United States v. George Albert Mills

434 F.2d 266
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 22, 1971
Docket19947_1
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 434 F.2d 266 (United States v. George Albert Mills) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth 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. George Albert Mills, 434 F.2d 266 (8th Cir. 1971).

Opinion

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge.

On August 20, 1958, George Albert Mills and an accomplice robbed the Corn Belt State Bank of Correctionville, Iowa, a federally-insured institution. Police *269 apprehended Mills and his cohort Darwin Evert Coon after the crime and placed them in the Woodbury County Jail at Sioux City, Iowa, under federal custody. A few days later, Mills attempted escape. As a consequence of these activities, the government prosecuted Mills for bank robbery as well as on escape charges. Mills waived indictment and the government proceeded by information. On September 30, 1958, Mills appeared in court with appointed counsel and pleaded guilty to four charges relating to bank robbery and two charges relating to escape. Judge Graven sentenced the petitioner to serve a term of twenty years for robbery and, in addition, two five-year consecutive terms on the escape charges to be served consecutively with the sentence for robbery. In 1962, however, Judge Graven vacated the bank robbery conviction. He ruled that conviction invalid because one of the bank robbery charges under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(e) called for a possible death penalty, and, therefore, Rule 7(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure required the government to prosecute by indictment rather than by information. Smith v. United States, 360 U.S. 1, 79 S.Ct. 991, 3 L.Ed.2d 1041 (1959).

A grand jury, thereafter, indicted Mills in August, 1962, for the same bank robbery charges. However, Mills’ mental illness prevented an immediate trial on this indictment. Instead, the court (Judge Hanson) committed Mills to the Federal Medical Center at Springfield, Missouri, for a determination of his competency to stand trial. The Medical Center advised the court on several occasions that Mills lacked competency to assist in his defense. Judge Hanson specifically found Mills incompetent to stand trial at formal hearings held in 1963 and 1966. Finally, in August of 1969, the trial court determined that Mills could be tried. The ease was submitted to a jury, which returned a verdict of guilty. The trial court on September 19, 1969, again sentenced Mills to a term of twenty-years imprisonment, but granted him specified credits for all periods of incarceration since August 21, 1958. 1 Mills, in fact, benefitted substantially from his second trial. Whereas Judge Graven had initially sentenced, him to a total of thirty years on all counts, Judge Hanson’s sentence, by providing credit for prior incarceration, resulted in concurrent service on the escape charges.

Another panel of this court considered the substantive facts relating to the bank robbery in connection with the trial of Mills’ accomplice. Coon v. United States, 360 F.2d 550 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 873, 87 S.Ct. 145, 17 L.Ed.2d 100 (1966). More recently, we affirmed Judge Hanson’s determination that Mills possessed mental competency on September 30, 1958, when he initially entered guilty pleas to criminal charges flowing from the escape attempt. Mills v. United States (Mills I), 430 F.2d 526 (8th Cir., No. 20013, August 14, 1970).

On this appeal, Mills urges the following grounds for reversal: (1) That the government denied him a speedy trial in violation of the Sixth Amendment, and that the district court should have dismissed the indictment pursuant to Fed. R.Crim.P. 48(b) for unnecessary delay in bringing Mills to trial; (2) That the trial court erred in admitting the following evidence: Mills’ confession, items seized from his automobile, identification testimony allegedly tainted by an illegal lineup, and opinion evidence on the issue of insanity allegedly without proper foundation; and (3) That the trial court erred in instructing the jury concerning criminal responsibility. For reasons stated below, we reject these contentions and affirm the conviction.

I. SPEEDY TRIAL

The Sixth Amendment guarantees that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a *270 speedy and public trial, * * * ” Appellant cites the eleven-year delay from the date of his apprehension in 1958 to his conviction in 1969 as conclusively establishing a violation of this constitutional right.

In this case, the delay between Mills’ arrest and trial may be divided into three general parts. The first period represents the interval between Mills’ apprehension in 1958. and February, 1963, when Judge Hanson initially set his case for trial on the bank robbery charge. During this period, Mills commenced serving the sentence following his conviction on the guilty plea, but, as noted above, Judge Graven vacated the sentence in response to a collateral attack thereon. When a defendant, through appeal or collateral attack, succeeds in reversing or annulling an unsatisfied conviction, the law permits him to be retried in the normal course of events notwithstanding delay incident to such legal proceedings. United States v. Ewell, 383 U.S. 116, 121, 86 S.Ct. 773, 777, 15 L.Ed.2d 627 (1966). The double jeopardy clause affords no bar to retrial for an accused who succeeds in reversing his conviction. See United States v. Tateo, 377 U.S. 463, 465, 84 S.Ct. 1587, 12 L.Ed.2d 448 (1964); Houp v. State of Nebraska, 427 F.2d 254 (8th Cir. 1970). Mr. Justice White, speaking for the Court in Ewell, supra, 383 U.S. 116, 86 S.Ct. 773, discussed the relationship between double jeopardy and speedy trial, stating:

The rule of these cases, which dealt with the Double Jeopardy Clause, has been thought wise because it protects the societal interest in trying people accused of crime, rather than granting them immunization because of legal error at a previous trial, and because it enhances the probability that appellate courts will be vigilant to strike down previous convictions that are tainted with reversible error. United States v. Tateo, supra, [377 U.S.], at 466 [84 S.Ct. 1587, at 1589]. These policies, so carefully preserved in this Court’s interpretation of the Double Jeopardy Clause, would be seriously undercut by the interpretation given the Speedy Trial Clause by the court below. Indeed, such an interpretation would place a premium upon collateral rather than upon direct attack because of the greater possibility that immunization might attach. 383 U.S. at 121, 86 S.Ct. at 777.

Thus, this initial delay did not abridge Mills’ right to a speedy trial.

The second portion of the delay in the instant case consists of the period from February, 1963, to November 19, 1968. Contemplating an early 1963 trial, a pre-arraignment hearing was held on February 19, 1963.

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