Ruffin v. State

• Citation: 284 Ga. 52,663 S.E.2d 189
• Decision Date: 30 June 2008
• Docket Number: No. S08A0493.,S08A0493.
• Parties: RUFFIN v. The STATE.
• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia

663 S.E.2d 189

284 Ga. 52

RUFFIN v. The STATE.

No. S08A0493.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

June 30, 2008.

Zell & Zell, R. Samuel Zell, Jr., Atlanta, for appellant.

Paul L. Howard, Jr., Dist. Atty., Ronald Steve Boyter, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., Bettieanne C. Hart, Dist. Atty., Marc A. Mallon,

Asst. Dist. Atty., Thurbert E. Baker, Atty. Gen., for appellee.

SEARS, Chief Justice.

Roderick Ruffin was indicted in April 2005 for malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Allen Burdette two years earlier. After his trial date was continued a third time because of the State's insistence that he and a co-defendant be tried together and the government's difficulties in providing him with conflict-free appointed counsel, Ruffin filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground that his constitutional right to a speedy trial had been violated. The trial court denied the motion, and Ruffin appealed. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

1. Allen Burdette was shot to death on September 27, 2003. On April 5, 2005, a Fulton County grand jury indicted Ruffin and Spencer Thomas for malice murder, felony murder, attempted armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and two counts of aggravated assault. Ruffin was also charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. A third alleged participant in the crimes, Marktavious Brown, died prior to the grand jury's indictment of Ruffin and Thomas.

A warrant issued for Ruffin's arrest, and he spent the next two-and-a-half months in jail before making bond. Ruffin's freedom was short-lived, however, as he was rearrested less than three months later on September 9, 2005, on a charge of illegal possession of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (commonly known as "ecstasy"). In the meantime, Ruffin missed a court date and forfeited his bond. On November 22, 2005, the trial court denied Ruffin's motion for reinstatement of his bond. As a result, Ruffin spent approximately six months of calendar year 2005 behind bars.

On March 3, 2006, as the anniversary of Ruffin's indictment approached, the trial court set the case for a final plea hearing on July 7, 2006, with the trial to follow on July 28, 2006. Ruffin did not enter into a plea agreement with the District Attorney, and the final plea hearing came and went. Nevertheless, Ruffin's trial did not start on July 28, 2006. Instead, the trial court specially set the trial to begin a month-and-a-half later, on September 5, 2006.¹

On the appointed day, Ruffin appeared in court for his trial. He had subpoenaed his witnesses and prepared his trial exhibits. Despite the special setting and his readiness to proceed, the trial did not go forward because the attorney appointed to represent Ruffin's co-defendant Thomas had recently left the Public Defender's office. Wanting to avoid further delay while he was incarcerated, Ruffin asked the trial court to sever his case from Thomas's and try him immediately. However, the District Attorney objected, and the trial court denied Ruffin's request for severance. The trial court specially set the trial date a second time for about three months out, on November 27, 2006, and denied Ruffin's renewed motion to set aside the bond forfeiture.

A week before trial, counsel for Ruffin, Thomas, and the District Attorney were all present at a calendar call when the Fulton County Conflict Defender Office informed the court that it could not continue representing Thomas due to its prior representation of one of the witnesses in the case. Over Ruffin's objection, the trial date was continued again, this time indefinitely, to allow for the appointment of new counsel for Thomas. Two weeks later, on December 13, 2006, Ruffin filed a third motion to set aside his bond forfeiture and a motion to dismiss the indictment due to a violation of his state and federal constitutional right to a speedy trial.²

For the next six months, the trial court neither ruled on Ruffin's motions nor set his case for trial. Finally, on June 18, 2007, the trial court specially set the trial a third time for June 25, 2007. Again, Ruffin appeared, ready for trial. However, the trial court first took up all pending motions. The trial court denied Ruffin's motion to dismiss the indictment and his third motion to set aside his bond forfeiture. Court was adjourned for the day after Ruffin informed the trial court that he planned an immediate appeal of the order denying his motion to dismiss the indictment, and he subsequently filed a timely notice of appeal.

2. The right to a speedy trial is a great bulwark of freedom against the power of an overreaching government.³ Thus, the Sixth Amendment of the Bill of Rights guarantees that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy . . . trial."⁴ The Civil War Amendments made the Sixth Amendment speedy trial right enforceable in state criminal prosecutions.⁵ However, most states had long ago enshrined the right to a speedy trial in their state constitutions, and today every state protects the right to a speedy trial under state law in addition to the federal constitutional mandate.⁶ The Georgia Constitution of 1983 affirms that "[i]n criminal cases, the defendant shall have a . . . speedy trial."⁷ The speedy trial right enshrined in the Georgia Constitution is coextensive with the federal guarantee.⁸

As constitutional provisions go, the text of the Sixth Amendment's Speedy Trial Clause is particularly unilluminating. The same can be said of the extant evidence regarding the intent of the framers who drafted it and the people who ratified it and made it a part of the supreme law of the land.⁹ There are no early constructions by the United States Supreme Court, which in the nation's first 170 years gave it only passing notice in less than a handful of decisions.¹⁰ However, starting in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and continuing through most of the next two decades, the Supreme Court decided a series of cases involving the Speedy Trial Clause that provide not only the basic framework for analyzing constitutional speedy trial claims, but also answers to most of the specific questions that arise in the constitutional speedy trial context. ¹¹ The template for deciding all constitutional speedy trial claims under the Sixth Amendment and the Georgia Constitution is laid out in the 1972 case of Barker v. Wingo and the 1992 decision in Doggett v. United States, which is to date the Supreme Court's last detailed discussion of the topic.¹² The analysis has two stages. First, the court must determine whether the interval from the accused's arrest, indictment, or other formal accusation to the trial is sufficiently long to be considered "presumptively prejudicial."¹³ If not, the speedy trial claim fails at the threshold. If, however, the delay has passed the point of presumptive prejudice, the court must proceed to the second step of the Barker-Doggett analysis, which requires the application of a delicate, context-sensitive, four-factor balancing test to determine whether the accused has been deprived of the right to a speedy trial.

(a) Presumptive Prejudice. For serious crimes such as murder that do not involve unusual complexities — e.g., a decision by the State to seek the death penalty, allegations of a vast interstate conspiracy, or the involvement of a sophisticated crime syndicate — one year generally marks the point at which expected deliberateness in the prosecution of a criminal matter turns into presumptively prejudicial delay.¹⁴ The period of delay under consideration in this appeal began on April 5, 2005, when the grand jury indicted Ruffin, and it ended over two years later on June 28, 2007, when the trial court denied Ruffin's motion to dismiss the indictment.¹⁵ Thus, the total pretrial delay in question is two years, two months, and twenty-three days. The State concedes, and we agree, that this case long ago crossed the presumptive prejudice threshold. Accordingly, we must proceed to the second stage of the constitutional speedy trial analysis.

(b) Barker-Doggett Balancing Test. There are four considerations that always figure into the second stage of the Barker-Doggett analysis. No one factor is "either a necessary or sufficient condition to the finding of a deprivation of the right of speedy trial."¹⁶ The four factors emphasized in Barker and Doggett do not constitute an exhaustive list; they "have no talismanic qualities" and "must be considered together with such other circumstances as may be relevant" given the animating principles behind the speedy trial guarantee.¹⁷ Thus, the second stage of the constitutional speedy trial analysis requires courts to "engage in a difficult and sensitive balancing process" and "necessarily compels them to approach speedy trial cases on an ad hoc basis."¹⁸

As stated in Doggett, the four factors that form the core of the constitutional speedy trial balancing test are:

[i] whether delay before trial was uncommonly long, [ii] whether the government or the criminal defendant is more to blame for that delay, [iii] whether, in due course, the defendant asserted [the] right to a speedy trial, and [iv] whether he [or she] suffered prejudice as the delay's result.¹⁹

Ruffin has pointed to no circumstance in this case that is not adequately encapsulated within the four criteria from Barker and Doggett, and our own review of the record has uncovered none. Accordingly, we turn now to an examination of the four factors common to all speedy trial claims.

(i) Whether the Delay Before Trial Was Uncommonly Long. Excessive delay has a tendency to compromise the reliability of trials "in ways that neither party can prove or, for that matter, identify."²⁰ Thus, while a lengthy pretrial delay cannot support a finding of a speedy trial violation without regard to the other three Barker-Doggett criteria, "it is part of the mix of relevant facts, and its importance increases with the...