Commonwealth v. (And
| Citation | 472 Mass. 56,32 N.E.3d 1223 |
| Decision Date | 30 June 2015 |
| Docket Number | SJC–11705, SJC–11707. |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Nickoyan WALLACE (and a companion case). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Norman S. Zalkind (Ruth O'Meara–Costello with him), Boston, for Timi Wallace.
Matthew A. Kamholtz, Boston, for Nickoyan Wallace.
Sarah Montgomery Lewis, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
J. Anthony Downs, Samuel Sherry, Catherine Curley, Matthew R. Segal, Jessie Rossman, & Chauncey B. Wood, Boston, for American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Massachusetts & another, amici curiae, submitted a brief.
Present: GANTS, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, DUFFLY, & LENK, JJ.
SPINA
, J.
In this consolidated interlocutory appeal, we consider whether the Commonwealth's delay in obtaining custody of the defendants Nickoyan Wallace (Nickoyan) and Timi Wallace (Timi),2 brothers, from Federal prison authorities impermissibly affected their right to a speedy trial. In considering this question in motions to dismiss due to delays totaling more than nine years,3 a judge of the Superior Court found that Timi's right to a speedy trial had not been violated but that of Nickoyan had. A single justice of this court allowed the interlocutory appeals of Timi and the Commonwealth, consolidated the cases, and reported them to the Appeals Court. The Appeals Court held that the Commonwealth had not violated the speedy trial right of either brother, affirming the denial of Timi's motion and reversing the allowance of Nickoyan's. Commonwealth v. Wallace, 85 Mass.App.Ct. 123, 6 N.E.3d 549 (2014)
. This court granted the brothers' applications for further appellate review. We affirm the decision of the trial court to deny Timi's motion and to allow Nickoyan's motion.4
1. Background. The essential facts are not in dispute, and we recite them as the motion judge found, reserving further details for discussion of the specific issues raised. On March 26, 2000, the victim, Tasfa Wallace, was shot to death through the door of his apartment. Moments before the shooting, the victim's girl friend had answered knocking at the door and had seen Timi and Nickoyan, the victim's brothers, through the door's peephole. Other witnesses saw Timi and Nickoyan entering and leaving the building at the time of the shooting. The next day, March 27, criminal complaints accusing Nickoyan and Timi of murder in the first degree issued from the Dorchester Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department. Boston police officers searching for Timi and Nickoyan could not find them and subsequently learned that both brothers had fled the Commonwealth.
In April, 2000, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued Federal fugitive warrants naming the defendants and accusing them of the Federal charge of unlawful interstate flight to avoid prosecution. As a result of the entry of Federal officials into the search, the focus quickly narrowed on the possibility that the defendants were in Providence, Rhode Island. On September 25, the defendants committed an armed robbery of a gun store in Providence. Days later, on October 5, law enforcement officials arrested Nickoyan at an apartment in Providence. As police surrounded the apartment to arrest him, Nickoyan was able to telephone Timi. Timi fled and was not arrested until July 20, 2004. Both defendants were indicted for armed robbery and related charges by a Federal grand jury on October 18, 2000.
Nickoyan was arraigned on the Federal armed robbery charges on October 26, 2000, and placed in pretrial custody. Nickoyan's trial ended in a conviction on November 8, 2001, and his sentence of seventeen years began on March 19, 2002. Nickoyan immediately appealed from his convictions. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed his conviction in August, 2003. United States v. Wallace, 71 Fed.Appx. 868 (1st Cir.2003)
.
Timi's arrest, arraignment, and trial in Federal court came soon thereafter. Timi was convicted and began his sentence of twenty-five years on January 21, 2005. He also immediately appealed from his conviction. The First Circuit affirmed his convictions in August, 2006. United States v. Wallace, 461 F.3d 15 (1st Cir.2006)
. Both defendants also pursued appeals collaterally attacking the propriety of their sentences. See
United States v. Wallace, 573 F.3d 82 (1st Cir.)
, cert. denied, 558 U.S. 1036, 130 S.Ct. 657, 175 L.Ed.2d 501 (2009) ; United States v. Wallace, No. 06–2606 (1st Cir. May 23, 2008).
Following Nickoyan's Federal trial, a Massachusetts grand jury issued indictments against Nickoyan and Timi accusing them of the murder of Tasfa. Electronic mail messages obtained from the district attorney's office demonstrate that prosecutors were aware that both Nickoyan and Timi were in Federal custody. The case was assigned to several assistant district attorneys over the period from 2000 until 2007. Not until 2009 did prosecutors initiate the necessary steps to gain custody of Nickoyan and Timi from Federal prison authorities under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD). St. 1965, c. 892, § 1. Detainers against both Nickoyan and Timi were issued on July 16, 2009. Nickoyan was arraigned in Superior Court on December 9, 2009, and Timi on November 25, 2009.
2. Interstate Agreement on Detainers. As we previously have explained, the IAD establishes the “procedures by which one jurisdiction may obtain temporary custody of a prisoner incarcerated in another jurisdiction for the purpose of bringing that prisoner to trial.” Commonwealth v. Copson, 444 Mass. 609, 611, 830 N.E.2d 193 (2005)
, quoting Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U.S. 433, 436 n. 1, 101 S.Ct. 703, 66 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981). The IAD only applies to persons who have “entered upon a term of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution of a party state.” St. 1965, c. 892, § 1, art. III(a). The Federal government is a party State. Id. at § 1, art. II(a).
The necessary first step to applicability of the IAD is the filing of a detainer by the jurisdiction seeking custody. See St. 1965, c. 892, § 1, art. I (regulating determination of status of any and all detainers). A detainer is “a legal order that requires a State in which an individual is currently imprisoned to hold that individual when he has finished serving his sentence so that he may be tried by a different State for a different crime.” Copson, supra at 611 n. 1, 830 N.E.2d 193
, quoting Alabama v. Bozeman, 533 U.S. 146, 148, 121 S.Ct. 2079, 150 L.Ed.2d 188 (2001). Once a detainer is filed, the IAD governs the procedures by which either a party State or a prisoner may request the disposition of any untried charges. Copson, supra at 611, 830 N.E.2d 193. If a party State requests custody of a prisoner to pursue untried charges, trial must commence within 120 days of arrival of the prisoner in the receiving State. St. 1965, c. 892, § 1, art. IV(c). If a prisoner against whom a detainer is filed requests disposition of untried charges, the party State filing the detainer must bring the detainer to trial within 180 days of the delivery of the
prisoner's request to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court. Id. at § 1, art. III(a). Failure to abide by either of these time limits requires that the party State filing the detainer dismiss the charges with prejudice. Id. at § 1, art. V(c).
3. Discussion. The defendants allege that their right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 11 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights has been violated by the years-long delays between the issuance of the criminal complaints accusing them of the murder of their brother and their arraignments for that crime. In reviewing a motion to dismiss because of a speedy trial violation, we give deference to the findings of the motion judge, but we may reach our own conclusions. See Commonwealth v. Martin, 447 Mass. 274, 280, 850 N.E.2d 555 (2006)
. “Simply to trigger a speedy trial analysis, an accused must allege that the interval between accusation and trial has crossed the threshold dividing ordinary from ‘presumptively prejudicial’ delay.” Doggett v. United States, 505 U.S. 647, 651–652, 112 S.Ct. 2686, 120 L.Ed.2d 520 (1992), citing Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530–531, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972). When a defendant has demonstrated an unreasonable delay giving rise to the possibility of prejudice, we utilize the four-factor balancing test first set out in Barker to determine whether the defendant's constitutional right to a speedy trial has been violated by the delay. Doggett, supra at 651, 112 S.Ct. 2686, citing Barker, supra at 530, 92 S.Ct. 2182. The presumption of prejudice derived from a delay cannot be the sole basis of a speedy trial claim but rather is “part of the mix of relevant facts.” Doggett, supra at 655–656, 112 S.Ct. 2686. In determining whether the right to a speedy trial has been violated, we must weigh (i) the length of the delay, (ii) the reasons for the delay, (iii) the defendants' assertions of their right to a speedy trial, and (iv) the prejudice to the defendants (through the lens of Doggett ). See Commonwealth v. Butler, 464 Mass. 706, 714–715, 985 N.E.2d 377 (2013). See also Barker, supra at 530–533, 92 S.Ct. 2182. While we ultimately decide this case under the right to a speedy trial enshrined in art. 11, the analysis is analogous to that of the Federal right. Butler, supra at 709 n. 5, 985 N.E.2d 377.
.5 The almost ten-year delays certainly are...
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