Jones v. State, 3

• Decision Date: 14 December 1976
• Docket Number: No. 3,3
• Citation: 367 A.2d 1,279 Md. 1
• Parties: John Edward JONES v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 1

279 Md. 1

367 A.2d 1

John Edward JONES v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 3.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 14, 1976.

F. Lee Bailey, Boston, Mass. (Joel D. Fedder, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Albert Gallatin Warfield, III and John A. Austin, Asst. Attys. Gen. (Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., and Clarence W. Sharp, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and SINGLEY, SMITH, DIGGES, LEVINE and ELDRIDGE, JJ., and MATTHEW S. EVANS, Special Judge.

DIGGES, Judge.

The issue which we conclude to be dispositive of this criminal cause is whether the petitioner's right to a speedy trial as guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution was denied. Because we determine that this right was violated, the conviction must be reversed and the indictment dismissed.

The petitioner, John Edward (Liddy) Jones, following his arrest on July 12, 1972, was charged in Baltimore County with violations of, and with conspiracy to violate, Maryland's narcotics laws. Approximately two and one half years later, in December of 1974, upon removal trial began in the Circuit Court for Calvert County before Judge Perry G. Bowen, Jr., and a jury. At that trial Jones was found guilty on four counts of the indictment and was sentenced to a 20-year term of imprisonment to commence following the expiration of a federal term he is presently serving. The petitioner noted a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals, where a three-judge panel upheld his conviction, with Judge Davidson dissenting. Jones v. State, 29 Md.App. 182, 348 A.2d 55 (1975). We granted certiorari to review that court's decision. ¹

In the resolution of the speedy trial issue in this case we, of course, must carefully scrutinize all occurrences between Jones' arrest and trial. For the sake of clarity and brevity, however, we will present only a skeletal outline of facts at this point and recount in more detail, in our discussion of the reasons for the delay and the defendant's assertion of the right, those events which the parties allege either directly or collaterally contributed to the two and one half year period. By way of a one sentence overview, suffice it to say that Jones' trial on the narcotics charges could well have taken place as scheduled on December 15, 1972, June 25, 1973, February 26, 1974, or June 26, 1974, but for various reasons it did not commence until December 11, 1974.

On the day following his July 12th arrest, Jones escaped from the Baltimore County jail; however, within several days he surrendered to local authorities and was indicted for the several narcotics offenses as well as for the escape. The State elected, over Jones' objections, to proceed on the escape indictment first, and trial was set for November 29, 1972, with the narcotics case to be tried no later than December 15th of that year. However, neither trial took place as contemplated because two days prior to the scheduled trial on the escape charge, Jones and the State entered into a written agreement which provided that the escape case would be tried on January 8, 1973 (or as soon thereafter as the docket would permit), and would be completed prior to commencement of the trial on the narcotics charges. Along with a number of preliminary motions, Jones filed his first demand for a speedy trial of the narcotics cause on January 2, 1973. On January 11, he entered a guilty plea to the escape charge and was sentenced to a prison term of 13 months. On March 2, 1973, the Deputy State's Attorney for Baltimore County wrote to the petitioner's attorneys, explaining that while the State had taken no action to press the narcotics case to a conclusion during the previous two months because it was not sure Jones would attend the trial (claiming his whereabouts were then unknown to it), the State now desired to proceed as quickly as possible. And in mid-March, the parties agreed to a March 30 hearing on several pending preliminary motions, which took place as scheduled. A little more than one month later, on May 3, the petitioner was indicted on charges of federal narcotics violations. Although the State should have had scheduling priority in light of the fact that a June 25 trial date was set at a hearing in late May (when no trial date in federal court apparently had been determined), Jones' trial in the federal district court nevertheless began on June 18 and lasted through July 21, thus forcing a further postponement of his state trial. ²

Very little activity appears to have transpired over the course of the next several months in connection with the disposition of this case. In September the state's attorney's office contacted Jones' lawyers by letter with regard to a motion for discovery and inspection, and on November 14, the petitioner filed his second motion for a speedy trial. Subsequently, on the day after Christmas, Assistant State's Attorney Ruppersberger and Jones' attorney orally agreed to a February 26, 1974, trial date and following several exchanges of letters in January, this date became firm. On the 8th of February, however, the case was removed from the scheduled assignment by Circuit Administrative Judge Proctor, who indicated that no judges were available to conduct the trial and that it would have to be rescheduled for some time during the April term of court. Jones' arraignment was similarly postponed on a number of occasions in the spring of that year, during which time numerous motions were filed, including Jones' third speedy trial assertion and a request that his trial be severed from that of his three co-defendants. Following the grant of the petitioner's severance motion, the State elected to proceed against Jones' co-defendants first, but finally at a June 13 hearing, the case against Jones was set to go forward on the 26th of that month.

Perhaps he would have been tried in June, but at a hearing on the scheduled trial date, Jones agreed to waive his right to a speedy trial until November 18 so that attorney F. Lee Bailey, who was then unavailable due to a trial conflict, could represent him. An additional postponement, requested by Bailey, caused a further delay until early December. The trial finally began in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County on the 4th; however, the next day Judge Proctor declared a mistrial pursuant to Jones' request and removed the case to Calvert County where trial began on December 11. At trial, Jones again raised the speedy trial issue, this time by a motion to dismiss. The court denied the motion, and following a two day trial, Jones was convicted on four counts of the indictment.

In determining whether there has been a violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213, 87 S.Ct. 988, 18 L.Ed.2d 1 (1967), we must 'engage in a difficult and sensitive balancing process,' Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 533, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 2193, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), in which four factors are of primary importance: (1) length of delay, (2) reasons for the delay, (3) defendant's assertion of his right, and (4) prejudice to the defendant. Id. at 530, 92 S.Ct. at 2191-92; see Erbe v. State, 276 Md. 541, 546-47, 350 A.2d 640, 643 (1976); Smith v. State, 276 Md. 521, 527-28, 350 A.2d 628, 632-33 (1976); Epps v. State,276 Md. 96, 104-09, 345 A.2d 62, 68-71 (1975).

(1) Length of Delay

This Court concluded in Epps v. State, supra, 276 Md. at 111, 345 A.2d at 72, that a one-year, 14-day interval between arrest and trial is 'presumptively prejudicial,' requiring us to engage in the balancing procedure outlined in Barker. See also Smith v. State, supra, 276 Md. at 528, 350 A.2d at 633 (16-month delay). Since the two-year, five-month interval between Jones' arrest and trial was of considerably more than twice the duration of that in Epps, we are bound to inquire into the other factors included in the balancing process.

(2) Reasons for the Delay

As this Court pointed out in Smith v. State, supra, 276 Md. at 528, 350 A.2d at 633, different reasons for delay in prosecuting a defendant should be assigned different weights. In this regard a continuum exists whereby a deliberate attempt to hamper the defense would be weighed most heavily against the State, a prolongation due to the negligence of the State would be weighed less heavily against it, a delay caused by a missing witness might be a neutral reason chargeable to neither party, and a delay attributable solely to the defendant himself would not be used to support the conclusion that he was denied a speedy trial. Id. at 529, 350 A.2d at 633. While we must scrutinize the entire interval between arrest and trial, and attempt to ascribe reasons for particular delays, it is not possible or even desirable to do so with mathematical precision; we will not count up the time chargeable to the State, that chargeable to the defendant, and those delays attributable to neutral reasons, multiply the number of days or months by a parameter assigned for each particular reason and then dismiss the indictment if the defendant ends up with the lower tally. Instead, delays must be examined in the context in which they arise and therefore a lengthy uninterrupted period chargeable to one side will generally be of greater consequence than an identical number of days accumulating in a piecemeal fashion over a long span of time. Finally, we must always bear in mind that the State has the duty to bring the defendant to trial, Barker v. Wingo, supra, 407 U.S. at 527, 92 S.Ct. at 2190, and thus lengthy delays by the State, particularly in the face of a defendant's assertion of his right, are especially significant.

Turning to the present case, we conclude that the reasons for the delay can best be analyzed by dividing the 29-month span into three periods: (1) from July 12, 1972, the date of Jones' arrest, to July 21, 1973,...