U.S. v. Vasquez
| Decision Date | 02 November 1990 |
| Docket Number | D,89,Nos. 4,s. 4 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Manuel VASQUEZ and Jose Pollo Renteria, Defendants-Appellants. ocket 89-1561, 89-1564. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Bettina Schein (John H. Jacobs, New York City, of counsel), for defendant-appellant Renteria.
Ian Lowell Heller (Thomas C. Monaghan, Broad Channel, N.Y., of counsel), for defendant-appellant Vasquez.
Adria DeLandri, Asst. U.S. Atty. for the S.D.N.Y. (Otto G. Obermaier, U.S. Atty. for the S.D. of N.Y., Andrea M. Likwornik, Daniel C. Richman, Asst. U.S. Attys., New York City, of counsel), for appellee.
Before FEINBERG and CARDAMONE, Circuit Judges, CABRANES, District Judge. *
Manuel Vasquez and Jose Pollo Renteria appeal from judgments of conviction in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, after a jury trial before Judge Mary Johnson Lowe. Appellants were convicted on two counts charging them with conspiring to distribute and to possess more than five kilograms of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 846, and with possession of more than five kilograms of cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. Secs. 812, 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(A). Judge Lowe sentenced each defendant to a 10-year term of imprisonment, to be followed by a five-year period of supervised release. Appellants claim that the length of time (nearly 26 months) that elapsed between the commencement of proceedings against them and the start of trial violated their statutory and constitutional rights to a speedy trial. Vasquez also claims that his conviction was flawed because evidence at a pretrial competency hearing proved that he was unable meaningfully to assist in his own defense. For reasons given below, we affirm.
The government's evidence at trial amply established that Vasquez and Renteria committed the crimes with which they were charged. They were arrested while attempting to complete a sale in Vasquez's apartment of approximately five kilograms of cocaine to a government undercover agent. In the course of the arrest, government agents uncovered six kilograms of cocaine, $1,400 dollars in cash on Vasquez's person, $2,382 in cash in the apartment and a loaded handgun. The testimony of government agents and the introduction of the physical evidence amply proved defendants' guilt at trial.
The chronology leading up to appellants' speedy trial claims is as follows: The government indicted defendants on June 11, 1987, two weeks after their arrest and detainment. They were arraigned on June 18, 1987, and the case was thereafter assigned to Judge Lowe. On June 25, 1987, at the first pretrial conference, the government indicated that it was ready to go to trial at any time. Counsel for Renteria requested, on behalf of both defendants, that the court schedule another conference for July 1, 1987, and exclude the period from June 18 until July 1 from speedy trial calculations in the interest of justice. Pursuant to the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3161 et seq., the judge granted this motion.
At pretrial conferences on July 1 and July 7, 1987, the court granted further exclusions of time under the Act until July 23 in order to allow defense counsel time to obtain and review discovery materials produced by the government. At the July 23 conference, counsel for Renteria, speaking as well for Vasquez, requested time to consider the discovery materials and to decide whether any motions were necessary. At defense counsel's suggestion, the court scheduled an August 18, 1987, conference, and excluded the intervening period from the speedy trial clock.
At the August 18 conference, Renteria's counsel stated that he had no motions, but would join any motions made by Vasquez that were applicable to Renteria. Renteria's counsel also explained that, because he was engaged in a lengthy trial in United States v. Salerno 1 (then in progress also before Judge Lowe) and Renteria did not wish to retain new counsel, Renteria agreed to waive any speedy trial rights until the conclusion of the Salerno trial. Vasquez immediately joined in Renteria's speedy trial waiver, and filed a motion to suppress both the currency recovered from him personally and the cocaine seized at the time of his arrest. Judge Lowe gave the government time to respond to Vasquez's motion, and scheduled a conference for late September, with the intervening period excluded from speedy trial calculations.
At the conference on September 30, 1987, counsel for Vasquez withdrew his motion to suppress the seized cocaine, leaving outstanding his motion to suppress the currency. He then asked the court to order a psychiatric examination of Vasquez to determine his competency to stand trial. The court granted the request, ordered that a report be prepared by November 16, 1987, and excluded the time needed for the examination.
The government promptly submitted an order to the court directing a psychiatric examination of Vasquez. That order was signed on October 7, 1987 and filed the following day. However, there is no record that the United States Marshals' Service, which was responsible for transporting the defendant to a psychiatric facility, received the order. Approximately four months passed before the government was apprised of this fact; it submitted a second order to the district court, which was signed on February 11 and filed on February 17, 1988. Vasquez, however, did not actually reach the Federal Correctional Facility at Butner, North Carolina to begin his examination until June 18, 1988. In early July 1988, the district judge granted the warden of the Butner Correctional Facility more time to conclude the psychiatric examination. On August 3, 1988, the court received the warden's report finding that Vasquez was competent to stand trial.
While Vasquez was undergoing examination at the Butner facility, the Salerno trial had ended on May 12, 1988; this meant that Renteria's counsel became available to prepare for trial in this case. Judge Lowe held a conference on September 30, 1988, at which point counsel for Vasquez informed her that he wished to controvert the warden's report. The court allowed Vasquez's attorney time to prepare his challenge to the report, and scheduled a competency hearing for November 28, 1988, with the intervening time to be excluded. At the September 30 conference, Renteria's counsel noted that although he was now ready to proceed to trial, he recognized that co-defendant Vasquez still had outstanding motions and that the speedy trial clock would not run while this was the case.
On November 28, 1988, counsel for Vasquez informed the Court that he had not yet received the report from the psychologist he had retained, and he asked for additional time. The court scheduled a conference for December 22, 1988, with the intervening time excluded from the speedy trial clock. On November 30, Dr. Larry A. Cohen, the psychologist retained by Vasquez, submitted his report, concluding that Vasquez was unfit to proceed to trial. The court then directed Vasquez to submit to an examination by Dr. Naomi Goldstein, a psychiatrist selected by the government. On January 10, 1989, Dr. Goldstein submitted her report concluding that Vasquez was fit to proceed, and the court scheduled a competency hearing for early April 1989. That hearing was adjourned when Judge Lowe became ill.
On April 10, 1989, Renteria moved to dismiss the indictment, claiming a violation of the Speedy Trial Act, and alternatively sought a severance. Vasquez joined in the speedy trial motion on April 19, 1989. The motion was fully submitted on June 16, 1989, when the government informed the court, in response to its request, of the results of the government's inquiry into why Vasquez's examination at Butner had not been conducted sooner.
In a Memorandum Opinion and Order dated July 13, 1989, Judge Lowe denied defendants' motions to dismiss. With respect to Vasquez, the court held that the time that had elapsed since September 30, 1987, during which Vasquez was examined at his request and his mental competency contested in motions, must be automatically excluded from Speedy Trial Act calculations pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Secs. 3161(h)(1)(A) and (F). In addition, the district court determined that motion practice by Vasquez also stopped the clock as to Renteria, because under Sec. 3161(h)(7) exclusion of time as to one defendant stops the speedy trial clock as to co-defendants. While observing that this provision covering co-defendants requires that any delay be "reasonable," the court noted that Renteria's attorney had been unavailable until the end of the Salerno trial on May 12, 1988. Furthermore, the court found that Renteria could not rely on the reasonableness requirement of Sec. 3161(h)(7), because he had never sought a severance until his motion in April 1989. The court also rejected defendants' constitutional claims to a speedy trial. Finally, Judge Lowe denied Renteria's severance motion.
On July 31, 1989, the district court held a final pre-trial conference to schedule hearings on Vasquez's competency and his suppression motion regarding the currency. Vasquez's counsel suggested that the competency hearing be set for the second week of September, but the court put both hearings on for August 7, with trial to begin on August 8. On August 7, after a jury was selected and sworn, the court began the competency hearing, which continued into the following day. After the court found Vasquez competent, trial testimony began on August 8 and the trial ended on August 10, when the jury found each defendant guilty on both counts. These appeals followed.
Appellants' claims focus on the protracted pretrial proceedings that extended over a period of two years. Appellants' statutory rights in this connection are defined under the Speedy Trial Act. The...
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