Commonwealth v. Butler

• Decision Date: 08 July 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–P–1076.,10–P–1076.
• Parties: COMMONWEALTHv.Reginald BUTLER.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

79 Mass.App.Ct. 751

949 N.E.2d 936

COMMONWEALTH

v.Reginald BUTLER.

No. 10–P–1076.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Feb. 11, 2011.Decided July 8, 2011.

Michael J. Fellows, Northampton, for the defendant.Joseph M. Ditkoff, Assistant District Attorney (Joshua I. Wall, Assistant District Attorney, with him) for the Commonwealth.Present: CYPHER, SIKORA, & HANLON, JJ.HANLON, J.

The defendant argues that his motion for a new trial was wrongly denied because counsel in his first appeal was ineffective in choosing not to argue that the defendant was deprived of his constitutional right to a speedy trial. See Commonwealth v. Butler, 68 Mass.App.Ct. 658, 864 N.E.2d 33 (2007).¹ We affirm.

Background.² On September 16, 1991, a Chelsea police officer sought and obtained a complaint and a warrant in the Chelsea Division of the District Court Department (Chelsea District Court) for the defendant's arrest; the defendant was charged with rape and unarmed burglary, both alleged to have occurred three days earlier. However, the defendant was not arrested or brought to court on these charges until he was arraigned on March 11, 1998. While the warrant was outstanding, the defendant was arrested for and convicted of other offenses in Hampden County, and he began serving a State prison sentence.³

On May 19, 1992, the officer sent the warrant to the record bureau at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, asking that it be lodged. On December 30, 1992, the defendant was notified of the outstanding warrant, and on January 4, 1993, he signed a form generated by the Department of Correction (department) requesting that the Chelsea District Court provide him with a speedy trial or disposition. According to the findings of the motion judge, the request was never docketed and no action was taken.⁴ The defendant was thereafter incarcerated until June 23, 1997, when he was released from custody.^5,6

As noted, on March 11, 1998, the defendant was arrested for the first time on the outstanding warrant and arraigned in the Chelsea District Court. Approximately one month later, on April 10, 1998, the case was dismissed without prejudice, because the Commonwealth was unable to locate the victim. Almost a year later, on March 23, 1999, after the Commonwealth did, in fact, find the victim, the defendant was indicted for aggravated rape, burglary and assault in a dwelling (which was later dismissed), and burglary. The defendant was arraigned in Superior Court on May 6, 1999, and his jury trial began on May 5, 2003. On May 9, 2003, he was convicted only of rape, as a lesser included offense of the aggravated rape charge, and was found not guilty on the burglary charge.

The defendant's first appeal to this court focused on what he alleged was a violation of his rights under Mass.R.Crim.P. 36, 378 Mass. 909 (1979). Commonwealth v. Butler, supra at 659, 864 N.E.2d 33. We found no violation and noted that “the defendant [did] not present any claim that his right to a speedy trial as guaranteed by the State or Federal Constitution was violated.” Id. at 659 n. 2, 864 N.E.2d 33.

At the hearing on his motion for a new trial, heard after his appeal, the defendant submitted an affidavit of his prior appellate counsel, who recounted his advice to the defendant at the time of the first appeal to the effect that the defendant's constitutional speedy trial argument should be abandoned in favor of the rule 36 claim. In counsel's view, both the United States Supreme Court and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had ruled that “once a case is dismissed, the time prior to dismissal is not counted for purposes of evaluating a claim that the constitutional right to a speedy trial has been violated.” He then informed the defendant that, measuring the time in the instant case from indictment to trial, and not counting any time before the indictment, that is, the time that the case was pending in the Chelsea District Court prior to its dismissal, “the pertinent time ... did not constitute a period sufficient for raising a Sixth Amendment speedy trial argument.” ⁷ The only issue in this appeal is whether the motion judge was correct in ruling that counsel's advice did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. The answer requires us to examine first the corollaries of the speedy trial doctrine.

Discussion. 1. Speedy trial. “The Sixth Amendment [to the United States Constitution] provides that ‘[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial....’ ” United States v. MacDonald, 456 U.S. 1, 6, 102 S.Ct. 1497, 71 L.Ed.2d 696 (1982).⁸ This Sixth Amendment right “does not apply to the period before a defendant is indicted, arrested, or otherwise officially accused.... Similarly, the Speedy Trial Clause has no application after the Government, acting in good faith, formally drops charges. Any undue delay after charges are dismissed, like any delay before charges are filed, must be scrutinized under the Due Process Clause, not the Speedy Trial Clause.” Id. at 6–7, 102 S.Ct. 1497. Compare Commonwealth v. Gore, ante 745 (2011).

In United States v. MacDonald, supra, the defendant was charged by the Army Criminal Investigation Division with the murders of his wife and two children; the military charges were dismissed after a lengthy hearing. Id. at 4–5, 102 S.Ct. 1497. The investigation continued and, four years later, the defendant was indicted for the murders in a United States District Court and subsequently convicted. Id. at 5–6, 102 S.Ct. 1497. The United States Supreme Court held that “[o]nce charges are dismissed, the speedy trial guarantee is no longer applicable.” Id. at 8, 102 S.Ct. 1497. The defendant's convictions were upheld because the time from his civilian indictment to trial was, by the defendant's agreement, insufficient to trigger speedy trial concerns. Id. at 11, 102 S.Ct. 1497.

In United States v. Loud Hawk, 474 U.S. 302, 106 S.Ct. 648, 88 L.Ed.2d 640 (1986), the United States Supreme Court held that “when no indictment is outstanding, only the ‘ actual restraints imposed by arrest and holding to answer a criminal charge ... engage the particular protections of the speedy trial provision of the Sixth Amendment’ ” (emphasis in original). Id. at 310, 106 S.Ct. 648, quoting from United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 320, 92 S.Ct. 455, 30 L.Ed.2d 468 (1971). In Loud Hawk, the indictments had been dismissed in a United States District Court and the defendants released; the delay occurred while the government appealed the dismissals. Id. at 307–309, 92 S.Ct. 455. The United States Supreme Court found that “under the rule of MacDonald, when defendants are not incarcerated or subjected to other substantial restrictions on their liberty, a court should not weigh that time towards a claim under the Speedy Trial Clause.” Id. at 312, 92 S.Ct. 455.

The Supreme Judicial Court reached a similar result in Burton v. Commonwealth, 432 Mass. 1008, 732 N.E.2d 283 (2000), a case not unlike the present case. In Burton, the defendant was arrested and arraigned for a shooting death in May, 1990. Id. at 1008, 732 N.E.2d 283. The case was dismissed in June, 1990, without prejudice, when the Commonwealth's witnesses refused to cooperate. Ibid. Six years later, a witness emerged and the defendant was charged with murder in the first degree. Ibid. The court, quoting language from MacDonald, held that the Sixth Amendment inquiry ended when the original charges were dismissed. Burton, supra at 1009, 732 N.E.2d 283. Thereafter, the delay was appropriately examined only for a violation of the defendant's due process rights. Ibid.

In this case, the defendant, pressing the application of the speedy trial clause rather than the due process clause, argues that both MacDonald and Burton are distinguishable because, in each of those cases, the period in which the charges were first pending was short and not sufficient to trigger speedy trial concerns. Here, the delay between the time that the complaint issued in the Chelsea District Court and the time that it was dismissed was almost seven years—a delay that certainly would have triggered scrutiny had the argument been made before the case was dismissed on other grounds. See Doggett v. United States, 505 U.S. 647, 652, 112 S.Ct. 2686, 120 L.Ed.2d 520 (1992).⁹

As the motion judge noted, in a case where charges are dismissed and then brought again at a later time, there is a split in Federal and out-of-State authority as to how the speedy trial calculation should be made.¹⁰ One view, advanced by the Commonwealth and adopted by the motion judge, is that the dismissal stops the speedy trial clock entirely, and that when new charges are brought, the clock is reset and the calculation thereafter is solely from the commencement of the second action. That view is supported by the plain language of both MacDonald and Burton. The alternative view, urged by the defendant, is that the court should exclude only the time between the dismissal and when the defendant is charged again; that is, all of the time from the first charge until the trial should count, subtracting only the time when no charges were pending. No Massachusetts case since MacDonald has made that distinction, and we decline to do so on the facts of this case. ¹¹

The facts of this case are significant. The defendant does not allege that the Commonwealth intentionally caused the delay, or that the case was dismissed for any reason other than the one stated, that the victim could not be located. Thus, there is no allegation of bad faith, or of an effort to manipulate the process to defeat the defendant's speedy trial claim. The defendant's argument is that the Commonwealth was negligent, citing Doggett, 505 U.S. at 652–653, 112 S.Ct. 2686. In Doggett, however, the defendant's indictment was pending continuously from the time he was indicted on February 22, 1980, until he was...