U.S. v. Mitchell

• Decision Date: 10 March 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-1622,91-1622
• Citation: 957 F.2d 465
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Edward George MITCHELL, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 465

957 F.2d 465

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Edward George MITCHELL, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 91-1622.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Jan. 7, 1992.

Decided March 10, 1992.

Eric J. Klumb, R. Jeffrey Wagner (argued), Asst. U.S. Attys., Office of the U.S. Atty., Milwaukee, Wis., for plaintiff-appellee.

Dennis P. Coffey (argued), Coffey, Coffey & Geraghty, Milwaukee, Wis., for defendant-appellant.

Before POSNER and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges, and ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge.

ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge.

Edward George Mitchell, a United States citizen who was extradited from Colombia, was convicted after a jury trial of arranging for the delivery of two kilograms of cocaine to undercover agents in Wisconsin. See 18 U.S.C. § 2, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (possession with intent to distribute); 21 U.S.C. § 846 (conspiracy to distribute). Mitchell was indicted on June 14, 1983, but not arraigned until July 18, 1990. Pretrial, Mitchell moved to dismiss the indictment on three grounds related to the post-indictment delay in bringing him to trial. He appeals the district court's denial of his pretrial motions as well as the district court's refusal to provide the jury an instruction defining the term "reasonable doubt." We affirm.

I. FACTS

Mitchell's 1983 indictment at issue in this appeal was not his first experience with the criminal justice system. In August 1981, Mitchell was convicted of various drug charges and received a four-year sentence from a federal court in Texas. After serving approximately eighteen months of that sentence at the LaTuna Federal Correctional Institution in New Mexico, Mitchell was transferred to a halfway house in Texas in March 1983. While at the halfway house, Mitchell apparently arranged a cocaine transaction in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with Richard Peterson, whom Mitchell had met at LaTuna. Unfortunately for Mitchell, after leaving LaTuna Peterson became an informant for law enforcement authorities in the Milwaukee area. As a result of Peterson's undercover operations, a federal magistrate in Wisconsin issued an arrest warrant for Mitchell on June 7, 1983 for arranging the delivery of two kilograms of cocaine. When federal marshals attempted to arrest Mitchell at the halfway house later that day, however, they discovered that he had escaped.

Thereafter, the Milwaukee Drug Enforcement Administration office (DEA) took routine measures to locate and apprehend Mitchell. His exact whereabouts remained unknown until approximately July 1986, although the DEA believed that Mitchell had fled to Colombia (the home of his wife) and may have been hiding in Santa Marta. See Government's Pretrial Motions Response App. 1-8. On July 31, 1986, Mitchell was arrested by DEA special agents and Colombian law enforcement officers in Santa Marta for possession of false Colombian immigration documents in the name of Phillip Goodman. Id. at App. 9. After his arrest, Mitchell admitted to a DEA agent that he had used Goodman's name to conceal his true identity, that he was a fugitive "wanted" in the United States, that he was "tired of running," and that he could probably bribe his way out of jail in Colombia. Id. Furthermore, local authorities also learned that he was the subject of an outstanding Colombian arrest warrant for smuggling contraband goods. He was incarcerated in the Santa Marta jail and his case was turned over to the Colombian Customs Service. Id.

Concerned that Mitchell would obtain a release from jail through bribery, the DEA pursued the possibility of having Mitchell deported to face charges in the United States. During this time, Colombia was in the midst of internal battles over extradition procedures. ¹ Although a window of opportunity opened regarding extradition from Colombia on December 14, 1986, ² the United States did not succeed in extraditing Mitchell before that window closed on June 25, 1987. ³ The United States requested a provisional detention of Mitchell on April 20, 1987 pending a formal extradition request, but that formal request apparently was never made. Mitchell was released from the Colombian jail on October 14, 1988. ⁴

Extradition did not become a possibility again until August 10, 1989 when a decree was issued by the Colombian President authorizing extradition without a treaty. ⁵ On January 22, 1990 Mitchell was again placed in custody in Colombia, presumably at the United States' behest, although the United States did not issue a formal request for provisional detention until January 29, 1990. A formal request for extradition was then filed by the United States on March 15, 1990; a request that Mitchell's extradition be accelerated was filed on April 30, 1990. Finally, on July 17, 1990, Mitchell left Colombia and was arraigned before the district court the following day.

Mitchell filed motions to dismiss his indictment on three separate, though related, grounds. First, Mitchell claimed that the district court lacked personal jurisdiction due to the post-indictment delay in bringing him to trial. Second, Mitchell claimed that the delay and his conditions of confinement were so "shocking" and "outrageous" as to warrant dismissal on due process grounds. Third, Mitchell claimed that the prosecution should be abated because his extradition violated Colombian and international law. A magistrate judge recommended that Mitchell's pretrial motions be denied, and the district court adopted that recommendation in a November 17, 1990 order. Thereafter, Mitchell was tried and convicted by a jury on both counts of the 1983 indictment, and was sentenced to concurrent thirty-year prison terms. This appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

Mitchell's first argument is that the district court erred by denying his request that the jury be instructed on the definition of "reasonable doubt." This argument, however, is foreclosed by a long line of precedent in this circuit. We have consistently disapproved of instructions attempting to define "reasonable doubt" and have held that the refusal to instruct on the meaning of "reasonable doubt," even where an acceptable instruction has been offered, is neither prejudicial nor reversible error. See United States v. Hall, 854 F.2d 1036, 1037 (7th Cir.1988); United States v. Marquardt, 786 F.2d 771, 784-85 (7th Cir.1986); United States v. Lawson, 507 F.2d 433, 443 (7th Cir.1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 1004, 95 S.Ct. 1446, 43 L.Ed.2d 762 (1975). The Supreme Court has stated that attempts at defining this term usually do not succeed in making its meaning any clearer to the jury. See Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 140, 75 S.Ct. 127, 138, 99 L.Ed. 150 (1954). Moreover, although Mitchell requested the Ninth Circuit's pattern jury instruction on reasonable doubt, that circuit has recently vested the decision of whether to give this instruction in the sound discretion of the trial court judge. See United States v. Nolasco, 926 F.2d 869 (9th Cir.1991) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 111, 116 L.Ed.2d 80 (1991). Thus, the district court did not err in declining to provide the jury a definition of "reasonable doubt," and to the extent that Mitchell asks us to upset our prior holdings on this issue, we decline to do so.

Mitchell next argues that the district court erred in denying his pretrial motions seeking to abate his prosecution. He advances two principal claims in this regard. First, Mitchell claims that the district court erred in not dismissing his indictment for lack of personal jurisdiction due to the post-indictment delay in bringing him to trial (Speedy Trial Claim ). Second, he claims that the district court erred in not dismissing his indictment because he was illegally removed from Colombia in violation of his due process rights as well as international and Colombian law (Illegal Removal Claim ).

A. Speedy Trial Claim.

Mitchell contends that his indictment should have been dismissed because of the delay in bringing him to trial. Under the sixth amendment, criminal defendants have a right to a speedy trial. The government has a constitutional duty to make a diligent, good faith effort to bring a defendant to trial promptly. Smith v. Hooey, 393 U.S. 374, 383, 89 S.Ct. 575, 579, 21 L.Ed.2d 607 (1969). In Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), the Supreme Court identified four factors to be considered in deciding whether a defendant's right to a speedy trial has been violated: (1) the length of delay between the defendant's indictment and trial, (2) the reason for the delay, (3) the timeliness of the defendant's assertion of right, and (4) the prejudice the defendant suffered due to the delay. Id. at 530, 92 S.Ct. at 2192. The district court employed these factors and decided on balance that Mitchell's right to a speedy trial had not been violated. We agree.

As to the first factor, the government wisely concedes that the seven-year delay between Mitchell's indictment and trial is presumptively prejudicial, requiring further inquiry into the other three factors. Brief of Plaintiff-Appellee 7; see United States v. Loud Hawk, 474 U.S. 302, 314, 106 S.Ct. 648, 655, 88 L.Ed.2d 640 (1986) (90-month delay presumptively prejudicial); United States v. Deleon, 710 F.2d 1218, 1220 (7th Cir.1983) (44-month delay presumptively prejudicial).

The second factor, however, cuts sharply against Mitchell. "A defendant's claim that the government violated [his] right to a speedy trial is seriously undermined when the defendant, and not the government, is the cause of the delay." United States v. Blanco, 861 F.2d 773, 778 (2d Cir.1988) (citations omitted). Mitchell's initial decision to flee from the halfway house to Colombia is the root cause of the long delay between his indictment and trial. While Colombia's internal battles over extradition procedures contributed to the delay between Mitchell's indictment and trial in the United States, the...