Court Opinion

ID: 9770985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:27:29.79371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:37:44.169278
License: Public Domain

CHEW, Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent.
The Court of Criminal Appeals, in reversing our earlier decision in this case stated:
TheBarker Court did not, however, acknowledge a community right to a speedy trial. We recognize the societal impact of those concerns voiced in Barker, supra, but the community does not have a right to demand a speedy trial in any given ease. In other words, a community interest in a speedy trial exists, but there is no community right to a speedy trial in a specific instance. The four Barker balancing factors are in place to ensure that an individual defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial is not violated. There is no equivalent community right. It was improper for the Court of Appeals to recognize such a right in the present case.
Johnson v. State, 954 S.W.2d 770, 772 (Tex. Crim.App.1997).
What a unanimous Supreme Court said in Barker was:
The right to a speedy trial is generieally different from any of the other rights enshrined in the Constitution for the protection of the accused. In addition to the general concern that all accused persons be treated according to decent and fair procedures, there is a societal interest in providing a speedy trial which exists separate from, and at times in opposition to, the interests of the accused. The inability of courts to provide a prompt trial has contributed to a large backlog of cases in urban courts which, among other things, enables defendants to negotiate more effectively for pleas of guilty to lesser offenses and otherwise manipulate the system. In addition, persons released on bond for lengthy periods awaiting trial have an opportunity to commit other crimes. It must be of little comfort to the residents of Christian County, Kentucky, to know that Barker was at large on bail for over four years while accused of a vicious and brutal murder of which he was ultimately convicted. Moreover, the longer an accused is free awaiting trial, the more tempting becomes his opportunity to jump bail and escape. Finally, delay between arrest and punishment may have a detrimental effect on rehabilitation.
If an accused cannot make bail, he is generally confined, as was Barker for 10 months, in a local jail. This contributes to the overcrowding and generally deplorable state of those institutions. Lengthy exposure to these conditions ‘has a destructive effect on human character and makes the rehabilitation of the individual offender much more difficult.’ At times the result may even be violent rioting. Finally, lengthy pretrial detention is costly. The cost of maintaining a prisoner in jail varies from $3 to $9 per day, and this amounts to millions across the Nation. In addition, society loses wages which might have been *656earned, and it must often support families of incarcerated breadwinners.
A second difference between the right to speedy trial and the accused’s other constitutional rights is that deprivation of the right may work to the accused’s advantage. Delay is not an uncommon defense tactic. As the time between the commission of the crime and trial lengthens, witnesses may become unavailable or their memories may fade. If the witnesses support the prosecution, its case will be weakened, sometimes seriously so. And it is the prosecution which carries the burden of proof. Thus, unlike the right to counsel or the right to be free from compelled self-incrimination, deprivation of the right to speedy trial does not per se prejudice the accused’s ability to defend himself.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the right to speedy trial is a more vague concept than other procedural rights. It is, for example, impossible to determine with precision when the right has been denied. We cannot definitely say how long is too long in a system where justice is supposed to be swift but deliberate.
Barker, 92 S.Ct. at 2186-87.
More than a decade after Barker, the Supreme Court said:
Delay increases the cost of pretrial detention and extends ‘the period during which defendants released on bail may commit other crimes.’ United States v. MacDonald, 435 U.S. 850, 862, 98 S.Ct. 1547, 1553, 56 L.Ed.2d 18 (1978). Delay between arrest and punishment prolongs public anxiety over community safety if a person accused of a serious crime is free on bail. It may also adversely affect the prospects for rehabilitation. See Barker v. Wingo, supra, 407 U.S., at 520, 92 S.Ct., at 2187. Finally, when a crime is committed against a community, the community has a strong collective psychological and moral interest in swiftly bringing the person responsible to justice. Prompt acquittal of a person wrongly accused, which forces pros-ecutorial investigation to continue, is as important as prompt conviction and sentence of a person rightly accused. Crime inflicts a wound on the community, and that wound may not begin to heal until eriminal'proeeedings have come to an end.
Flanagan v. U.S., 465 U.S. 259, 104 S.Ct. 1051, 1054, 79 L.Ed.2d 288 (1984).
I continue to believe my vote was right the first time; therefore, I must respectfully decline to join the majority opinion here.