U.S. v. Melendez-Carrion
| Decision Date | 12 January 1988 |
| Docket Number | MELENDEZ-CARRIO,H,87-1079,Docket Nos. 87-1007 |
| Citation | 837 F.2d 61 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Yvonneilton Fernandez-Diamante, Luis Alfredo Colon Osorio, Filiberto Inocencio Ojeda Rios, Isaac Camacho-Negron, Orlando Gonzales Claudio, Elias Samuel Castro-Ramos and Juan Enrique Segarra Palmer, Defendants, Filiberto Inocencio Ojeda Rios and Juan Enrique Segarra Palmer, Defendants-Appelalnts. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
The appellants' suggestion for a rehearing in banc alleges a significant conflict between the panel's opinion upholding the preventive detention of Ojeda Rios and Segarra Palmer, United States v. Melendez-Carrion (Ojeda Rios), 820 F.2d 56 (2d Cir.1987) (hereinafter "Ojeda Rios "), and a prior panel's opinion in United States v. Gonzales Claudio, 806 F.2d 334 (2d Cir.1986), which held that the duration of pretrial detention of two co-defendants of Ojeda Rios and Segarra Palmer exceeded constitutional limits. I respectfully dissent from the denial of rehearing in banc because "consideration by the full court is necessary to secure or maintain uniformity of its decisions," Fed.R.App.P. 35(a)(1), and because the divergence between the opinions of the two panels in assessing governmental responsibility for pretrial delay creates needless uncertainty on the important issue of when the duration of preventive detention has exceeded constitutional limits.
In Gonzales Claudio, we ruled that whether the duration of pretrial detention because of a risk of flight exceeds constitutional limits depends on a composite assessment of at least three factors: the length of the detention, the extent to which the prosecution bears responsibility for the delay of the trial, and the strength of the evidence indicating a risk of flight. 806 F.2d at 340. As to the two defendants challenging their detention on that appeal, we held that constitutional limits had been exceeded by detention lasting fourteen months and remanded for the setting of reasonable conditions of release. With respect to the second of the three pertinent factors, we concluded that "the Government, even if not deserving of blame, bears a responsibility for a portion of the delay significant enough to add considerable weight to the defendants' claim that the duration of detention has exceeded constitutional limits." 1 806 F.2d at 342-43. That conclusion was based on four facts that we understood were undisputed:
(a) the prosecution did not complete the task of translating wiretaps until nine months after detention began;
(b) the prosecution did not complete the task of translating seized documents until one year after detention began;
(c) the prosecution did not disclose the existence of videotapes of the defendants until ten months after detention began;
(d) the prosecution had not completed compliance with Fed.R.Crim.P. 16 discovery requests as of fourteen months after detention began.
After the remand in Gonzales Claudio, seven codefendants moved for release from pretrial detention. Judge Clarie granted the motion with respect to five co-defendants, but denied the motions of Ojeda Rios and Segarra Palmer. 2 In making the latter rulings, Judge Clarie accepted as "the rule of the case" the Court of Appeals' conclusion in Gonzales Claudio concerning the prosecution's responsibility " 'for a portion of the delay significant enough to add considerable weight' " to the constitutional claim. United States v. Gerena, Crim. No. H-85-50, slip op. at 10 (D.Conn. Dec. 22, 1986) (quoting Gonzales Claudio, 806 F.2d at 342). Judge Clarie concluded that the prosecution's responsibility for delay and the length of detention were outweighed by the strength of the evidence indicating risk of flight.
The panel opinion affirming Judge Clarie's decision proceeds somewhat differently. It maintains that Judge Clarie "made extensive findings of fact that, in effect, largely absolved the prosecution from responsibility for the delay in bringing appellants to trial." Ojeda Rios, supra, 820 F.2d at 60. "[A]ssisted by the additional findings supplied by the district court," the panel "determined that the prosecution is not responsible for a significant portion of the delay in bringing appellants to trial, and we therefore conclude that this factor weighs in favor of a finding that appellants' due process rights are not violated by their continued pretrial detention." Id. Ultimately the panel affirmed, relying on both the absence of prosecution responsibility for trial delay and the strength of the evidence concerning risk of flight. Id. at 61-62. These factors were deemed to outweigh the significance of the duration of pretrial confinement, which was nineteen months as of the date the Ojeda Rios appeal was argued and now exceeds twenty-eight months.
Though Judge Clarie did not purport to disturb the conclusion of the Gonzales Claudio panel that the prosecution bore responsibility for a significant portion of the pretrial delay, he did observe that "the record on which the second circuit relied for its determination as to the government's fault for the delay was both factually imprecise and incomplete." Slip op. at 9. In support of this statement, he added a note identifying four disagreements with what had been said in Gonzales Claudio. It is the contents of this note on which the Ojeda Rios panel relies in reaching its conclusion that the prosecution is not responsible for a significant portion of the pretrial delay. Before examining the content of that note in detail, I observe that it makes a slight alteration in just one of the four facts that were set forth in Gonzales Claudio as providing an undisputed basis for concluding that the prosecution was responsible for a significant portion of the pretrial delay. Gonzales Claudio had stated that the prosecution took one year to complete the task of translating seized documents. Judge Clarie's note says that the task was completed in ten months. Nothing in Judge Clarie's note casts any doubt on the other three pertinent facts: that the prosecution took nine months to translate the wiretaps, took ten months to disclose the existence of videotapes of the defendants, and had not completed compliance with Rule 16 discovery requests as of fourteen months after detention began.
The balance of Judge Clarie's note does not alter the undisputed facts of prosecution responsibility for a significant portion of the pretrial delay. First, Judge Clarie points out that Gonzales Claudio had placed the duration of wiretapping at twenty-four months. Judge Clarie states that the duration was sixteen months. Obviously, a somewhat shorter duration of wiretapping prior to arrest does not lessen the prosecution's responsibility for the undisputed nine-month delay in translating the wiretapped conversations after arrest.
Second, Judge Clarie challenges the Gonzales Claudio observation that the need for translations arose because the prosecution insisted on indicting the defendants in Connecticut and resisted their motion to transfer the case to Puerto Rico. Though this aspect of the controversy formed no part of the four undisputed facts on which the Gonzales Claudio panel relied, I acknowledge that the observation concerning the site of the prosecution was somewhat overstated. Judge Clarie is quite correct in pointing out that a trial in Puerto Rico would have been conducted in English, thereby necessitating translation of all trial evidence. It remains true, however, that prosecution in Connecticut has substantially increased the amount of required translation and the consequent trial delay. In Puerto Rico, of the vast quantity of wiretaps and seized documents, translation would have been...
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U.S. v. Ojeda Rios, 486
...States v. Gonzalez Claudio, 806 F.2d 334 (2d Cir.1986); United States v. Melendez-Carrion, 820 F.2d 56 (2d Cir.1987), reh'g denied, 837 F.2d 61 (2d Cir.1988); United States v. Ojeda Rios, 846 F.2d 167 (2d Cir.1988); Ojeda Rios v. Wigen, 863 F.2d 196 (2d Cir.1988); and In re Ojeda Rios, 863 ......
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U.S. v. Ojeda Rios
...of Puerto Rico. See United States v. Melendez-Carrion, 820 F.2d 56, 57 (2d Cir.1987) ("Melendez-Carrion II "), reh'g denied, 837 F.2d 61 (2d Cir.1988). Following bail hearings conducted in September and October, 1985, Magistrate F. Owen Eagan ordered several of the defendants to be detained......