U.S. v. Sechrist

• Decision Date: 06 February 1981
• Docket Number: No. 80-2001,80-2001
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Luther SECHRIST, a juvenile, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 81

640 F.2d 81

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William Luther SECHRIST, a juvenile, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 80-2001.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Dec. 10, 1980.

Decided Feb. 6, 1981.

Dennis P. Coffey, Milwaukee, Wis., for defendant-appellant.

Elizabeth L. Adelman, Asst. U. S. Atty., Milwaukee, Wis., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before SWYGERT and CUMMINGS, Circuit Judges, and BROWN, Senior District Judge. ^*

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge.

Defendant William Luther Sechrist, a Menominee Indian youth, appeals from an adjudication of delinquency. He contends that this adjudication was barred by the speedy trial provisions of the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, as amended, ¹ and that certain fingerprint evidence was illegally obtained and should have been suppressed. We affirm the district court's rulings on both grounds.

I

The trial was conducted pursuant to stipulated facts. On November 1, 1979, employees of the Menominee Tribal Court on the Menominee Indian Reservation in northeastern Wisconsin discovered that a break-in had occurred the previous evening in the Tribal Court clerk's office. Approximately $1,969.00 had been taken from the cash box there and from other locations. On December 6, 1979, in the course of its investigation aiding the Menominee Tribal Police, the FBI interviewed the defendant, who had been working at the courthouse in late October 1979. Sechrist denied any involvement in the burglary and any knowledge of where the clerk kept money. He also told the FBI agent that his fingerprints would not be found on items from inside a file cabinet that had been pried open and vandalized. Pursuant to an ex parte order entered by a federal magistrate, the agent took Sechrist's fingerprints. A fingerprint specialist compared these prints with those found on items lying on the floor in the clerk's office the morning following the break-in and determined that eight latent prints were those of the defendant. Meanwhile, Sechrist bragged to three acquaintances that he had broken into the Tribal Courthouse and stolen $2,000.

On April 17, 1980, an information charging Sechrist with burglary and theft was filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. In addition, the Government filed a certification that no state jurisdiction existed, pursuant to the terms of the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, as amended. ² On that day Sechrist was a resident at Lincoln Hills School, a facility operated by the State of Wisconsin for delinquent children, where he had been committed as a consequence of an adjudication of delinquency by the Menominee Tribal Court on an unrelated matter. The United States Marshal forwarded a detainer to the school on the following day. Sechrist was advised of the detainer on April 22; he signed it and simultaneously filed a request for a speedy trial. The United States Attorney's Office received the signed detainer and the speedy trial demand on April 29. The Government procured two days later a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum that directed Sechrist to appear before the magistrate on May 7. Deputy marshals took custody of the defendant on May 5. Motions to dismiss the information and to suppress the fingerprint impressions were filed at the initial hearing before the district court on May 7. The court denied these motions on May 30. Trial was held pursuant to the stipulated facts on June 3, and the court found Sechrist delinquent with respect to both counts of the information the following day. Sechrist was committed to the custody of the Attorney General for two years; he has been serving his time at the Lincoln Hills School.

II

We first address Sechrist's contention that his detention violated the speedy trial provision of the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, as amended. That section provides, in relevant part:

If an alleged delinquent who is in detention pending trial is not brought to trial within thirty days from the date upon which such detention was begun, the information shall be dismissed on motion of the alleged delinquent or at the direction of the court.

18 U.S.C. § 5036 (1976). Sechrist argues that, for purposes of this section, his "detention" began either on the date the certification of jurisdiction was filed and the arrest warrant issued (April 17), or the date on which the detainer was lodged with the Lincoln Hills School (April 18), or on which he signed it (April 22). Whichever date was chosen, his trial on June 3 would have been more than thirty days later and, under the terms of the statute, the information should have been dismissed. Defendant relies on a Ninth Circuit case, United States v. Andy 549 F.2d 1281 (9th Cir. 1977). ³ We disagree with the logic behind that case, and we find the facts to be distinguishable. We hold that his detention began on the date on which he was actually taken into federal custody by deputy marshals (May 5), which was only twenty-eight days before his trial.

In United States v. Andy, supra at 1283, the Ninth Circuit held that the thirty-day period in section 5036 runs from

(1) the date the Attorney General certifies, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence, could have certified, to the conditions stated in Section 5032, or (2) the date upon which the Government formally assumes jurisdiction over the juvenile, whichever event earlier occurs.

The court found such a holding necessary in order to "harmonize" sections 5032 and 5036. We cannot see, however, any conflict between the two sections that needed to be resolved. The certification procedure in the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act encompasses a recognition of the general policy of federal abstention. The official summary and analysis of the 1974 amendments to the Act stated:

The federal courts and federal correctional system have never been properly equipped to handle large numbers of juveniles with the result that federal juvenile delinquents are frequently transferred away from their home communities for treatment. By deferring jurisdiction to state courts, the harmful effects of this dislocation would be reduced.

120 Cong.Rec. 25162 (1974). The certification procedure was designed to ensure that only where jurisdiction existed nowhere but in the federal courts or where the particular state did not have available programs and services adequate for the needs of juveniles were the federal courts to intrude in a juvenile case. Sechrist has not cited, nor can we find, any statements in the legislative history which indicate that the certification procedure was in any way related to the speedy trial provisions of the Act. The dissenting judge in Andy so recognized: "An action triggering device which authorizes the Federal District Court to proceed, certification does not answer the question of how detention for purposes of Section 5036 shall be measured." 549 F.2d at 1283. We agree that there is no connection between the certification procedure and the speedy trial requirement of the Act.

We also believe the facts of this case to be significantly different from those in Andy. At the time the information was filed in this case, Sechrist was a resident at the Lincoln Hills School, where he was serving time on an unrelated charge. This fact alone suffices to distinguish this case from the Andy decision, in which the juvenile was originally held in state custody for seventeen days before being transferred to federal custody on the same charge. In that case, the juvenile would not have been in jail except for the arrest on the charge for which he was ultimately convicted. Sechrist, however, would have been in custody for the entire period regardless of the federal charges because of his earlier adjudication of delinquency by the Menominee Tribal Court on the unrelated charge. The federal authorities did not exercise any control over Sechrist until the deputy marshals took him into custody on May 5.

We therefore hold that the thirty-day period in section 5036 does not begin to run until that date on which the juvenile is taken into physical custody for the charged offense. ⁴ This holding is in accord with the ordinary meaning of the word "detention" and the use of the word in other sections of the Act, ⁵ which imply that physical custody is an essential element. ⁶

The issuance of the arrest warrant could not trigger the speedy trial limits, for that action merely authorizes a federal marshal to arrest the juvenile. It does not place him in "detention" but only provides a legal process for doing so. Similarly, the lodging of a detainer ought not commence the thirty-day period. "A detainer is merely a notice that the prisoner is wanted to face pending criminal charges and requires further process ... before the prisoner is turned over." United States v. Scallion, 548 F.2d 1168, 1173 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 943, 98 S.Ct. 2843, 56 L.Ed.2d 784 (1977). See also United States v. Kenaan, 557 F.2d 912, 915-16 (1st Cir.), Cert. denied, 436 U.S. 943, 98 S.Ct. 2844, 56 L.Ed.2d 784 (1977). The lodging of a detainer does not confer any control over the juvenile to federal authorities. The Interstate Agreement on Detainers gives the prisoner the option to assert his speedy trial rights under such circumstances, as Sechrist did in this case. Two days after the Government received his request to proceed expeditiously, the Government moved the court to issue a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum. Sechrist thus suffered no detriment because of the detainer that could be sufficient to constitute "detention" under the meaning of the Act. ⁷

If the issuance of an arrest warrant or the section 5032 certification or even the simple ability to make the certification, as the Ninth Circuit held in Andy triggered the running of the thirty-day period, a juvenile who was at large and who could not be located through no fault of his own might never even be arrested before the thirty-day period expired....