Com. v. Martens
| Decision Date | 26 November 1986 |
| Citation | 398 Mass. 674,500 N.E.2d 282 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Christopher MARTENS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Robert A. Stolzberg, Boston, for defendant.
Margot Botsford, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Com.
Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and LIACOS, ABRAMS, NOLAN and LYNCH, JJ.
The defendant challenges the denial of his motions to dismiss an indictment charging him with two counts of armed robbery. He maintains that dismissal is required under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (agreement), to which the Commonwealth is a party. St.1965, c. 892, § 1. After the defendant appealed from his convictions on the two counts of the indictment, we granted his application for direct appellate review. Because we conclude that the defendant has failed to demonstrate compliance with the agreement, we affirm.
On March 3, 1982, the defendant was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of armed robbery. A capias warrant was issued by the Superior Court on March 5, 1982. The office of the district attorney subsequently lodged a detainer in Santa Barbara County, California, where the defendant was being held on separate charges.
In September, 1983, the defendant began serving an eleven-year sentence in California after being convicted of five counts of robbery. At that time, the California correctional authorities notified the defendant that a detainer relating to the Massachusetts armed robbery indictment had been lodged, and that he could request disposition of the charge pursuant to the agreement. According to the defendant, the forms required by the agreement were completed and forwarded to the proper custodial authorities in California. The defendant maintains that thereafter he made several inquiries into the status of his request but received no answer from the California authorities. Both parties agree that the appropriate Massachusetts officials never received a copy of the defendant's request.
On July 5, 1984, the defendant filed a pro se motion to dismiss, which is one basis of this appeal. The motion requested that the indictment be dismissed for failure to comply with the agreement, which provides that any untried indictment, information, or complaint not disposed of within 180 days after the defendant's request for trial be dismissed. Art. III(a ). On July 13, 1984, the motion judge ruled that there had been no formal demand under the agreement, and denied the defendant's motion.
The defendant was brought back to Massachusetts in April, 1985. He was arraigned on the 1982 indictment as well as on a subsequent indictment returned by a Middlesex County grand jury in March, 1985 charging the defendant with committing a separate armed robbery in 1981. On June 14, 1985, the defendant, now represented by counsel, moved the judge to reconsider his earlier denial of the defendant's pro se motion to dismiss. Counsel for the defendant also moved to dismiss on the ground that the Commonwealth had received actual notice of the defendant's request under the agreement in July, 1984, and had not tried him within the requisite 180 days.
After a hearing on June 17, 1985, the motion judge denied the motions without opinion. The defendant was convicted on June 19, 1985. This appeal is based solely on the defendant's claims pursuant to the agreement.
The defendant submits two arguments for dismissing the armed robbery indictments. 1 First, he maintains that the judge should have allowed his first motion to dismiss since more than 180 days had passed since the defendant had notified the California correctional authorities of his request for a speedy trial. Second, he argues that his second motion to dismiss was improperly denied because the first motion to dismiss served to trigger the 180-day period of the agreement.
1. Article III of the agreement gives a prisoner incarcerated in one State (sending State) the right to request the speedy disposition of any untried charges on the basis of which a detainer has been lodged against the prisoner by another State (receiving State). See Carchman v. Nash, 473 U.S. 716, 105 S.Ct. 3401, 3403, 87 L.Ed.2d 516 (1985). If such a request is made, the prisoner is entitled to be tried within 180 days after he causes written notice of his request to be given to the appropriate prosecuting officer and court.
Article III(b ) specifies the manner in which the prisoner is to deliver the requisite notice. He is to give or to send the notice in writing to the warden or other correctional official with custody over him. The appropriate custodial officer then has responsibility for forwarding the prisoner's request to the appropriate prosecuting official and court in the receiving State, together with a certificate "stating the term of commitment under which the prisoner is being held, the time already served, the time remaining to be served on the sentence, the amount of good time earned, the time of parole eligibility of the prisoner, and any decisions of the state parole agency relating to the prisoner." Art. III (a ). If the prisoner is not tried on the outstanding charges within 180 days after he has caused the appropriate authorities to be notified of his request for final disposition in accordance with the agreement, the charges are to be dismissed. Art. III (a ). Art. V (c ).
The Commonwealth correctly concedes that the 180-day period commences when a defendant files his request with the correctional authorities in the sending State, and not when those authorities forwarded the request to the receiving State. Although we have not had occasion to consider the question, we agree with the majority of jurisdictions that have addressed the issue that a prisoner need only transmit the written notice and request for final disposition to the appropriate custodial officials in order to fulfil completely his responsibility under the agreement. See, e.g., McCallum v. State, 407 So.2d 865, 869 (Ala.Crim.App.1981); Rockmore v. State, 21 Ariz.App. 388, 390, 519 P.2d 877 (1974); Pittman v. State, 301 A.2d 509, 512-513 (Del.1973); People v. Daily, 46 Ill.App.3d 195, 201-203, 4 Ill.Dec. 756, 360 N.E.2d 1131 (1977); Ward v. State, 435 N.E.2d 578, 581 (Ind.Ct.App.1982); Burns v. State, 578 S.W.2d 650, 652 (Tenn.Crim.App.1978). Cf. State v. Carroll, 4 Hawaii App. 573, 576, 670 P.2d 1290 (1983) (). We also agree with the result reached in the majority of cases that, should the custodial officials of the sending State fail or refuse to forward the request to the receiving State after receiving the prisoner's request, the receiving State, rather than the prisoner, is bound by the failure. See, e.g., Pittman v. State, supra; Ward v. State, supra; Burns v. State, supra. However, and of particular significance to this case, a prisoner seeking to benefit from the relief provided by the agreement must meet the burden of proving he has complied with the requirements of the agreement. See Williams v. Maryland, 445 F.Supp. 1216, 1220 (D.Md.1978); McCallum v. State, supra; State v. Carroll, supra; Rhodes v. Commonwealth, 622 S.W.2d 677, 678 (Ky.Ct.App.1981).
It is undisputed that Massachusetts never received notice of a request by the defendant before the defendant submitted his motion to dismiss in July, 1984. The record shows that the California authorities had complied with the requirements of the agreement in so far as they had notified the defendant of the Massachusetts detainer lodged against him and informed the office of the district attorney that its detainer was on file. The defendant's sole proof that he complied with the requirements of art. III (b ) consisted of: his verified statement that, on or about October 28, 1983, he sent the notice and request forms required by the agreement to the case records manager at the California facility where he was detained; his verified statement that, thereafter, in February and April of 1984, he sent written requests for information about his October request for a speedy trial; and copies of the forms and written requests he claims to have sent with no indicia of filing, such as date stamps, return receipts, or the like.
Implicit in the judge's decision on the defendant's motion to dismiss is a determination that the verified statements submitted by the defendant were not credible. The judge did not have to accept the allegations in the defendant's affidavits as true, even though nothing in the record directly disputed them. See Commonwealth v. DeChristoforo, 360 Mass. 531, 543, 277 N.E.2d 100 (1971). See also Rhodes v. Commonwealth, supra (). While the filing of a request with the proper custodial authorities is sufficient to fulfil the prisoner's responsibilty under the agreement, t...
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