We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE IN 2ND CIRCUIT

Rodshaun Black and his co-defendants sat in jail for 68 months awaiting trial on a Hobbs Act conspiracy. For almost three years of that time, the government delayed by dithering over whether to seek the death penalty. More time was wasted by the government losing critical evidence, and even more with a superseding indictment.

Rodshaun and his co-defendants continually complained about the delay. Finally, at the close of the trial (at which Rodshaun was acquitted of four counts and the jury hung on the other five), the district court threw out the rest of the case because Rod’s constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated.

Last week, the 2nd Circuit upheld the dismissal, rejecting the government’s whine that the district court should not have attributed 34 months’ delay to the government for its prolonged death‐penalty decision and that the district court should have held Rod responsible for more of the delay than it did. Applying the factors outlined in Barker v. Wingo, the Circuit said, “Today we hold for the third time in two years that criminal defendants’ rights to a speedy trial have been violated in the Western District of New York… Defendants‐Appellees endured an extraordinary sixty‐eight‐month delay, suffered anxiety occasioned by the government’s nearly three‐year deliberation over whether to argue that they should be sentenced to death, and repeatedly requested a speedy trial… Defendants‐Appellees’ rights to a speedy trial were violated.”

US v. Black, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 7847 (2nd Cir. Mar. 18, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root