U.S. v. Mills

• Decision Date: 29 May 1991
• Docket Number: Nos. 90-3007,90-3008 and 90-3026,s. 90-3007
• Citation: 925 F.2d 455
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Albert E. MILLS. UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Kenneth B. WONSON. UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Vernon L. HOLLAND.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 455

925 F.2d 455

288 U.S.App.D.C. 224

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Albert E. MILLS.

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Kenneth B. WONSON.

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Vernon L. HOLLAND.

Nos. 90-3007, 90-3008 and 90-3026.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Dec. 7, 1990.

Decided Feb. 8, 1991.

Order on Grant of Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc May 29,

1991. ^*

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Criminal Action No. 89-342-02).

John R. Fisher, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Jay B. Stephens, U.S. Atty., Thomas E. Zeno, Patrice I. Kopistansky, Washington, D.C. and James A. Meade, New York City, Asst. U.S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellant in 90-3007, 90-3008 and 90-3026. Thomas J. Tourish, Jr., Washington, D.C., Asst. U.S. Atty., also entered an appearance for appellant.

Alan P. Bayles, Washington, D.C., (appointed by the Court), was on the brief for appellee Albert E. Mills in 90-3007.

Robert H. Tiller (appointed by the Court), with whom Richard G. Taranto and Alan E. Untereiner, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellee Kenneth B. Wonson in 90-3008.

Thomas Abbenante (appointed by the Court) and Mary E. Davis, Washington, D.C., were on the brief for appellee Vernon L. Holland in 90-3026.

David A. Reiser, Atty., Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia, with whom James W. Klein and Rosemary Herbert, Attys., Public Defender Service, Arthur B. Spitzer and Elizabeth Symonds, Washington, D.C., American Civ. Liberties Union, were on the joint brief, for amici curiae urging that the Orders dismissing indictments be affirmed.

Before MIKVA, Chief Judge, and EDWARDS and D.H. GINSBURG, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HARRY T. EDWARDS.

HARRY T. EDWARDS, Circuit Judge:

This appeal raises statutory and constitutional challenges to the authority of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia to "transfer" criminal cases from the District of Columbia courts to U.S. District Court. The three appellees in these consolidated appeals were initially charged in District of Columbia Superior Court, but those charges were later dropped in favor of a subsequent prosecution in federal court for the same criminal conduct, effectively "transferring" the cases from one court system to the other. With respect to one of the appellees, a federal indictment was not filed until more than a year after his arrest; with respect to the other two appellees, the federal indictments were filed more than seven months after arrest.

In the federal forum, the appellees contended that the transfer of their cases and the delay occasioned by it violated the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. Secs. 3161 et seq. (1988), the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and the speedy trial clause of the Sixth Amendment. The federal trial court dismissed all charges against the appellees after finding violations of the Speedy Trial Act and the due process clause. See United States v. Holland, 729 F.Supp. 125 (D.D.C.1990); United States v. Roberts, 726 F.Supp. 1359 (D.D.C.1989). Having found for the appellees on those grounds, the trial court did not reach the appellees' Sixth Amendment claim.

At oral argument before this court, the appellees focused their arguments upon the Speedy Trial Act and Sixth Amendment claims, leaving aside much of the District Court's reliance on the due process clause. Although we reverse the District Court's judgments premised on the Speedy Trial Act and the due process clause, we remand for fuller consideration of the appellees' claim that the processing of their cases violated the speedy trial clause of the Sixth Amendment.

I. BACKGROUND

The three appellees in these consolidated appeals, Vernon L. Holland, Albert E. Mills and Kenneth B. Wonson, were each arrested in the District of Columbia ("District" or "D.C.") for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who acts as the chief prosecutor in both the D.C. courts and the federal courts for the District of Columbia, elected initially not to prosecute the three men in federal court and instead indicted each appellee in D.C. Superior Court for violations of the D.C.Code. ¹ In April 1989, the same month in which appellees Holland and Mills were indicted in Superior Court, high-ranking officials in the Bush administration announced a new initiative to crack down on drug-related crime in the nation's capital. As part of that effort, officials adopted a new policy to bring more D.C. drug cases in federal court in order to take advantage of the stricter penalties available under the federal sentencing guidelines. Accordingly, the U.S. Attorney's office reviewed case files pending in Superior Court with an eye toward transferring the more serious cases to the federal system. The Assistant U.S. Attorney in charge of the review stated that cases were selected on the basis of criteria relating, among other things, to the gravity of the offense, the defendant's criminal history and the amount of drugs involved. See Holland, 729 F.Supp. at 127. Federal indictments were then sought in each case and, unless the defendant obviated the need to do so by pleading guilty, the cases were dismissed in Superior Court before trial and brought anew in federal District Court.

Sometime in May or June of 1989, the appellees' cases were selected for "transfer" to federal court. The U.S. Attorney's office obtained federal indictments against the appellees based on exactly the same conduct underlying the D.C. charges and, as their Superior Court trial dates approached, had the D.C. charges dismissed in order to pursue the federal charges. ² The sequence of events with respect to each of the appellees was as follows:

After the cases reached federal court, however, the trial judge dismissed charges against two of the appellees--Albert Mills and Kenneth Wonson--on the grounds that the delay incident to the transfers violated the Speedy Trial Act and that the transfers more generally offended due process. See Roberts, 726 F.Supp. at 1377. After a subsequent hearing, the court "reaffirm[ed]" its earlier conclusions and dismissed charges against the third appellee, Vernon Holland, on the same grounds. See Holland, 729 F.Supp. at 132.

The trial court's conclusion that the Speedy Trial Act had been breached was founded upon a straightforward reading of the statute, which requires that a federal indictment be filed within 30 days of an arrest "in connection with such charges." 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3161(b) (1988). Because the federal indictments came many months after the arrests of Holland, Mills and Wonson, the trial court ruled that the charges had to be dismissed. See Roberts, 726 F.Supp. at 1371-72.

The trial court's conclusions concerning the due process clause were more wide-ranging. The court's opinions suggested that the timing of the transfers, following closely upon the defendants' rejection of Government plea offers in Superior Court, might betray an abuse of prosecutorial power. See Holland, 729 F.Supp. at 128; Roberts, 726 F.Supp. at 1369-70. The court also suggested that due process might be offended by the "arbitrary" way in which the prosecutor appeared to select cases for transfer and by the fact that prosecutors did not immediately reveal to defendants their intention to transfer the cases. See Holland, 729 F.Supp. at 129-30; Roberts, 726 F.Supp. at 1372. The District Court's principal concern, however, was that defendants would be subject to much harsher and more certain criminal penalties as a result of the transfers.

In focusing on sentencing under federal versus local statutes, the trial court found that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Pub.L. No. 98-473, 98 Stat. 1987, and the sentencing guidelines promulgated pursuant to it, violated due process by diminishing judicial discretion in sentencing and by enhancing the ability of prosecutors to influence sentencing through the selection of charges. "In short," the District Court found that "the prosecutor's selection of the charges available to him from his large arsenal amounts ... to an almost totally precise selection of the ultimate sentence to be imposed upon conviction or plea of guilty." Roberts, 726 F.Supp. at 1365. This power, combined with sharply restricted judicial ability to depart from the sentences prescribed in the federal guidelines, "has had the effect of disturbing the due process balance essential to the fairness of criminal litigation." Id. at 1363. It was this unconstitutional enhancement of prosecutorial power in the federal forum, the court concluded, that was "the principal vice" of the case transfers to federal court. See id. at 1372; Holland, 729 F.Supp. at 130-31 (prosecutor's unconstitutional influence over sentencing in federal court is "[e]qually important, if not more so[,]" to the court's conclusion that case transfers to that forum also violate due process).

The Government now appeals from the District Court's orders dismissing all charges against the appellees.

II. ANALYSIS

A. The Speedy Trial Act

The Speedy Trial Act requires that

[a]ny information or indictment charging an individual with the commission of an offense shall be filed within thirty days from the date on which such individual was arrested ... in connection with such charges.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 3161(b) (1988). If the indictment is not brought within 30 days of that arrest, the federal charges must be dismissed. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3162(a)(1) (1988).

The District Court found that the appellees' federal indictments violated the Speedy Trial Act because they came many months after the appellees' arrests. See Roberts, 726 F.Supp. at 1371. Essential to the District Court's conclusion, of course, was its preliminary finding that the appellees' original arrests qualified, within the meaning of the statute, as arrests "in connection with"...