest and the expiration of the time limit for trial, Rule 8.1, which requires counsel to notify the court of an expiring time limit, does not apply. He also points out that in State v. Thurman, 134 Ariz. 465, 657 P.2d 878 (App.1982), Division Two of this court, in refusing to find that a defendant waived his right to a speedy trial when he failed to object at arraignment to a trial date that was past the time limits set by Rule 8, said:
In the recent case of State v. Techy, 135 Ariz. 81, 659 P.2d 40 ([App.] 1982), this court held that when the failure to advise the court is intentional, the time during which such conduct occurred may be excluded as an appropriate sanction. At this time we are reluctant to extend this rationale to a case such as this where at an arraignment the state, along with the court and the defendant, set a trial date past Rule 8 limits. Such an extension would, in effect, condone a trial postponement by stipulation and Rule 8.1 quoted above explicitly prohibits this.
134 Ariz. at 466-67, 657 P.2d at 879-80.
The most recent consideration of this problem is found in Guerrero. There, the defendant was arrested for a DUI on October 25, 1986. At a pretrial conference the judge scheduled trial for April 2, 1987, which was nine days past the 150-day deadline. The defense did not object to the trial date and proceeded to trial. The defendant was found guilty. On appeal, the defendant urged for the first time that he was entitled to a dismissal under Hinson. The court of appeals ruled that he had waived the speedy trial issue by failing to object. On petition for review, the supreme court agreed. In doing so it said:
We recognize that Rule 8.2(e) states the speedy trial time limits ‘may not be extended by stipulation or waiver____’ This case is not, however, one of waiver in the sense that Rule 8.2(e) contemplates. Rule 8.2(e) prohibits a voluntary waiver of the strict 150-day time limit in an attempt to extend the DUI trial date. This prohibition serves the public’s interest in promptly bringing the accused to trial. It is not a shield by which the accused may avoid trial and possible punishment by taking advantage of loopholes in the law or arithmetical errors.
We do not attempt to determine here what constitutes a timely objection to the Rule 8 speedy trial violation or potential violation. We simply assert that defendant cannot allow the 150-day limit to pass without objection, allow the trial to continue to verdict and sentence, and then, for the first time, raise the speedy trial issue and claim the need for reversal. Though defendant may indeed complain that he was not brought to trial *599soon enough, he cannot first do so after verdict.
Guerrero, 159 Ariz. at 570-71, 769 P.2d at 1016-17.
There is a tension between the Rule 8.1(d) requirement that an attorney advise the court of the impending expiration of the speedy trial time limit and the Rule 8.2(e) prohibition against an extension of time by stipulation. While I do not disagree with Division Two’s observation in Thurman that parties cannot grant themselves an extension of time beyond the Rule 8 limits by failing to raise the issue, I believe that Guerrero requires a particularized inquiry into the motive of defendant’s counsel in failing to notify the court that the 150-day limit would expire before the case was brought to trial. If counsel said nothing because he, and the state, in fact wanted a trial date beyond the time limit, the case was properly dismissed under Hinson. If, however, counsel did not advise the court of the impending expiration of the time limit because he wanted to let the time go by and then invoke Hinson, the motion to dismiss has been waived. In the latter case, in the words of Guerrero, counsel would be using Hinson as a shield to take advantage of a loophole in the law.
Here, the circumstances strongly suggest that the juvenile had every intention of asserting his right to dismissal under Hinson without advising the court that under the view of the law he planned to assert the time limit for trial was about to expire. Counsel for the juvenile says that the motion to dismiss was filed once it became ripe. I interpret this to mean that he was just waiting for the deadline to pass. Based on the record as it now stands, I conclude that the juvenile waived his motion to dismiss for a failure to comply with Hinson.
I realize that the record with respect to counsel’s motive in not advising the court of the impending deadline has not been exhaustively developed. Since the young man who was charged with DUI in this case is no longer a juvenile, I would remand this case to the superior court for further proceedings. Should the state wish to proceed with prosecution, and should counsel for the juvenile wish to present evidence that his motive was not as I have assumed it to have been, or that he only discovered that he had a Hinson argument after the time limit for trial ran, he should move for an evidentiary hearing in the superior court on that issue. If the trial judge, applying the test that I have laid down, were to determine that the motion to dismiss was not waived, the judge should then enter another order of dismissal with prejudice.