Sharps v. United States

• Decision Date: 11 March 2021
• Docket Number: Nos. 20-CO-554 & 20-CO-608,s. 20-CO-554 & 20-CO-608
• Citation: 246 A.3d 1141
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals
• Parties: Gregory D. SHARPS and Landrell L. Jordan, Jr., Appellants, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

246 A.3d 1141

Gregory D. SHARPS and Landrell L. Jordan, Jr., Appellants,

v.UNITED STATES, Appellee.

Nos. 20-CO-554 & 20-CO-608

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued December 15, 2020

Decided March 11, 2021

Carrie Weletz for appellant Sharps.

Mikel-Meredith Weidman, Public Defender Service, with whom Samia Fam and Jaclyn Frankfurt, Public Defender Service, were on the briefs, for appellant Jordan and for Public Defender Service, amicus curiae, in support of appellant Sharps.

Mark Hobel, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Michael R. Sherwin, Acting United States Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, Elizabeth H. Danello, Felice Roggen, John P. Mannarino, Amy Zubrensky, and Kathleen Kern, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the briefs, for appellee.

Before Glickman and Beckwith Associate Judges, and Nebeker Senior Judge.

Dissenting opinion by Associate Judge Beckwith at page 1160.

Glickman, Associate Judge:

Gregory Sharps and Landrell Jordan appeal orders in their separate criminal cases denying their motions for release from pretrial detention. We consolidated the appeals because they present identical legal challenges to the emergency authority exercised by the Chief Judge of the Superior Court under D.C. Code § 11-947 (2020 Supp.) to extend the duration of permissible pretrial detention in response to the disruption of normal court operations by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Appellants were detained pending trial in accordance with the requirements of D.C. Code § 23-1322 (2020 Supp.). That statute authorizes pretrial detention only for a limited time period—presumptively up to 100 days, though the court may extend that period of detention for good cause shown. A detainee not brought to trial within the maximum period of detention is entitled to be released pending trial.¹ Appellants both have been held for longer than 100 days without trial. Despite that, they, and other similarly situated defendants, continue to be held while they await their trials. They remain detained past the 100-day mark due to deadline-tolling orders issued under the authority granted by § 11-947 when an emergency requires the Superior Court to be closed or otherwise renders compliance with legal deadlines "impracticable."² Section 11-947 specifies that the scope of this emergency authority to toll legal deadlines "extends to all laws and rules affecting criminal ... proceedings," including laws affecting "pretrial" procedures.³

Appellants seek relief from this court on either statutory or constitutional grounds. They argue that the emergency deadline-tolling authority granted by § 11-947 is inapplicable to their pretrial detention; this is a question of statutory construction. Alternatively, appellants argue that if we construe § 11-947 as authorizing the emergency prolongation of pretrial detention, then the statute unconstitutionally denies them substantive and procedural due process, on its face, or as applied. The United States disagrees with each of the foregoing contentions.

We reject appellants’ arguments and affirm the denials of their motions for release.

I.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the Superior Court's normal operations since March 2020, when Mayor Bowser first declared a public health emergency.⁴ That emergency remains in effect at the time of this writing. The highly contagious nature of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has forced the suspension of in-person jury trials in courts across the country, as well as in the District,⁵ due to the risk of transmission that accompanies these proceedings.⁶

In 2011, the District of Columbia Courts foresaw the need for express legal authority to toll or delay judicial deadlines in the event a terrorist attack or other emergency prevented the courts from conducting trials and other court proceedings. Congress responded to this concern the following year by adding § 11-947 to the District of Columbia Code. Section 11-947 furnishes the Chief Judge of the Superior Court (S.C.C.J.) with the authority to extend deadlines "[i]n the event of a natural disaster or other emergency situation requiring the closure of Superior Court or rendering it impracticable for the United States or District of Columbia Government or a class of litigants to comply with deadlines imposed by any Federal or District of Columbia law or rule that applies in the Superior Court[.]"⁷ The Senate Committee Report on this legislation specifically anticipated that an outbreak of life-threatening disease could be the kind of event that would create an "emergency situation" calling for exercise of the authority granted by § 11-947.⁸

Subsection (a)(2) describes the "scope" of the emergency tolling authority vested in the S.C.C.J. as follows:

(A) The chief judge may enter such order or orders as may be appropriate to delay, toll, or otherwise grant relief from the time deadlines imposed by otherwise applicable laws or rules for such period as may be appropriate for any class of cases pending or thereafter filed in the Superior Court.

(B) The authority conferred by this section extends to all laws and rules affecting criminal and juvenile proceedings (including, pre-arrest, post-arrest, pretrial, trial, and post-trial procedures) and civil, family, domestic violence, probate and tax proceedings.⁹

The only explicit statutory limitation on the scope of the S.C.C.J.’s emergency authority is the proviso that "[n]othing in this section shall be construed to authorize suspension of the writ of habeas corpus."¹⁰

To ensure that the "emergency authority [is] used sparingly and only in extraordinary circumstances,"¹¹ § 11-947 provides that orders tolling or extending deadlines beyond fourteen days require the consent of the D.C. Courts’ Joint Committee on Judicial Administration¹² and must be reported to Congress. The Congressional reports must describe the reasons for the orders, their duration, their effects on litigants, and their costs to the court.¹³

With the Joint Committee's consent, the S.C.C.J. has exercised the emergency authority granted by § 11-947 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 18, 2020, the S.C.C.J. issued the first in a series of deadline-tolling orders; it tolled "all deadlines and time limits in statutes, court rules, and standing and other orders that would otherwise expire before May 15, 2020."¹⁴ On May 14, 2020, the S.C.C.J. issued a similar order effective through June 19, 2020.¹⁵ This order made it explicit that the suspension applied to time limits under the pretrial detention statute, D.C. Code § 23-1322, among other statutory time limits.¹⁶ Since then, the S.C.C.J. has (as of this writing) issued four substantially similar orders, the most recent of which tolls deadlines at least until March 31, 2021.¹⁷

The Superior Court's Criminal Division has announced plans to schedule trials for pretrial detainees after that date. On January 15, 2021, the Criminal Division published a notice of its intent to resume jury trials in non-violent felony cases in which the defendant is detained pursuant to § 23-1322(b), except for sex offense cases. For all such defendants, the Division anticipates an upcoming trial readiness hearing at which "a trial date will be set at least sixty days in advance on or after March 22, 2021."¹⁸ The notice goes on to state that "[t]he Criminal Division has undertaken to identify all cases previously set for a jury trial in which the defendant remains detained and has prioritized, to the extent practicable, the setting of trial readiness hearings in such cases based upon length and statutory basis of detention."¹⁹

II.

Appellants are being held for trial pursuant to a pretrial detention statute originally enacted by Congress in 1970.²⁰ Its current provisions governing the time limits on detention date back to 2001,²¹ and so were on the books when Congress enacted § 11-947. D.C. Code § 23-1322(b) provides that, in specified criminal cases,²² the defendant shall be detained before trial if the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that "no condition or combination of conditions [of release] will reasonably assure the appearance of the person as required, and the safety of any other person and the community."²³ The statute further provides that, "consistent with the sound administration of justice," a defendant who is detained pretrial "shall have trial of the case commence before the expiration of 100 days."²⁴ For "good cause shown," however, the court may extend the period of authorized detention in twenty-day increments "for the additional time required to prepare for the expedited ... trial of the person."²⁵ There is no statutory limit on the number of twenty-day extensions the court may grant for good cause.²⁶ Section 23-1322(h)(1) provides some examples of circumstances constituting good cause, but states that good cause "is not limited to" those examples.²⁷ A defendant who is not brought to trial within the maximum period of detention allowed under the statute is entitled to be released pending trial on appropriate conditions set by the court.²⁸

Appellants Jordan and Sharps are detained pending trial pursuant to § 23-1322(b). Mr. Jordan, who was arrested in May 2020, is charged with first-degree sexual abuse while armed, and other offenses. He is alleged to have followed the complainant on the street late one night in January 2006, forced her into an alley at gunpoint, robbed her, and compelled her to perform oral sex. Mr. Jordan was not identified as the perpetrator until April 2020, when forensic testing allegedly confirmed the presence of his DNA in a semen sample recovered from the victim's clothing. After a hearing following Mr. Jordan's arrest, the trial court concluded that no conditions of release would reasonably assure the safety of the community given the nature and circumstances of the charged offense, the weight of the evidence against Mr. Jordan, his previous convictions for attempted robbery and unlawful possession of a...