United States v. Marshall

669 F.3d 288, 399 U.S. App. D.C. 231, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 11686, 2011 WL 7331763
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedJune 9, 2011
Docket09-3140
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 669 F.3d 288 (United States v. Marshall) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. 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. Marshall, 669 F.3d 288, 399 U.S. App. D.C. 231, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 11686, 2011 WL 7331763 (D.C. Cir. 2011).

Opinion

Opinion for the Court by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge:

Deonte Marshall was indicted for unlawful possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Despite his repeated requests for a speedy trial, this straightforward one-count single defendant case languished in the district court for fourteen months — 436 days — before trial finally began. In delaying the trial the district court relied on a government filing, styled as a “motion” to admit evidence of other crimes pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), as a placeholder that would suspend operation of the Speedy Trial Act’s 70-day time limit, see 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1). 1 This despite the district court’s acknowledged practice of not resolving such Rule 404(b) “motions” until immediately prior to trial or during the trial itself.

Although Marshall’s court appointed counsel filed a motion to dismiss the indictment for violation of the Speedy Trial Act, and a supplement, counsel did not challenge the district court’s exclusion of the time following the Rule 404(b) filing, which allowed the district court to conclude Marshall’s Speedy Trial Act rights were not violated. In failing to do so, counsel overlooked: (1) precedent of this court holding that a closely analogous evidentiary filing does not toll the Speedy Trial Act clock; (2) the prosecutor’s expression of concern during a hearing that the Rule 404(b) filing did not toll the Speedy Trial Act clock; and (3) Marshall’s own repeated pleas to the district court and his counsel to scrutinize the record for a Speedy Trial Act violation. Under the circumstances, the performance of his pretrial counsel was constitutionally deficient. In view of the violation of Marshall’s Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel when counsel failed to challenge whether a Rule 404(b) filing tolls the 70-day period under the Speedy Trial Act, the court vacated the judgment of conviction and ordered a remand, with opinion to follow. See Order, May 13, 2011. This is that opinion.

I.

The grand jury returned its indictment on July 22, 2008 based on a weapon seized from a locked room during the execution of a search warrant of the house where Marshall lived with his mother. Marshall was arraigned on July 30, 2008, entering a plea of not guilty. 2 At the first status confer *290 ence, held August 19, 2008, the prosecutor expressed his view that “we do need to set a trial date today unless motions are going to be filed pretty soon.” Tr. Aug. 19, 2008, at 3. The district court responded that its practice was not to set trial dates “until later in the process,” id. at 4, and directed the prosecutor to “get your motions in the sooner the better,” id. at 5. The district court reiterated the message at the next status conference, held September 9, 2008, again declining to set a trial date and stating that the Speedy Trial Act clock would be tolled once motions were filed, and the court was “expecting at least one in the next day.” Tr. Sept. 9, 2008, at 10-11.

Two days later, on September 11, 2008, the fifty-first day after indictment (and the forty-seventh day on the Speedy Trial Act clock), the government filed a pleading styled as the “United States’ Motion to Admit Other Crimes Evidence Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b).” In this filing the government indicated that it intended to use evidence of the circumstances surrounding Marshall’s prior conviction for the same crime — unlawful possession of a firearm — as evidence that his possession of the seized weapon was knowing and intentional, not due to accident or mistake. At a status conference held on October 23, 2008 — the ninety-third day following indictment (the eighty-ninth day on the Speedy Trial Act clock) — defense counsel told the district court that he had not yet filed a motion to suppress the seized evidence and Marshall’s statement (unrelated to the prosecutor’s Rule 404(b) filing) because of an unexpected delay in obtaining a needed transcript. But, defense counsel continued, he thought that the delay “was not endangering [Marshall’s] Speedy Trial rights because the government had already filed a 404(b) motion.” Tr. Oct. 23, 2008, at 4. The district court responded: “It had. So the statute is tolled for now anyway.” Id.

The prosecutor, however, was not so sure, advising the district court that “there is perhaps some dispute in the case law about whether or not that type of motion” — referring to the Rule 404(b) filing— “is sufficient to ... toll the Speedy Trial [Act] clock.” Id. at 6. “[I]n an abundance of caution,” the prosecutor asked the district court to “make findings that the time has been spent ... in the interest of justice and for the sake of the defendant in this case[,] that the time would have been tolled anyway [even absent the Rule 404(b) filing].” Id. at 7. The district court refused, advising the prosecutor that “it is this Court’s practice and has been for seven years that a 404 motion is sufficient for the purpose [of tolling the clock].” Id.

The prosecutor’s concerns were well founded. In United States v. Harris, 491 F.3d 440 (D.C.Cir.2007), over a year before Marshall was indicted, this court held that a closely analogous pretrial filing pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 609 was not a pretrial motion that tolls the Speedy Trial Act clock. 491 F.3d at 443-44. The court held instead that a Rule 609 filing is, under the plain text of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(4)(A), a filing that “noticies] the defendant of [the government’s] intent to use specified evidence at trial in order to afford the defendant an opportunity to object before trial under Rule 12(b)(3)(c),” which governs the timing of motions to suppress evidence. The court reasoned that the government’s Rule 609 filing, notifying the defendant of the government’s intent to impeach him with his prior convictions, is merely a non-tolling notice; a defendant who objects to use of *291 the evidence may file a motion to suppress under Rule 12(b)(3)(C), which would toll the Speedy Trial Act clock as only then would the district court be called upon to act. Id. at 444.

Then, three weeks before Marshall was indicted on July 22, this court applied Harris’s holding in United States v. Van Smith, 530 F.3d 967

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Bluebook (online)
669 F.3d 288, 399 U.S. App. D.C. 231, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 11686, 2011 WL 7331763, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-marshall-cadc-2011.