Pitts v. State of North Carolina, 11616.

• Decision Date: 01 April 1968
• Docket Number: No. 11616.,11616.
• Citation: 395 F.2d 182
• Parties: Robert James PITTS, Appellant, v. STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

395 F.2d 182 (1968)

Robert James PITTS, Appellant, v. STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, Appellee.

No. 11616.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued February 6, 1968.

Decided April 1, 1968.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Melvin R. Manning, Richmond, Va. (Court-assigned counsel) McCaul & Pearsall, Richmond, Va., on brief, for appellant.

Ralph A. White, Jr., Staff Atty., Raleigh, N. C., Office of the Atty. Gen., of North Carolina (T. W. Bruton, Atty. Gen., of North Carolina, on brief), for appellee.

Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, and SOBELOFF and BRYAN, Circuit Judges.

SOBELOFF, Circuit Judge:

Almost sixteen years after initiating prosecution, the State of North Carolina, at all times knowing the whereabouts of the appellant Robert James Pitts, sought and obtained his conviction for armed robbery. From the District Court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Pitts appeals, alleging that the extreme delay deprived him of his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial.¹ We uphold appellant's contention and order issuance of the writ.

Pitts allegedly robbed and beat one Clarence Rollins on August 3, 1949, in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. That day the victim filed a complaint, naming Pitts as one of his assailants. By the first week of September, the Cabarrus County police were aware that Pitts was being detained on independent charges in a Cleveland County, North Carolina, jail. Through newspaper accounts and pictures, the Cleveland County sheriff widely publicized Pitts's detention, so that other North Carolina authorities could assert any outstanding charges before the sheriff released him to officials of South Carolina, where he was wanted for burglary.

Other North Carolina authorities indicated no interest in Pitts, and he waived extradition and was removed on October 1, 1949, to South Carolina. There he was convicted of the burglary and sentenced to imprisonment for twenty-one years. Not until October 17, 1949, was an arrest warrant sworn out against Pitts for the North Carolina armed robbery, and on the basis of that warrant, North Carolina lodged a detainer against him at the South Carolina prison. Appellant did not learn of the detainer until November, 1956, when he applied for clemency and was denied, at least in part because of the detainer.

At no time during appellant's incarceration in South Carolina did North Carolina make any attempt to bring him to trial on the 1949 armed robbery charge. On his release in December, 1964, he was returned to North Carolina, and thereupon indicted and tried in Cabarrus County on May 23 and 24, 1965. Pleading not guilty, Pitts took the stand and testified that he was unable to recall where he was on the night of the robbery sixteen years earlier. The trial court found Pitts guilty and sentenced him to imprisonment for ten to fifteen years in the North Carolina Penitentiary. No appeal was taken. Having exhausted his state post-conviction remedies, appellant brought his petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court. Relief was denied on the ground that he had failed to demonstrate prejudice from the delay.

I

The fundamental right to a speedy trial, its origins tracing back at least to the Magna Carta,² is designed in part to insure that a criminal defendant is not rendered unable to rebut charges against him because undue delay³ has caused memories to dim or witnesses to disappear. See United States v. Ewell, 383 U.S. 116, 86 S.Ct. 773, 15 L.Ed.2d 627 (1966); Hanrahan v. United States, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 134, 348 F. 2d 363 (1965). To a prisoner, this right is particularly precious "since he is less able to keep posted on his witnesses' whereabouts than is an accused at large." Note, 57 Colum.L.Rev. 846, 865 (1957). See also State v. Hollars, 266 N.C. 45, 145 S.E.2d 309 (1965). Because this constitutional guarantee is so basic to a fair trial, courts have made it abundantly clear that after a delay of this magnitude, it is not the defendant who must bear the burden of showing prejudice, but the state which must carry the obligation of proving "that the accused suffered no serious prejudice beyond that which ensued from the ordinary and inevitable delay." Williams v. United States, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 51, 250 F.2d 19, 21 (1957); United States v. Lustman, 258 F.2d 475 (2d Cir. 1958); United States v. Chase, 135 F.Supp. 230 (N.D. Ill.1955). See also Klopfer v. North Carolina, supra, which clearly indicates that a defendant need show no prejudice to prevail on his assertion that he has been denied the right to a speedy trial. Recently, this court reiterated the proposition that delay may be "so long as to make a prima facie showing of prejudice." United States v. Banks, 370 F.2d 141, 145 (4th Cir. 1966). The State in the present case has utterly failed to show a lack of prejudice, especially in light of appellant's very credible statement on the witness stand that he had no recollection of his activities on a particular night sixteen years in the past.

The attempted justification for the State's failure for so long to bring Pitts to trial is that a defendant imprisoned in another jurisdiction has no right to a prompt hearing. This view, once entertained by some federal and state courts, was founded on the inability of one jurisdiction to require another as a matter of right to relinquish custody of a prisoner wanted for trial. See, e. g., Nolan v. United States, 163 F.2d 768 (8th Cir. 1947); Ex Parte Schechtel, 103 Colo. 77, 82 P.2d 762, 118 A.L.R. 1032 (1938); Raine v. State, 143 Tenn. 168, 226 S.W. 189 (1920). The dubious theory appears to have been that since a request for custody might not be honored, the prosecutors have no obligation to make the request in the first place.⁴ As one commentator observed over a decade ago, "In the past, this denial of a right to a speedy trial may have been justified in view of the legal uncertainties of extradition and the difficulties of travel and communications. But these problems have largely disappeared." Note, 57 Colum.L.Rev. 846, 865 (1957).

In recent years, a rapidly expanding number of state and federal cases have produced a clear trend rejecting this doctrine and demanding a showing of due diligence by prosecutors to secure the presence for trial in their own jurisdiction of an accused imprisoned or held for a substantial period in another jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in dismissing a federal indictment against a defendant whose trial had been delayed seven and a half years because of incarceration in a state prison on another charge noted: "imprisonment in New York State does not excuse the Government's long delay in bringing the defendant to trial here, in the absence of a showing that the Government at a reasonably early date, sought and was unable to obtain his return for trial." Taylor v. United States, 99 U.S.App.D.C. 183, 238 F.2d 259, 261 (1956); see also Fouts v. United States, 253 F.2d 215 (6th Cir. 1958). Conversely, state courts have held that the fact that a defendant is being held in federal custody provides no excuse for denying him the right to a speedy trial in the state courts. See, e. g., State v. Patton, 76 N.J.Super. 353, 184 A.2d 655 (1962); People v. Piscitello, 7 N.Y.2d 387, 198 N.Y.S.2d 273, 165 N.E.2d 849 (1960). But see Bistram v. People of State of Minnesota, 330 F.2d 450 (8th Cir. 1964), which while placing no burden on the state, specifically reserves the right of defendants to assert denial of speedy trial in any subsequent state hearing. In Patton, supra, the court unequivocally declared that the state has the obligation, despite expense, to seek a prisoner from federal authorities who are confining him for another charge. In Piscitello, supra, failure to make the effort was held fatal to the State's delayed attempt to try the defendant.

Similarly, in cases involving sister states, courts have found it constitutionally necessary for prosecutors to make reasonable efforts to extradite for speedy trial prisoners held in another state. See, e. g., Pellegrini v. Wolfe, 225 Ark. 459, 283 S.W.2d 162 (1955); People v. Bryarly, 23 Ill.2d 313, 178 N.E.2d 326 (1961); People v. Winfrey, 20 N.Y.2d 138, 281 N.Y.S.2d 823, 228 N.E.2d 808 (1967). These courts reason that since most state executives have discretionary power upon request of another sovereignty to release a prisoner for purposes of trial, state prosecutors are under a duty to seek a temporary conditional release in an attempt to bring the defendant promptly to trial. Recognizing that denial of the request by the imprisoning state would constitute a valid excuse for delay in the demanding state, these cases insist upon at least a good faith effort by the prosecutors. In the instant case, no effort of any kind was undertaken during the entire period that Pitts was imprisoned in South Carolina.

Two factors here are crucial in our rejection of the State's assertion that South Carolina's incarceration of Pitts obviated the need for any efforts to bring him to trial. The first is the length of the twenty-one year sentence which Pitts received in South Carolina. As this court said in United States v. Banks, supra, 370 F.2d at 144:

"A short period of confinement elsewhere * * * may justify delay in bringing a defendant to trial on other charges. On the other hand, if the defendant has a number of years to serve in his present confinement, no substantial delay in the initiation of efforts to obtain custody of him for the purpose of trial would be warranted. * * * Incarceration elsewhere * * is not an excuse for inaction over a substantial period of months * * *" (emphasis added).

Here the delay spanned not a few months, but many years — more than a decade and a half. This is hardly a borderline case. The second factor is the explicit statutory authority vested in North Carolina officials to make such a request of South Carolina. In 1937, North Carolina adopted the Uniform...