Court Opinion

ID: 9744459
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:03:27.278174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:49.301551
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
dissenting.
Although addressing itself to the readjudi-eation of habitual offender status after reversal on appeal, Justice Boehm’s opinion appears to stand for the proposition that re-prosecution of a criminal charge after reversal on appeal is subject to the requirements of Ind. Criminal Rule 4(B). To the extent that the opinion so holds, I dissent. Criminal Rule 4(B) makes no reference to holding a criminal defendant for reprosecution after reversal and I do not believe that we should read such a requirement into the rule. This contrasts to our Crim.R. 12(D)(1) which specifically provides that that rule is applicable to. cases “remanded for a new trial by the Supreme Court or Court of Appeals.” Cfi Colo.Rev.Stat. § 18-1-405(2) (1986) (“If trial results in conviction which is reversed on appeal, any new trial must be commenced within six months after the date of the receipt by the trial court of the mandate from the appellate court.”).
As the majority opinion discusses, two of the most frequently mentioned justifications *42for the speedy trial rule are to prevent undue and oppressive incarceration prior to trial and to minimize anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation. United States v. Ewell, 383 U.S. 116, 120, 86 S.Ct. 773, 776-77, 15 L.Ed.2d 627 (1966). Criminal Rule 4(B) addresses those concerns by requiring the state to be in a reasonably good position to try its ease against the accused at the time charges are filed. For if the State is not ready to go to trial, the defendant can exercise his or her rights under the rule and secure discharge. The rule, then, serves to prevent criminal charges from hanging over the head of an accused for extended periods of time while the State assembles its case, all the while subjecting the defendant to undue and oppressive incarceration, anxiety and concern. But because the State picks the date on which charges are filed, the State is in the position of making the judgment, at the time charges are filed, as to whether it will be ready to try the case in 70 days if the accused so demands.
All of this works differently for retrials. No longer is the prosecutor able to start the clock leading to trial; the court on appeal effectively initiates the time period leading up to reproseeution. While it is certainly true that the State is to some degree prepared for any reprosecution by virtue of the fact that it prosecuted the same case before, it cannot realistically be said that the situations are the same. Several years at least will have passed since the original trial. (Almost eleven years had passed here.) Personnel in the prosecutor’s office may be different, to say nothing of the availability of witnesses and evidence. And, of course, the local prosecutor has little basis for knowing when the court on appeal will rule.
Other jurisdictions have held that their court-promulgated speedy trial rules do not apply to the reprosecution of criminal charges after reversal on appeal. See State v. Girts, 1997 WL 321109 *7-8 (Ohio App. June 12, 1997); Donalds v. State, 291 Md. 276, 434 A.2d 581 (1981), aff'g Donalds v. State, 49 Md.App. 106, 430 A.2d 113, 115 (1981). I would follow the same rule for our state.
The defendant who secures reversal of his or her conviction on appeal still enjoys the right to a speedy trial under both the United States and Indiana Constitutions. These rights are delineated in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), and Fortson v. State, 269 Ind. 161, 168, 379 N.E.2d 147, 152 (1978). Furthermore, a criminal defendant who secures reversal of a conviction or sentence on appeal enjoys a federal due process right against vindictiveness or retaliation which could well be violated if reprosecution after reversal on appeal is unreasonably delayed. Cf. North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 725, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2080, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969) (Due Process Clause “requires that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part in the sentence he receives after a new trial.”). I believe these constitutional provisions provide sufficient protection in the circumstance at issue here. To the extent they do not, I believe we should change our rule, not by case law, but by an amendment that would take into account the differences between the original trial and reprosecution.