Court Opinion

ID: 9482604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:55:24.740223+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:05.878494
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Bond contends that his right to a speedy trial was violated by the government’s failure to prosecute him within the seventy-day limit prescribed by the Speedy Trial Act. I agree with my colleagues that Bond’s statutory right to a speedy trial was not violated, but I write separately to express my differing rationale.
To address Bond’s claim, we must first determine the date on which the seventy-day period began to run. No provision of the Speedy Trial Act specifically addresses when the seventy-day period begins to run following successful collateral attacks on guilty pleas. Two different provisions *634could potentially apply. Section 3161(e) applies to retrial or new trial and provides as follows:
If the defendant is to be tried again following a declaration by the trial judge of a mistrial or following an order of such judge for a new trial, the trial shall commence within seventy days from the date the action occasioning the retrial becomes final. If the defendant is to be tried again following an appeal or a collateral attack, the trial shall commence within seventy days from the date the action occasioning the retrial becomes final. ...
18 U.S.C. § 3161(e) (1988). On the other hand, § 3161(i) applies to withdrawal of guilty pleas and provides as follows:
If trial did not commence within the time limitation specified in section 3161 because the defendant had entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere subsequently withdrawn to any or all charges in an indictment or information, the defendant shall be deemed indicted with respect to all charges therein contained within the meaning of section 3161, on the day the order permitting withdrawal of the plea becomes final.
18 U.S.C. § 8161® (1988).
The district court’s May 9, 1990 order clearly did not grant Bond a trial; rather, it recognized that his guilty plea was improperly entered. Thus, the “action occasioning the retrial” should be literally interpreted to mean the court’s June 14, 1990 order setting a date for the trial. This interpretation construes the two sections harmoniously, because June 14, 1990 is also the date that Bond’s guilty plea was, in a sense, “subsequently withdrawn.” Nonetheless, I agree with the First Circuit that § 3161(e) should govern this case; faced with a similar situation, that circuit reasoned as follows:
The answer to the conundrum, we think, lies in the legislative history of § (i), which was enacted for the sole purpose of covering the situation where a defendant pleads guilty and then withdraws his plea, and the absence of any statutory provision other than § (e) dealing with a successful collateral attack on a conviction. We do not think that the words “tried again” in § (e) was [sic] intended to exclude from its coverage cases involving a successful collateral attack upon a guilty plea conviction rather than after trial. We, therefore, rule that § 3161(e), not (i), was the applicable section.
United States v. Mack, 669 F.2d 28, 32 (1st Cir.1982).
I find additional support for choosing June 14, 1990 over May 9, 1990 in the following passage from a Ninth Circuit case:
Appellants argue that the twenty-eight day period between the dismissal of the jury in the first trial and the entry on October 24, 1983, of the order setting their retrial should be included in calculating the speedy trial period. This argument is meritless. The district court’s order, not the dismissal of the jury, constituted the action occasioning the new trial. Thus, the first day of the seventy day period prescribed by 18 U.S.C. § 3161(e) would have been October 25, 1983, except that appellants filed a notice of interlocutory appeal on that day.
United States v. Crooks, 804 F.2d 1441, 1445 (9th Cir.1986). Similarly, I would not include the period from May 9 to June 14.1 Thus, I conclude in the instant case that the first day of the speedy trial period was June 15, 1990. August 2, 1990 is within that seventy-day period; therefore, the August 2 trial date did not violate the Speedy Trial Act.

. Although it might at first seem odd that the statute would leave a "gap,” this gap is no different than the time period between initial indictment and entrance of plea. Additionally, Bond might very well have pleaded guilty on June 14, if for example, the government had offered a more advantageous plea bargain than it offered at the time of Bond’s first guilty plea. This hypothetical factual scenario highlights the anomaly of holding that the speedy trial period begins to run before anyone is even certain that there will, in fact, be a trial.