United States v. Mark Anthony Graef

31 F.3d 362, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 14762, 1994 WL 394085
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJune 14, 1994
Docket93-2587
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 31 F.3d 362 (United States v. Mark Anthony Graef) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth 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. Mark Anthony Graef, 31 F.3d 362, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 14762, 1994 WL 394085 (6th Cir. 1994).

Opinion

SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judge.

Graef was convicted of drunk driving under M.C.L. 257.625(1), a misdemeanor offense. The offense was tried in federal court because the conduct occurred on the Sel-fridge Air National Guard base, a federal enclave, and the Michigan drunk driving statute is incorporated into the federal criminal law pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 13 (Assimilative Crimes Act). Graef appeals, asserting a violation of the Federal Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3161(b) (FSTA), and a lack of subject matter jurisdiction. We AFFIRM.

*363 i.

The facts of this case are straightforward. In the early morning of June 18, 1992, police officers at Selfridge observed Graef attempting to change a flat tire by the side of a road located inside a restricted area of the base. When asked how he got onto the restricted area of the base, Graef responded that he had been driving on South River Road when an oncoming car forced him off the road. Graef then told the officers that he had crashed through the security fence surrounding the base and ended up on the base road with a flat tire. Detecting the smell of alcohol and noting Graefs slurred speech, the officers asked Graef to perform a series of field sobriety tests, which he failed.

The officers took Graef to the Selfridge police station where Graef refused to take a breathalyzer test or to provide urine or blood for analysis. He was put into a cell and held overnight. In the morning, Graef was released and given a “violation notice” for Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence of an Intoxicating Liquor, (OUIL)-3rd Offense. A third OUIL offense is a felony under Michigan law. This was, in fact, only Graefs second offense, however, and a second OUIL offense, although subject to an enhanced penalty, is nevertheless a misdemeanor.

Pursuant to the “violation notice,” Graef appeared before the magistrate on August 5, 1992. Trial was set for September 2, 1992, and was continued until October 7, 1992, on Graefs request. On October 7, however, the ticket was dismissed because an OUIL-2nd Offense, punishable by up to a year in prison, is not a “petty offense” and cannot be prosecuted on a “violation notice.” See Fed. R.Crim.P. 58(b)(1). No charges were then pending until December 16, 1992, when the government filed an information charging Graef with OUIL and giving notice that an enhanced penalty would apply because it was Graefs second offense. No criminal complaint was ever filed. The jury ultimately acquitted Graef of OUIL but convicted him of the lesser-included offense of operating his motor vehicle while visibly impaired under M.C.L. 257.625(3).

II.

Graef filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that the 180-day delay between his arrest on June 18 and the filing of the information on December 16 violated the thirty-day provision of 18 U.S.C. § 3161(b), 1 which provides:

Any information or indictment charging an individual with the commission of an offense shall be filed within thirty days from the date on which such individual was arrested or served with a summons in connection with such charges.

The district court denied the motion and, because the relevant facts are not in dispute, we review the district court’s application of the FSTA de novo.

The pivotal issue is whether the events occurring on June 18 constituted an “arrest” or a “service of a summons” in connection with the OUIL offense charged in the December 16 information. If so, all parties concede that a violation of the FSTA occurred and the information upon which Graef was convicted should have been dismissed, albeit without prejudice. If not, Graef concedes that there was no violation because there were no subsequent events which might have served to trigger the thirty-day clock.

There is no question but that Graef was “arrested” on June 18 in the ordinary, and constitutional, sense of that word and that his arrest was “in connection with” the OUIL conduct charged in the December 16 indictment.

The government contends that the term “arrested” in the FSTA means more than a full, custodial arrest. The remedy provisions of the FSTA provide:

If, in the ease of any individual against whom a complaint is filed charging such individual with an offense, no indictment or information is filed within the time limit required by section 3161(b) ... such charge against that individual contained in *364 such com/plaint shall be dismissed or otherwise dropped.

18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(1) (emphasis added). This lack of a remedy for a more-than-thirty-day delay between the complaintless arrest and the filing of an indictment or information has led courts unanimously to conclude that the arrest “trigger” for § 3161(b) applies only to arrests made either on a complaint or which were immediately followed by a complaint. See United States v. Mills, 964 F.2d 1186, 1189 (D.C.Cir.) (en banc) (citing, among others, United States v. Alfarano, 706 F.2d 739, 741 (6th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 931, 103 S.Ct. 2095, 77 L.Ed.2d 304 (1983)), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 471, 121 L.Ed.2d 378 (1992); United States v. Blackmon, 874 F.2d 378, 381 (6th Cir.) (“defendant is not ‘arrested’ for purposes of the Speedy Trial Act until formal federal charges are pending”), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 859, 110 S.Ct. 168, 107 L.Ed.2d 125 (1989). In the present ease, because no complaint was ever filed against Graef, there could be no “arrest” for purposes of beginning the 30-day pre-indictment clock.

The second “trigger” for § 3161(b) is the date upon which the defendant is “served with a summons.” Just as there was never a complaint in this case, no summons was ever issued here. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 4(a) and 9(a) (summons may issue upon a complaint or indictment/information). The only remaining question therefore, is whether, in these circumstances, the “violation notice,” which was given to Graef on June 18 and which directed him to appear before the magistrate judge to answer to the charge (erroneously) of OUIL-3rd Offense, was a “summons” for purposes of the FSTA.

Graefs argument must fail.

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Bluebook (online)
31 F.3d 362, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 14762, 1994 WL 394085, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-mark-anthony-graef-ca6-1994.