United States v. Jones, Crim. No. 23554.

• Decision Date: 02 March 1971
• Docket Number: Crim. No. 23554.
• Citation: 322 F. Supp. 1110
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Robert JONES.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

322 F. Supp. 1110

UNITED STATES of America v. Robert JONES.

Crim. No. 23554.

United States District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

March 2, 1971.

Louis C. Bechtle, U. S. Atty., Victor Wright, Asst. U. S. Atty., Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.

Defender Ass'n of Philadelphia, David Rudovsky, Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.

OPINION

JOSEPH S. LORD, III, District Judge.

Defendant Robert Jones was found guilty April 7, 1970, by jury verdict on all counts of a four-count indictment charging illegal sales of narcotic drugs. He seeks a judgment of acquittal as to the two counts relating to an alleged sale of heroin July 11, 1968, and a new trial on the two counts relating to an alleged July 2, 1968, sale.

The defendant was indicted on these four counts December 17, 1968, more than five months after the alleged sales. The alleged sales had been made to an undercover police agent, Paul F. Ricks, who broke cover at the end of August or beginning of September, 1968. Jones was arrested September 27, pursuant to a warrant charging him only with an unlawful sale on July 2. It was not until he received a copy of the indictment by mail sometime after December 17 that Jones knew he was being charged with a sale on July 11 as well.

This case came before us following Jones' first trial before the Honorable Charles R. Weiner. At the close of testimony in that trial, the defendant had changed his plea to guilty. At the time of sentencing, however, he was allowed to withdraw that plea and a new trial was ordered. When defendant first appeared before us, his previous counsel was permitted to withdraw and the Defender Association was appointed February 9, 1970, to represent him at trial. The case was continued to allow counsel time to prepare adequately.

The Defender Association assigned this case to defendant's present attorney, an Assistant Defender in that office, approximately ten days before Jones' April 6 trial. Less than a week before trial, counsel moved for dismissal of counts III and IV of the indictment relating to the July 11, 1968, sale. We denied this motion pursuant to Rule 12(b) (3) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure on the grounds that it was not filed within a "reasonable time" after the defendant's plea. At the subsequent trial, the defendant was convicted on all four counts.

Decision in this case depends on the resolution of three separate issues: (1) Is the defendant entitled to a reconsideration now of his allegation that he was denied due process? (2) Was the defendant denied due process of law by the government's delay in informing him of the charges against him? (3) Did this court's failure to dismiss counts III and IV prior to trial so prejudice the defendant as to counts I and II that a new trial should be ordered as to these counts?

I. IS THE DEFENDANT PRESENTLY BARRED FROM RAISING HIS CONSTITUTIONAL OBJECTIONS?

Defendant's pretrial motion to dismiss counts III and IV of the indictment was treated by us, without challenge, as a motion under Rule 12(b), Fed. R. Crim. P. When defendant's motion was filed more than 50 days after his plea and appointment of new counsel, we felt this was another in a series of dilatory tactics with which defendant had burdened the federal courts and thus we denied the motion under Rule 12(b) (3), which states: "The motion shall be made before the plea is entered, but the court may permit it to be made within a reasonable time thereafter." The defendant charges that this ruling was an abuse of discretion and that we must meet his motion on its merits. We disagree.

However, reexamination of the record has persuaded us that the defendant had not been attempting to delay the proceedings against him and that the late presentation of his constitutional claim was due not to intentional irresponsibility but to bureaucratic bungling on the part of the Defender Association. Defendant's motion was made nearly a week before trial, early enough for the prosecution to have an answer prepared by trial.¹ If we do not hear the motion now, the defendant will have what we believe is a valid constitutional defense on the merits to counts III and IV; yet he will be left without a remedy for the government's violation of his constitutional rights.

Nonetheless, we do not believe a motion for a judgment of acquittal is the proper way to raise the delay issue again. The defendant is not challenging the sufficiency of the evidence, which is the sole ground set out in Fed. R. Crim. P. 29 for a judgment of acquittal.

However, we do believe reconsideration of defendant's motion is proper, pursuant to the inherent power of this court "to do justice." See United States v. Dooling, 406 F.2d 192 (C.A. 2, 1969); United States v. Apex Distributing Co., 270 F.2d 747, 756 (C.A. 9, 1959); cf. Burns v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 394 F.2d 416, 418 (C.A. 1, 1968). Rule 2, Fed. R. Crim. P., emphasizes this notion:

"These rules are intended to provide for the just determination of every criminal proceeding. They shall be construed to secure simplicity in procedure, fairness in administration and the elimination of unjustifiable expense and delay."

In the interest of justice, therefore, we will consider defendant's motion to dismiss as though it had been timely raised.

II. SHOULD THE MOTION TO DISMISS COUNTS III and IV BECAUSE OF PROSECUTORIAL DELAY BE GRANTED?

Jones complains here that the delay between the alleged sale of July 11 and the notice in late December or early January that he was being charged with such a sale was prejudicial in that it hampered presentation of his defense. The resolution of the present motion rests on a determination of whether Jones was denied due process by the delay.

In Ross v. United States, 121 U.S. App.D.C. 233, 349 F.2d 210 (1965), the court reversed a conviction where seven months had elapsed between an alleged narcotics sale and the swearing out of a complaint, where the defendant made a plausible claim of inability to recall or reconstruct the events of the day of the offense, and where the case against the defendant at trial consisted of the recollection of one witness refreshed by a notebook. Although the court recognized the due process implications of the case, the decision was based on the supervisory responsibility for criminal proceedings. 349 F.2d at 216. However, that same court was more explicit in its reliance on due process grounds for reversal in a later case, in which Judge McGowan, the author of Ross, stressed the due process basis of that former decision. Woody v. United States, 125 U.S. App.D.C. 192, 370 F.2d 214, 218 (1966).

In United States v. Feldman, 425 F.2d 688 (C.A. 3, 1970), the court said, at page 691:

"We agree with the recognition in Ross v. United States, * * * that, in treating a defendant's claim of prejudicial delay, his rights under the due process clause must be determined by a balance between the need of law enforcement officials to delay prosecution and the prejudice to the defendant caused by this delay. * * *"

See also United States v. Morris, 308 F. Supp. 1348, 1355 (E.D.Pa. 1970).

The determination of whether there has been a violation of due process depends on "accommodating the public interest in effective law enforcement with the accused's interest in the fairness of the criminal procedures by which the charge against him is determined." 370 F.2d at 218.

Thus, the standard which we must apply in determining whether due process has been denied defendant Jones here is whether the benefit accruing to legitimate governmental interests by the delay outweighs the harm done to the defendant's interest in a reliable process of guilt determination.

There is no dispute that the time between the alleged July 11 sale and the date in late August or early September when Agent Ricks broke cover served a valid governmental interest, i. e., in the effective enforcement of narcotics laws. On the other hand, not even the prosecution here argues that any valid interest was served by the approximately four-month delay between the time Ricks broke cover and the time the defendant was notified of the charges relating to the July 11 sale.² Therefore, no weight should be given to the government's side of the balance.³

The mere fact that we find no legitimate governmental interest served by the four-month delay between the time Ricks broke cover and the time Jones was notified of the charges arising out of the alleged July 11 sale does not end the case. The heart of a defendant's due process claim must be that somehow the delay increased the risk that he would be erroneously convicted. Cf., e. g., Woody, supra, 370 F.2d at 217n.7 (Bazelon, J.). Absent a showing of such harm, defendant's due process claim must fail.

In Ross, the court found sufficient prejudice in the defendant's plausible claim of inability to recall or reconstruct the events of the day of the offense. The court there said: "In a very real sense, the extent to which he was prejudiced by the Government's delay is evidenced by the difficulty he encountered in establishing with particularity the elements of that prejudice." 349 F.2d at 215. Justice Brennan, in his probing analysis of the problems of governmental delay in his concurrence in Dickey v. Florida, 398 U.S. 30, 90 S.Ct. 1564, 26 L.Ed.2d 26 (1970), agreed with Ross that concrete evidence of prejudice often is not at hand, and argued, "It seems that inherent in prosecutorial delay is `potential substantial prejudice' * * *."

In the instant case, the defendant made out a plausible claim of inability to recall or recollect the events of the day of the offense. He...