Flix v. United States, 83-1401.

• Decision Date: 28 April 1986
• Docket Number: No. 83-1401.,83-1401.
• Parties: Danny FELIX a/k/a Danny Jackson, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

Page 101

508 A.2d 101

Danny FELIX a/k/a Danny Jackson, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 83-1401.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued November 12, 1985.

Decided April 28, 1986.

Stephen R. Lohman, Washington, D.C. appointed by the court, for appellant.

Lizabeth A. McKibben, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty., and Michael W. Farrell, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellee.

Before PRYOR, Chief Judge, STEAD-MAN, Associate Judge, and PAIR, Senior Judge.

PRYOR, Chief Judge:

Appellant argues in this appeal that his convictions on four counts of robbery¹ must be reversed, and the indictment against him dismissed, because his right to an expedited trial under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act (IAD or Act), D.C.Code §§ 24-701 et seq. (1981), was violated. We find that appellant's rights under the IAD were not violated and, accordingly, affirm his convictions.

I

On July 15, 1982, a complaint was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia charging appellant with one count of robbery. Pursuant to that complaint, the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, on September 23, 1982, lodged a detainer against appellant in Queens, New York, where appellant was then incarcerated pending trial on New York State robbery charges.² In late February 1983, appellant was convicted and sentenced in New York on four counts of robbery. Thereafter, while awaiting transfer to a permanent correctional facility, appellant was temporarily imprisoned, first in the Downstate Correctional Facility, located in Fishkill, New York, and then, following a transfer on March 22, 1983, in the Ossining Correctional Facility Transit Unit in Ossining, New York.

On April 20, 1983, while still incarcerated at Ossining, N.Y., appellant mailed to the United States Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia, a form entitled "Inmate's Notice and Request," in which appellant requested pursuant to the IAD a final disposition of the robbery charge listed in the September 23 detainer. The United States Attorney's Office received this letter on April 26, 1983. Acting immediately on appellant's request, the government petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum, as the means to have appellant brought from New York to the District of Columbia for the purpose of standing trial. The Superior Court granted the writ on April 27, 1983.

On May 15, 1983, pursuant to the writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum, appellant was transferred from the Ossining Correctional Facility to the District of Columbia Jail. After his arrival in the District of Columbia, appellant was presented before a magistrate on May 23, 1983, and an attorney was appointed to represent him. At a preliminary hearing on June 2, 1983, appellant's case was held for grand jury action and a commitment order was entered. The record indicates that no further action was taken concerning appellant's case until July 25, 1983. On July 25, the single robbery count alleged in the July 1982 complaint was dismissed and in its place an indictment was filed charging appellant with five counts of robbery, one count of second-degree burglary, and one count of grand larceny.³

Approximately one week later, on August 3, 1982, appellant was arraigned in Superior Court and entered pleas of not guilty on all counts. The case was continued for a status hearing to be held September 12, 1982.

Sometime after the August 3 arraignment, the United States Attorney's Office, apparently recognizing the potential time constraints raised by appellant's April 20 "final disposition" request, arranged to have the September 12 status hearing moved up to September 1. On September 1, however, the hearing had to be continued until September 2 because arrangements had not been made to have appellant brought up from jail.

At the next day's status hearing, appellant specifically reasserted his right to a speedy trial under the IAD, and asked the court to observe that right. A discussion among the trial judge and both counsel concerning the IAD's time restraints as applied to the instant case ensued. Both the prosecutor and defense counsel represented to the trial court that under the Act appellant had to be tried within 120 days of his arrival in the District of Columbia, and that the last day on which appellant's trial could commence was Saturday, September 17, 1983.⁴ The trial court notified counsel that he would be engaged in another trial until September 17. Because September 17 was a Saturday, defense counsel requested that the trial commence on Friday, September 16. The trial judge, however, agreed to the prosecutor's request that the trial begin on Monday, September 19. Prior to setting the September 19 trial date, the trial judge asked the prosecutor whether under the Act "court congestion" constituted a "good cause" basis for not trying appellant within the time limits stipulated in the Act. The prosecutor replied that court congestion did provide reasonable and necessary grounds for the granting of a continuance.

On the morning of September 19, appellant made an oral motion to dismiss the indictment against him, claiming that he had not been brought to trial within 120 days of his arrival in the District of Columbia, in violation of Article IV of the IAD. The court denied appellant's motion on the grounds that any delay in the commencement of trial was a "good cause" delay due to the court's crowded calendar. Trial in appellant's case did not commence following resolution of these preliminary matters because the trial judge was still in the midst of another trial. Instead, the trial judge continued appellant's case for trial until September 23.

On the afternoon of Friday, September 23, 129 days after appellant's arrival in the District of Columbia, the jury in appellant's case was sworn and voir dire commenced. Following a five-day trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts on the four robbery counts. Thereafter, on November 10, 1983, the trial court sentenced appellant to terms of imprisonment of two to six years on each of the robbery counts, to run consecutive to each other and to appellant's still unserved New York sentence. This appeal followed.

II

A.

Previous decisions by this court have reviewed the history and general purposes of the IAD. See, e.g., United States v. Bailey, 495 A.2d 756, 758 (D.C. 1985); Dobson v. United States, 449 A.2d 1082, 1085 (D.C. 1982), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 831, 104 S.Ct. 109, 78 L.Ed.2d 111 (1983); McBride v. United States, 393 A.2d 123, 127 (D.C. 1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 927, 99 S.Ct. 1260, 59 L.Ed.2d 482 (1979). In short, the IAD establishes procedures for the transfer of a person who "has entered upon a term of imprisonment" from one jurisdiction to another jurisdiction for the disposition of a pending untried indictment, mation, or complaint. See generally United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340, 349-53, 98 S.Ct. 1834, 1841-43, 56 L.Ed.2d 329 (1978). the underlying purpose of the Act is set out in Article I which provides in part charges outstanding against a prisoner, detainers based on untried indictments, informations, or complaints and difficulties in securing speedy trial of persons already incarcerated in other jurisdictions, produce uncertainties which obstruct programs of prisoner treatment and rehabilitation. Accordingly, it is . . . the purpose of this agreement to encourage the expeditious and orderly disposition of such charges and determination of the proper status of any and all detainers based on untried indictments, informations, or complaints.

The Act establishes two alternate and distinct mechanisms by which a prisoner against whom a detainer has been filed can be transferred to a second jurisdiction for expedited disposition of the outstanding charges. See generally United States v. Scheer, 729 F.2d 164, 167 (2d Cir. 1984); State v. Mason, 90 N.J.Super. 464, 471, 218 A.2d 158, 162 (1966); L. ABRAMSON, CRIMINAL DETAINERS 37, 51 (1979).

Article III (a) of the IAD sets out terms by which a prisoner may request final disposition of outstanding charges connected with a detainer. It provides that after such a request is filed, the prisoner must be brought to trial within 180 days:

Whenever a person has entered upon a term of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution of a party State, and whenever during the continuance of the term of imprisonment there is pending in any other party State any untried indictment, information, or complaint on the basis of which a detainer has been lodged against the prisoner, he shall be brought to trial within one hundred and eighty days after he shall have caused to be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer's jurisdiction written notice of the place of his imprisonment and his request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment, information, or complaint. . . . The request of the prisoner shall be accompanied by a certificate of the appropriate official having custody of the prisoner, 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 decision of the State parole agency relating to the prisoner.

The Act also provides a mechanism that can be initiated by a prosecutor seeking to have a prisoner who is serving a sentence in another jurisdiction, and against whom a detainer has been filed, made available for trial. In such a case, the prisoner must be brought to trial within 120 days of the prisoner's arrival in the receiving state. Thus, under Article IV (a):

The appropriate officer of the jurisdiction in which an untried indictment, information, or complaint is pending shall be entitled to have a prisoner against whom he has lodged a detainer and who is serving...