United States v. Bruce Emil Aitken

898 F.2d 104, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 3328, 1990 WL 21018
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMarch 9, 1990
Docket89-10505
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 898 F.2d 104 (United States v. Bruce Emil Aitken) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Bruce Emil Aitken, 898 F.2d 104, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 3328, 1990 WL 21018 (9th Cir. 1990).

Opinion

HUG, Circuit Judge:

Bruce Emil Aitken appeals from the district court’s order detaining him pending trial. We heretofore entered an order affirming the district court’s denial of bail pending trial indicating an opinion would follow. This opinion expresses the reasons for our previous order. The central issue is whether the computation of the time permitted for continuances, without just cause, for a hearing on pretrial detention, permits the exclusion of weekend days as provided in Fed.R.Crim.P. 45(a).

Facts and Proceedings Below

Aitken has lived in Hong Kong for approximately 16 years. His home, family, and business are all in Hong Kong. Aitken travels throughout Asia and apparently has numerous contacts in Asia, including countries which do not extradite to the United States. Aitken also has access to extremely large sums of money.

On or about June 8, 1989, while traveling in Bangkok, Thailand, Thai authorities arrested appellant Aitken and deported him to the United States. Upon his arrival in San Francisco, California, on June 9, 1989, government agents arrested Aitken on a warrant issued pursuant to a superseding indictment that charged Aitken and seven others with conspiracy to aid and abet in the distribution of 42 tons of marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846; various money laundering counts, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 371, and 1956 and 31 U.S.C. §§ 5322(b) and 5324(1) and 31 C.F.R. §§ 103.21, 103.22(a) and 103.25(a), and a number of interstate travel in aid of racketeering counts, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 1952(a)(1) and (3). The indictment also sought forfeiture of approximately $7,618,570 in United States currency.

On June 9, 1989, Aitken appeared before Chief Magistrate Woelflen in San Francisco. At that time, the Government moved for detention. Aitken requested a continuance to prepare for the detention hearing. The magistrate granted the continuance and set the detention hearing for June 16, 1989, a delay of seven days. On June 14, 1989, Aitken was removed to the district of Nevada pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 40. On June 16, 1989, he appeared before Magistrate Atkins in Reno. The Government again requested detention. Aitken sought a second continuance in order to obtain the testimony of a witness who could not visit the United States prior to June 28, 1989. Finding good cause, the magistrate continued the detention hearing to June 29, 1989.

The hearing began on June 29, 1989 and was completed on June 30, 1989. On July 3, 1989, the magistrate ordered Aitken detained pending trial, finding that he constituted a flight risk. The district court denied Aitken’s motion for bail on July 20, 1989 and denied his motion for reconsideration on September 25,1989. Aitken appealed from the detention order.

DISCUSSION

Aitken contends that the delay in holding his detention hearing violates 18 U.S.C. § 3142(f) of the Bail Reform Act of 1984. Under section 3142(f), a district court must hold a hearing for indefinite pretrial detention “immediately upon the person’s first appearance before the judicial officer unless that person, or the attorney for the Government, seeks a continuance.” The statute provides that a district court may not grant a continuance of more than five days on the defendant’s motion nor more than three days on the Government’s motion absent a finding of good cause. Id.

*106 Here, the continuance in dispute is the continuance from the date of Aitken’s initial appearance in San Francisco, California, on June 9,1989, until his appearance in Reno, Nevada, on June 16, 1989. 1 This continuance' amounted to seven days. The continuance was granted at the request of Aitken and was thus statutorily limited to five days, there having been no showing of good cause. Whether this seven-day continuance violates section 3142(f) turns on whether Fed.R.Crim.P. 45(a) excluding the two weekend days is applied. Rule 45 provides that weekend days and holidays should be excluded in the computation of time periods less than eleven days.

Aitken relies on United States v. Hurtado, 779 F.2d 1467, 1474 n. 8 (11th Cir.1985), in which the Eleventh Circuit held:

[W]e find that Rule 45(a) is not applicable to this calculation. While Congress expressly provided in Section 3142(d) that in counting days for temporary detention we should exclude weekends and holidays, it did not include a similar provision in subsection (f). By expressly providing in one section for such an exclusion Congress obviously assumed that Rule 45(a) would not otherwise apply. By only making such provision in one of many subsections, we must assume this was a calculated decision.

A contrary result was reached by the Second Circuit in United States v. Melendez-Carrion, 790 F.2d 984, 991 (2d Cir.1986), which applied Rule 45(a). A Nevada district court criticized the reasoning of Hurtado. In United States v. Wimberly, 648 F.Supp. 1572 (D.Nev.1986), the district court held that Rule 45(a) applies to 3142(f).

The Hurtado Court’s reasoning, however, seems to contradict itself. It assumed that, even though Rule 45(a) “ordinarily” applied to statutory time periods, it did not apply to section 3142(f) because Congress did not specifically exclude weekends and holidays. But if Rule 45(a) “ordinarily” applies to statutes, then, absent a contrary policy expressed in the statute, it should apply to section 3142(f). See Union National Bank [of Wichita, Kan. v. Lamb ], 337 U.S. [38] at 40-41, 69 S.Ct. [911] at 912-13 [93 L.Ed. 1190],
The express exclusion in section 3142(d) is not to the contrary.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
898 F.2d 104, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 3328, 1990 WL 21018, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-bruce-emil-aitken-ca9-1990.