State v. Flowers, 12111

• Decision Date: 04 February 1986
• Docket Number: No. 12111,12111
• Citation: 503 A.2d 1172,198 Conn. 542
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. William F. FLOWERS.

Page 1172

503 A.2d 1172

198 Conn. 542

STATE of Connecticut v. William F. FLOWERS.

No. 12111.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 5, 1985.

Decided Feb. 4, 1986.

J. Robert Nastri, Certified Legal Intern, with whom were Michael R. Sheldon and Todd D. Fernow, for the appellant (defendant).

Susann E. Gill, Deputy Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were John M. Bailey, State's Atty. and Herbert Carlson and Carl Schuman, Asst. State's Attys., for appellee (State).

Before ARTHUR H. HEALEY, DANNEHY, SANTANIELLO, CALLAHAN and PURTILL, JJ.

DANNEHY, Associate Justice.

A jury found the defendant guilty of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a. His sole claim on appeal is that he was denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial. We find no error.

On May 9, 1981, the defendant was arrested in Florida on a warrant charging him with the murder of Lee Jones in New Britain on February 9 or 10, 1981. The defendant promptly waived extradition and was returned to Connecticut on June 1, 1981. He was arraigned the following day and indicted on August 21, 1981. After numerous assertions of his right to a speedy trial, the defendant was finally brought to trial on November 3, 1982, and found guilty as charged on December 28, 1982. The defendant was unable to post bond and remained incarcerated during the entire eighteen month period between his arrest and the commencement of trial. Additional facts will be discussed as we consider the various aspects of the defendant's claim.

"The Supreme Court of the United States and this court have identified four factors which form the matrix of the defendant's constitutional right to speedy adjudication: '[l]ength of delay, the reason for the delay, the defendant's assertion of his right, and prejudice to the defendant.' Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530, 92 S.Ct. 2182 [2192], 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972); State v. Lloyd, 185 Conn. 199, 208, 440 A.2d 867 (1981); State v. Nims, 180 Conn. 589, 591, 430 A.2d 1306 (1980)." State v. Johnson, 190 Conn. 541, 544-45, 461 A.2d 981 (1983). None of these factors standing alone would demand a set disposition; rather, it is the total mix which determines whether the defendant's right was violated. State v. Nims, 180 Conn. supra, 592, 430 A.2d 1306. While passage of time does not alone establish the defendant's claim that he has been denied his right to a speedy trial; State v. Morrill, 197 Conn. 507, 523-24, 498 A.2d 76 (1985); the state here concedes that the operative delay of seventeen months and twenty-five days is sufficiently long to prompt inquiry into the remaining factors set forth in Barker v. Wingo, supra. We proceed to a consideration of those factors.

On November 3, 1982, prior to the start of trial, the court conducted a hearing on the defendant's motion to dismiss based on the alleged denial of his right to a speedy trial. The court denied that motion in a written memorandum of decision dated December 2, 1982. In its memorandum the trial court found that the delay in this case was due to court congestion and not the result of any tactical decision on the part of the state. " 'On appeal, it is the function of this court to determine whether the decision of the trial court is clearly erroneous.' Pandolphe's Auto Parts, Inc. v. Manchester, 181 Conn. 217, 221, 435 A.2d 24 (1980); see Practice Book § 3060D. The trial court's conclusions must stand unless they are legally and logically inconsistent with the facts. State v. Lasher, 190 Conn. 259, 267, 460 A.2d 970 (1983)." State v. Torres, 197 Conn. 620, 625, 500 A.2d 1299 (1985). The defendant concedes that the record adequately supports the trial court's finding that the local criminal docket was congested, but disagrees with the court's conclusion "that such demonstrated congestion was the operative cause of the instant delay." He contends instead that the delay was caused by the improper control of the state's attorney's office over the advancement of cases on the trial list and by the "failure of the judicial authority to afford the defendant a speedy trial when it was in its power to do so." The trial court specifically rejected both of these contentions and we must determine whether its decision was clearly erroneous.

The defendant during his lengthy pretrial incarceration frequently and unequivocally asserted his right to a speedy trial. He first requested his court appointed counsel to file a motion for a speedy trial on August 21, 1981, the day he was indicted. He filed such a motion pro se on October 30, 1981. By a letter to the court dated December 5, 1981, the defendant requested the appointment of new counsel because his then counsel had failed to press for a speedy trial. Finally, on February 1, 1982, the defendant's counsel filed a speedy trial motion. This motion was granted by the presiding criminal judge on February 10, 1982, but was subject to the "usual codicil that the case will not preempt other cases unless there's a compelling reason." The defendant continued to assert his right to a speedy trial until the November 3, 1982 hearing on his motion to dismiss.

At the hearing on the motion to dismiss the defendant called as a witness Raymond Cuatto, the chief criminal clerk for the Hartford judicial district. Cuatto testified that he maintains a master pending case list containing every case transferred from a geographical area court. Cuatto explained that cases are placed on the master list in chronological order. The older cases are then moved from the master list to a smaller list of cases ready for trial. Cuatto further testified that he did not know how or by whom cases were ultimately selected from the trial list for trial on any given day. He could only state that his office received a typed or handwritten list containing four or five case names from the state's attorney's office several times a week. Cuatto would then call in for trial the cases on these lists. Cuatto also testified that at times cases were called in for trial out of chronological order. He recalled a case which was tried ahead of the defendant's case, even though the defendant was incarcerated and the other defendant was free on bond, and despite the fact that the defendant's case ranked number 85 on the trial list while the other defendant was listed as number 122.

The defendant's former court appointed counsel, who had by then withdrawn from the case, also testified at the hearing on the motion to dismiss. He stated that he had not filed a motion for a speedy trial sooner, as the defendant had requested, because he knew from experience that such motions were unlikely to cause a case to be advanced for trial. Counsel's impression as to the general futility of a motion for a speedy trial was corroborated by Cuatto, who testified from his experience that such a motion rarely achieved its desired result. The conclusions of these witnesses were uncontradicted and, in fact, borne out by the facts of this case.

The trial court in its memorandum of decision carefully considered the backlog of criminal cases in the Hartford judicial district while the defendant was awaiting trial. The court observed that as of December 14, 1981, there were 1852 active felony cases in Hartford Superior Court and that the average length of disposition was 18.6 months. The court further recounted the tremendous increase in criminal cases throughout the state and the concomitant reduction in proportionate funds allocated to the judicial department. This court is aware that by the early 1980's the mounting burden of criminal cases in our courts had reached crisis proportions. The crisis reached its watershed in February, 1982, when the federal district court granted habeas relief and ordered the release of a convicted murderer because he had been denied his right to a speedy trial. McCarthy v. Manson, 554 F.Supp. 1275 (D.Conn.1982), aff'd, 714 F.2d 234 (2d Cir.1983). The trial court detailed the legislative response to the McCarthy decision, which led to the enactment of our speedy trial act; General Statutes § 54-82l (effective July 1, 1983); and the judicial response at the district level. In this regard the court noted that "a comparison of the volume of active cases pending in this court between October 31, 1981 and October 31, 1982 reflects a reduction of approximately 800 active cases resulting from an intensive effort by the court to meet constitutional standards as well as to prepare for the transition required next July under our new Speedy Trial Act."

We believe this record adequately supports the trial court's conclusion that docket congestion was responsible for the delay in this case. We find somewhat tautological the defendant's argument that, despite this congestion, "the criminal justice system had sufficient flexibility to afford him a trial earlier, had it been disposed to do so, and failure to exercise that flexibility rather than crowded court calendars was the reason for the substantial delay." The ingenuous assertion that the defendant could have been brought to trial sooner had the system been disposed to do so might honestly be said of any defendant awaiting trial during the period in question, and patently ignores the complex administrative difficulties which faced our then severely overtaxed criminal justice resources. Docket congestion, by its very nature, makes expeditious scheduling of cases for trial difficult, and requires the court to undertake some plan of action to reduce the backlog. Very often such a plan may include such stopgap measures as increased plea bargaining with reduced sentences, taking "ready" cases out of order, or trying shorter, less complicated cases first. As with any intractable situation, choices must be made. The defendant in his brief expressly disavows any challenge to the rationality of the plan devised to reduce the staggering criminal backlog then existing in the Hartford judicial district. Although the precise details...