United States v. Litton Systems, Inc.
| Decision Date | 01 March 1983 |
| Docket Number | Crim. No. S78-0031(R). |
| Citation | 557 F. Supp. 568 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. LITTON SYSTEMS, INC. d/b/a Ingalls Nuclear Shipbuilding Division, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Mississippi |
Jerry Davis, Asst. U.S. Atty., Biloxi, Miss., Elsie L. Munsell, U.S. Atty., E.D. Va., Joseph A. Fisher, III, and James A. Metcalf, Asst. U.S. Attys., E.D. Va., Frank W. Dunham, Jr., Sp. U.S. Atty., E.D. Va., Alexandria, Va., for plaintiff.
Bruce W. Kauffman, Stephen J. Mathes, Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish & Kauffman, Philadelphia, Pa., Edmund L. Brunini, George P. Hewes, III, Charles P. Adams, Jr., Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes, Jackson, Miss., for defendants.
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
Litton Systems, Inc. (Litton), indicted in April of 1977 for allegedly making a false claim against the United States government (18 U.S.C. § 287)1, has filed a motion to dismiss the indictment because of "inexcusable and prejudicial prosecutorial delay" and the "loss and destruction of exculpatory evidence." Litton contends that, considering the delay and resulting prejudice, further prosecution would violate its Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. Litton also urges dismissal on the basis of Rule 48(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.2 For the following reasons, the motion to dismiss the indictment was granted.
In 1968, the Ingalls Nuclear Shipbuilding Division of Litton entered into a contract with the United States Navy for the construction of three nuclear submarines. Prior to the awarding of the contract to defendant, the Navy conducted an investigation to determine the manpower and facilities capability of the Ingalls Shipyard; the documents accumulated in this investigation are referred to as "source selection documents."
Over two years after the contract date, Litton filed a claim with the Navy, seeking compensation for increased contract costs which Litton asserted were made necessary by actions of the government. After this claim was made by Litton, the Navy conducted another investigation, this time gathering "production audit documents" which defendant had relied on in making its request for increased compensation. The claim was brought before the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA), and in early 1976, after hearing sixty-nine days of testimony, the board awarded Litton over sixteen million dollars.
Before the ASBCA ruling was handed down, the government began a criminal investigation into allegations of fraud relating to the claim made by Litton. Evidence was presented to three grand juries, one of which expired after 18 months of investigating only Ingalls Shipyard without returning an indictment. For six days in April of 1977, a fourth grand jury heard a summary by two FBI agents of the evidence before the prior grand juries and returned a one-count indictment against the corporate defendant only. All of these grand juries were empanelled in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Shortly after the indictment was handed down, the United States District Court granted a motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground of prosecutorial misconduct during the grand jury proceedings. Early in 1978, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded the case for trial. 573 F.2d 195. Later that year, the district judge granted a defense motion for change of venue and transferred the case to the Southern District of Mississippi, where the Ingalls Shipyard is located.
A status conference was held on January 25, 1979; the parties jointly agreed that the case need not be set for trial within the 60 day period3 provided in the Speedy Trial Act (18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1) and (e)). An order issued after the conference allowed the parties forty days to file motions, and stated that if a party objected to a motion being heard, on the basis that the motion had already been decided by the district court in the Eastern District of Virginia, then a hearing was to be set on the "objection" prior to any substantive action on the motion itself. By March 19, 1979, Litton had filed several motions, and the government had filed objections, seeking the dismissal of all but one of the motions. A hearing on the objections was never set by the government; in fact, the government did not take any further action toward prosecution for over three and one-half years, until September 22, 1982, when the government filed a motion to set a trial date.
During the intervening period, the only activity which could be construed as in furtherance of the prosecution was a meeting on December 17, 1979, provoked by defendant's attorney, to discuss possible settlement. The settlement negotiations were short-lived; on January 23, 1980, Litton's attorney wrote to the U.S. Attorney, confirming that negotiations were ended. The letter stated that "it is understood that the parties' agreement not to take any further actions concerning the criminal case during the pendency of settlement negotiations is terminated."
The starting point for any analysis of an alleged violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial is the United States Supreme Court decision of Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972). Barker sets forth a four-part "balancing test" to be applied on an ad hoc basis whenever an issue concerning a breach of the speedy trial guarantee is raised. Id. at 530, 92 S.Ct. at 2191. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently discussed the Barker test and its factors as follows:
Barker v. Wingo provides the tetrad standard against which we must measure the elusive speedy trial perquisite: (1) duration; (2) reason for the delay; (3) defendant's assertion of the right; and (4) prejudice caused by the delay. No one consideration is "either a necessary or sufficient condition to the finding of a deprivation of the right of speedy trial ... they are related factors and must be considered together with such other circumstances as may be relevant." 407 U.S. at 533, 92 S.Ct. at 2193. United States v. Greer, 655 F.2d 51, 52 (5th Cir.1981). See also Jamerson v. Estelle, 666 F.2d 241 (5th Cir.1982); United States v. Herman, 576 F.2d 1139 (5th Cir.1978); United States v. Edwards, 577 F.2d 883 (5th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 968, 99 S.Ct. 458, 58 L.Ed.2d 427 (1978); United States v. Avalos, 541 F.2d 1100 (5th Cir.1976); Arrant v. Wainwright, 468 F.2d 677 (5th Cir. 1972).
Considering these four related factors together with the other circumstances relevant to this prosecution, we conclude that Litton's right to a speedy trial has been violated and that the indictment should be dismissed.
The Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial attaches at the date of arrest or, in this case, indictment, and runs until the commencement of trial. United States v. Gonzalez, 671 F.2d 441, 444 (11th Cir. 1982). Because the government could not proceed to trial until the case was transferred to Mississippi, we consider the delay period as commencing then rather than at indictment. The transfer to this district was in late 1978; the government first filed a motion to set a trial date on September 22, 1982, over three and one-half years later. The government argues, and correctly so, that the length of delay sufficient to warrant inquiry into the remaining Barker factors is related to the complexity of the case; however, forty-five months is an extraordinary delay by any standard. This conclusion is mandated by the Fifth Circuit's determination in United States v. Avalos, supra, that a 15 month delay in a complex conspiracy case "triggered" the Barker test. Moreover, the government had spent years prior to indictment compiling evidence against Litton; by the date of indictment it should have been prepared to proceed to trial promptly.
We now consider the government's asserted justifications, or lack thereof, for the lengthy delay. Three general categories of reasons for delay have been suggested by the Fifth Circuit, each assigned a different weight of culpability: deliberate delay, negligent delay and justified delay. United States v. Avalos, supra; Turner v. Estelle, 515 F.2d 853 (5th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 955, 96 S.Ct. 1431, 47 L.Ed.2d 361 (1976).
We classify the period between indictment and March 19, 1979, as justified delay. It was during that interval that defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment for prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury was granted by the district court, the district court's decision was reversed by the Court of Appeals, and the case was remanded to the district court in Virginia and then transferred to this district in Mississippi. The date March 19, 1979, is significant because it was at that point that all motions and objections thereto had been filed. It was then the government's obligation to take steps to bring the case to trial.4 Although this period can be justified, the government, cognizant of the amount of time that already passed in this "justified period", should have moved all the more expeditiously thereafter. Both lengthy prior periods, the first between the alleged criminal activity and indictment, and the second between indictment and March 19, 1979, amplify the unreasonableness of any subsequent periods of unjustified delay.
From March 19, 1979, until 42 months later, September 22, 1982, when the motion to set a trial date was filed, the government took no action whatsoever. The court's other commitments would, of necessity, require several additional months of delay between the motion to set a trial date and the commencement of trial, especially considering the anticipated length of trial.5 Thus the period of prosecutive inaction is more appropriately estimated at four years. As noted earlier, the constitutional right to a speedy trial attaches at indictment and runs...
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U.S. v. Litton Systems, Inc., 83-4064
...a speedy trial. Litton also urged dismissal on the basis of Rule 48(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The district court, 557 F.Supp. 568, found a constitutional deprivation of the speedy trial guarantee and granted the motion to dismiss. Alternatively, the district court noted......