United States v. Taylor

487 U.S. 326, 108 S. Ct. 2413, 101 L. Ed. 2d 297, 1988 U.S. LEXIS 2877, 56 U.S.L.W. 4744

Opinions

Justice Blackmun

delivered the opinion of the Court. This cáse requires us to consider the bounds of a district court’s discretion to choose between dismissal with and without prejudice, as a remedy for a violation of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, as amended, 18 U. S. C. §3161 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. IV).

I

On July 25, 1984, respondent Larry Lee Taylor was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and possession of 400 grams of cocaine with intent to distribute. His trial was scheduled to commence in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle on November 19, 1984, the day prior to the expiration of the 70-day period within which the Act requires the Government to bring an indicted individual to trial. See 18 U. S. C. § 3161(c)(1).¹ Respondent failed to appear for trial, and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. On February 5, 1985, respondent was arrested by local police officers in San Mateo County, Cal., on state charges that subsequently were dismissed. Respondent’s return to Seattle for his federal trial was delayed for a number of reasons, some related to his being required to testify as a defense witness in a federal narcotics prosecution then pending in San Francisco, and others involving slow processing, the convenience of the United States Marshals Service, and what the District Court would later describe as the “lackadaisical” attitude on the part of the Government. App. to Pet. for Cert. 30a. On April 24, 1985, while respondent was back in San Francisco to testify at a retrial of the narcotics prosecution, a federal grand jury in Seattle issued a superseding indictment against respondent, adding a failure-to-appear charge based on his nonappearance at the scheduled November 19, 1984, trial.

Upon his return to Seattle, respondent moved to dismiss all charges against him, alleging that the Speedy Trial Act had been violated. The District Court rejected the Government’s argument that because respondent had failed to appear for trial, the 70-day speedy trial clock began anew when respondent was arrested on February 5, 1985. After considering the time between respondent’s nonappearance on November 19, 1984, and the issuance of the superseding indictment on April 24, 1985,² the court determined that the time respondent was at large, or testifying in the San Francisco prosecution, or being held on state charges, as well as some reasonable time for transporting him to Seattle, were excludable under 18 U. S. C. § 3161(h).³ The District Court concluded, however, that, despite these time exclusions, 15 nonexcludable days had passed, that the clock thus had expired 14 days before the superseding indictment, and that dismissal of the original indictment therefore was mandated. App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a-29a.⁴

The District Court found that, although respondent was charged with serious offenses, there was “no excuse for the government’s lackadaisical behavior in this case.”. Id., at 30a. The court observed that some of the Government’s explanations for the various nonexcludable delays were inconsistent; that the Marshals Service failed to produce respondent expeditiously when requested to do so by a San Mateo County judge; and that even after the state charges were dropped, respondent was not immediately brought before a federal magistrate on the fugitive warrant. The District Court also noted that after an order issued to bring respondent back to Seattle for trial, the Government responded, but without “dispatch,” accommodating the Marshals Service’s interest in moving several prisoners at once instead of moving respondent within the time period provided for by the Act. It said:

“[T]he court concludes that the administration of the [Act] and of justice would be seriously impaired if the court were not to respond sternly to the instant violation. If the government’s behavior in this case were to be tacitly condoned by dismissing the indictment without prejudice, then the [Act] would become a hollow guarantee.” Id., at 30a-31a.

The court dismissed the original counts with prejudice to reprosecution.⁵

A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. 821 F. 2d 1377 (1987). The full panel agreed with the District Court’s holding that respondent’s failure to appear for trial on November 19, 1984, should not restart the speedy trial clock, and confirmed the District Court’s calculation of 15 nonexcludable days between respondent’s flight and the issuance of the superseding indictment. Id., at 1383-1385.

Applying an abuse-of-discretion standard, the Court of Appeals reviewed the District Court’s discussion of its decision to dismiss the drug charges with prejudice. Characterizing the lower court’s purpose as sending “a strong message to the government” that the Act must be “observed,” even with respect to recaptured fugitives, the majority concluded: “Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, we see no need to disturb that ruling on appeal. The district court acted within the bounds of its discretion.” Id., at 1386.

The third judge concurred with the finding of a Speedy Trial Act violation, but concluded that the District Court abused its discretion in barring reprosecution. After reviewing the chronology and disputing whether, as a factual matter, the Government had failed to act reasonably, he felt that “none of the delay shown in this case — although admittedly non-excludable under the statute — was of such studied, deliberate, and callous nature as to justify dismissal with prejudice.” Id., at 1387.

On the Government’s petition, which suggested that further guidance was needed with respect to the application of the Speedy Trial Act’s remedy provision, § 3162, we granted certiorari. 484 U. S. 1025 (1988).

II

A

Neither party has asked this Court to review the lower courts’ decision that a violation of the Act actually occurred.⁶ And the statute admits no ambiguity in its requirement that when such a violation has been demonstrated, “the information or indictment shall be dismissed on motion of the defendant.” § 3162(a)(2). The only question before us, therefore, is whether the District Court abused its discretion under the Act in dismissing the indictment with prejudice rather than permitting reprosecution. In relevant part, the Act’s remedy provision, § 3162(a)(2), instructs:

“If a defendant is not brought to trial within the time limit required by section 3161(c) as extended by 3161(h), the information or indictment shall be dismissed on motion of the defendant. ... In determining whether to dismiss the case with or without prejudice, the court shall consider, among others, each of the following factors: the seriousness of the offense; the facts and circumstances of the case which led to the dismissal; and the impact of a reprosecution on the administration of this chapter and on the administration of justice.”

As is plain from this language, courts are not free simply to exercise their equitable powers in fashioning an appropriate remedy, but, in order to proceed under the Act, must consider at least the three specified factors. Because Congress employed somewhat broad and open-ended language, we turn briefly to the legislative history of the Act for some additional indication of how the contemplated choice of remedy should be made.

There apparently were those in Congress who thought courts should consider prejudice to the defendant before barring reprosecution. See 120 Cong. Rec. 41778 (1974) (remarks of Rep. Dennis); id., at 41795 (remarks of Rep. Conyers). After suggesting that he might offer an amendment to add that factor to the statute’s list of considerations for the court, Representative Dennis agreed to establish through “legislative history” the relevance of prejudice to the defendant. Ibid. Representative Cohen, the author of the compromise amendment, agreed that prejudice to the defendant was relevant, id., at 41794-41795, but opposed adding that factor to § 3162(a)(2) for fear that district courts would treat a lack of prejudice to a defendant as dispositive:

“[W]e [should] not consider it as a separate independent ground for the prosecution and open up to the Justice Department and the prosecutor to say we have not met the time limit and we did not take advantage of all the other time exemptions, but there is no prejudice to the defendant. I do not think that would be a sufficient basis in the consideration of the other factors to determine if justice would be done.” 120 Cong. Rec., at 41795.

Representative Cohen’s amendment was thereafter adopted without further modification. Although the discussion in the House is inconclusive as to the weight to be given to the presence or absence of prejudice to the defendant, there is little doubt that Congress intended this factor to be relevant for a district court’s consideration. See, e. g., United States v. Kramer, 827 F. 2d 1174, 1178 (CA8 1987); United States v. Caparella, 716 F. 2d 976, 980 (CA2 1983); United States v. Bittle, 226 U. S. App. D. C. 49, 56, 699 F. 2d 1201, 1208 (1983).⁷

The legislative history also confirms that, consistent with the language of the statute, Congress did not intend any particular type of dismissal to serve as the presumptive remedy for a Speedy Trial Act violation. Prior to the passage of the Act, the dismissal sanction generated substantial controversy in Congress, with proponents of uniformly barring re-prosecution arguing that without such a remedy the Act would lack any real force, and opponents expressing fear that criminals would unjustly escape prosecution. See generally A. Partridge, Legislative History of Title I of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, pp. 31-33 (Federal Judicial Center 1980); United States v. Caparella, 716 F. 2d, at 978-979 (reviewing legislative history). Eventually, in order to obtain passage of the Act, a compromise was reached that incorporated, through amendments on the floor of the House of Representatives, the language that eventually became § 3162(a)(2). See 120 Cong. Rec. 41774-41775, 41778, 41793-41794 (1974). The thrust of the compromise was that the decision to dismiss with or without prejudice was left to the guided discretion of the district court, and that neither remedy was given priority.⁸ See, e. g., United States v. Kramer, 827 F. 2d, at 1176; United States v. Salgado-Hernandez, 790 F. 2d 1265, 1267 (CA5), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 964 (1986); United States v. Russo, 741 F. 2d 1264, 1266-1267 (CA11 1984); United States v. Caparella, 716 F. 2d, at 980.

B

Consistent with the prevailing view, the Court of Appeals stated that it would review the dismissal with prejudice under an abuse-of-discretion standard. 821 F. 2d, at 1385. See, e. g., United States v. Kramer, 827 F. 2d, at 1179 (reversing dismissal with prejudice as abuse of discretion); United States v. Russo, 741 F. 2d, at 1267-1268 (reversing dismissal without prejudice as abuse of discretion); United States v. Caparella, 716 F. 2d, at 980-981 (same); United States v. Salgado-Hernandez, 790 F. 2d, at 1267 (upholding dismissal without prejudice as within District Court’s discretion). The court did not, however, articulate what that standard required.

This Court previously has recognized — even with respect to another statute the legislative history of which indicated that courts were to have “wide discretion exercising their equitable powers,” 118 Cong. Rec. 7168 (1972), quoted in Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 421 (1975) — that “discretionary choices are not left to a court’s ‘inclination, but to its judgment; and its judgment is to be guided by sound legal principles.’” Id., at 416, quoting United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 30, 35 (No. 14,692d) (CC Va. 1807) (Marshall, C. J.). Thus, a decision calling for the exercise of judicial discretion “hardly means that it is unfettered by meaningful standards or shielded from thorough appellate review.” Albemarle Paper Co., 422 U. S., at 416.

Whether discretion has been abused depends, of course, on the bounds of that discretion and the principles that guide its exercise. Had Congress merely committed the choice of remedy to the discretion of district courts, without specifying factors to be considered, a district court would be expected to consider “all relevant public and private interest factors,” and to balance those factors reasonably. Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U. S. 235, 257 (1981). Appellate review of that determination necessarily would be limited, with the absence of legislatively identified standards or priorities.

In the Speedy Trial Act, however, Congress specifically and clearly instructed that courts “shall consider, among others, each of the following factors,” § 3162(a)(2) (emphasis added), and thereby put in place meaningful standards to guide appellate review. Although the role of an appellate court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the trial court, review must serve to ensure that the purposes of the Act and the legislative compromise it reflects are given effect. Where, as here, Congress has declared that a decision will be governed by consideration of particular factors, a district court must carefully consider those factors as applied to the particular case and, whatever its decision, clearly articulate their effect in order to permit meaningful appellate review. Only then can an appellate court ascertain whether a district court has ignored or slighted a factor that Congress has deemed pertinent to the choice of remedy, thereby failing to act within the limits prescribed by Congress.

Factual findings of a district court are, of course, entitled to substantial deference and will be reversed only for clear error. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564 (1985). A judgment that must be arrived at by considering and applying statutory criteria, however, constitutes the application of law to fact and requires the reviewing court to undertake more substantive scrutiny to ensure that the judgment is supported in terms of the factors identified in the statute. Nevertheless, when the statutory factors are properly considered, and supporting factual findings are not clearly in error, the district court’s judgment of how opposing considerations balance should not lightly be disturbed.

HH H-1 ► — 4

Because the District Court did not fully explicate its reasons for dismissing with prejudice the substantive drug charges against respondent, we are left to speculate in response to some of the parties’ arguments pro and con. Respondent, for example, argues that the District Court may have taken into account the fact that respondent’s codefen-dant had been sentenced on the same charges to three years’ imprisonment, and that by dismissing the drug charges but sentencing respondent to five years’ imprisonment on the failure-to-appear charge, it would be possible to effect substantial justice while sending at the same time “a strong message” to the Marshals Service and the local United States Attorney. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 29, 32. There are several problems with that line of reasoning, not the least of which is that the District Court did not articulate it. To the extent that respondent is suggesting that his codefendant’s 3-year sentence implies that the offenses with which both were charged were not “serious,” his argument is directly at odds with the District Court’s statement expressly to the contrary: “there is no question that the drug violations with which [respondent] is charged are serious,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 30a. We have no reason to doubt the court’s conclusion in that regard. Moreover, at the time the District Court decided to dismiss the drug charges against respondent, he had not yet entered a plea to the failure-to-appear charge, so that the court could not be certain that any opportunity would arise to take the drug violations into account in sentencing.⁹

With regard to the second factor that the statute requires a court to consider, that is, the circumstances of the case leading to dismissal, we find it difficult to know what to make of the District Court’s characterization of the' Government’s conduct as “lackadaisical.” We do not dispute that a truly neglectful attitude on the part of the Government reasonably could be factored against it in a court’s consideration of this issue, but the District Court gave no indication of the foundation for its conclusion. The court’s discussion following that statement merely recounted the Speedy Trial Act violations, and chastised the Government for failing to make “any particular show of concern,” or to “respon[d] with dispatch.” Ibid. The District Court did not find that the Government acted in bad faith with respect to respondent; neither did the court discover any pattern of neglect by the local United States Attorney, or evidence of what the Court of Appeals’ majority later termed “the government’s apparent antipathy toward a recaptured fugitive.” 821 F. 2d, at 1386; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 34-35.¹⁰ Any such finding, suggesting something more than an isolated unwitting violation, would clearly have altered the balance. Instead, the extent of the District Court’s explanation for its determination that “the second factor, . . . tends strongly to support the conclusion that the dismissal must be with prejudice,” was that there was “no excuse” for the Government’s conduct. App. to Pet. for Cert. 30a.

Then there is the fact of respondent’s failure to appear. The Government was prepared to go to trial on the 69th day of the indictment-to-trial period, and it was respondent, not the prosecution, who prevented the trial from going forward in a timely fashion. Respondent argues that he has been charged separately and punished for his failure to appear for trial, that all the time he was at large has been excluded from the speedy trial calculation, and that the District Court therefore was correct in not considering his flight as a factor in deciding whether to bar reprosecution. Respondent also observes that the Court of Appeals held, and the Government does not dispute here, that his failure to appear for a trial scheduled with only one day remaining in the indictment-to-trial period does not restart the full 70-day speedy trial clock. See 821 F. 2d, at 1380-1383.¹¹ That respondent’s flight does not restart the clock, however, goes only to whether there has been a violation of the Act, and not to what the appropriate remedy should be. Respondent’s culpable conduct and, in particular, his responsibility for the failure to meet the timely trial schedule in the first instance are certainly relevant as “circumstances of the case which led to the dismissal,” § 3162(a)(2), and weigh heavily in favor of permitting reprosecution. These factors, however, were considered by neither the District Court nor the .Court of Appeals’ majority.

The Government argues that the District Court failed to consider that the delay caused by the Government’s unexcused conduct was brief, and that there was no consequential prejudice to respondent. The length of delay, a measure of the seriousness of the speedy trial violation, in some ways is closely related to the issue of the prejudice to the defendant. The longer the delay, the greater the presumptive or actual prejudice to the defendant, in terms of his ability to prepare for trial or the restrictions on his liberty:

“[I]nordinate delay between public charge and trial, . . . wholly aside from possible prejudice to a defense on the merits, may ‘seriously interfere with the defendant’s liberty, whether he is free on bail or not, and . .'. may disrupt his employment, drain his financial resources, curtail his associations, subject him to public obloquy, and create anxiety in him, his family and his friends.’” Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514, 537 (1972) (White, J., concurring), quoting United States v. Marion, 404 U. S. 307, 320 (1971).¹²

The District Court found the Act’s 70-day indictment-to-trial period here was exceeded by 14 nonexcludable days, but made no finding of prejudice. Indeed, the Court of Appeals concluded that the delay, “although not wholly insubstantial, was not so great as to mandate dismissal with prejudice.” 821 F. 2d, at 1385. That court also found that there was no prejudice to respondent’s trial preparation. Ibid. And, as respondent was being held to answer not only for the drug charges but also on a valid bench warrant issued after he did not appear, neither does there seem to have been any additional restrictions or burdens on his liberty as a result of the speedy trial violation.¹³ Thus, although the absence of prejudice is not dispositive, in this case it is another consideration in favor of permitting reprosecution.

The District Court’s decision to dismiss with prejudice rested largely on its conclusion that the alternative would tacitly condone the Government’s behavior, and that a stern response was appropriate in order to vindicate the guarantees of the Speedy Trial Act. We certainly encourage district courts to take seriously their responsibility to consider the “impact of a reprosecution on the administration” of justice and of the Act, § 3162(a)(2). It is self-evident that dismissal with prejudice always sends a stronger message than dismissal without prejudice, and is more likely to induce salutary changes in procedures, reducing pretrial delays. See Brief for United States 31. Nonetheless, the Act does not require dismissal with prejudice for every violation. Dismissal without prejudice is not a toothless sanction: it forces the Government to obtain a new indictment if it decides to reprosecute, and it exposes the prosecution to dismissal on statute of limitations grounds. Given the burdens borne by the prosecution and the effect of delay on the Government’s ability to meet those burdens, substantial delay well may make reprosecution, even if permitted, unlikely. If the greater deterrent effect of barring reprosecution could alone support a decision to dismiss with prejudice, the consideration of the other factors identified in § 3162(a)(2) would be superfluous, and all violations would warrant barring reprosecution.¹⁴

Perhaps there was more to the District Court’s decision than meets the eye. It is always difficult to review a cold appellate record and acquire a full understanding of all the facts, nuances, and attitudes that influence a trial judge’s de-cisionmaking, and we undertake such close review with reluctance. That is why the administration of the Speedy Trial Act and the necessity for thorough appellate review require that a district court carefully express its decision whether or not to bar reprosecution in terms of the guidelines specified by Congress. When the decision whether to bar reprosecution is analyzed in the framework established by the Act, it is evident from the record before us that the District Court abused its discretion in this case. The court did not explain how it factored in the seriousness of the offenses with which respondent stood charged. The District Court relied heavily on its unexplained characterization of the Government conduct as “lackadaisical,” while failing to consider other relevant facts and circumstances leading to dismissal. Seemingly ignored were the brevity of the delay and the consequential lack of prejudice to respondent, as well as respondent’s own illicit contribution to the delay. At bottom, the District Court appears to have decided to dismiss with prejudice in this case in order to send a strong message to the Government that unexcused delays will not be tolerated. That factor alone, by definition implicated in almost every Speedy Trial Act case, does not suffice to justify barring reprosecution in light of all the other circumstances present.¹⁵

IV

Ordinarily, a trial court is endowed with great discretion to make decisions concerning trial schedules and to respond to abuse and delay where appropriate. The Speedy Trial Act, however, confines the exercise of that discretion more narrowly, mandating dismissal of the indictment upon violation of precise time limits, and specifying criteria to consider in deciding whether to bar reprosecution. The District Court failed to consider all the factors relevant to the choice of a remedy under the Act. What factors it did rely on were unsupported by factual findings or evidence in the record. We conclude that the District Court abused its discretion under the Act, and that the Court of Appeals erred in holding otherwise. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

1 Section 3161(c)(1) reads:

“In any case in which a plea of not guilty is entered, the trial of a defendant charged in an information or indictment with the commission of an offense shall commence within seventy days from the filing date (and making public) of the information or indictment, or from the date the defendant has appeared before a judicial officer of the court in which such charge is pending, whichever date last occurs. If a defendant consents in writing to be tried before a magistrate on a complaint, the trial shall commence within seventy days from the date of such consent.”

2 The Government’s superseding indictment against respondent was issued without first dismissing the original indictment. The District Court apparently assumed that the period after April 24 was excludable because of the superseding indictment, see App. to Pet. for Cert. 29a; 821 F. 2d 1377, 1383 (CA9 1987). But cf. United States v. Rojas-Contreras, 474 U. S. 231, 234-235 (1985); id., at 239-240 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment). Respondent has not challenged this assumption, presumably because he concluded that the period following April 24 was otherwise ex-cludable under 18 U. S. C. § 3161(h). See Brief for Respondent 3.

3 Section 3161(h) provides:

“The following periods of delay shall be excluded in computing the time within which an information or an indictment must be filed, or in computing the time within which the trial of any such offense must commence:

“(1) Any period of delay resulting from other proceedings concerning the defendant, including but not limited to—

“(D) delay resulting from trial with respect to other charges against the defendant;

“(G) delay resulting from any proceeding relating to the transfer of a case or the removal of any defendant from another district under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure;

“(H) delay resulting from transportation of any defendant from another district, . . . except that any time consumed in excess of ten days from the date an order of removal or an order directing such transportation, and the defendant's arrival at the destination shall be presumed to be unreasonable;

"(3)i A) Any period of delay resulting from the absence or unavailability of the defendant or an essential witness."

4 The 15 nonexcludable days included the 6 days between the end of the federal tidal in Ban Francisco at which respondent was testifying and the date on which state charges against respondent were dropped; the 5 additional days after the state charges were dropped that it took the United States Marshals Service to bring respondent before a federal Magistrate on the federal bench warrant; and 4 days beyond the 10 days provided for by 18 U. S. C. § 3161(h)(1)(H) that the Marshals Service took to transport respondent back to Seattle. App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a-29a.

5 The District Court rejected respondent's motion to dismiss the failure-to-appear charge, finding that after subtracting the various time periods held excludable, the Government had not violated the 30-day arrest-to-indictment provision of § 3161(b). See App. to Pet. for Cert. 31a-32a. Respondent eventually entered a plea of guilty to this charge and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

6 The Government asserts that both the District Court and the Court of Appeals relied on a “now-outmoded” method of calculating speedy trial time, and that under another now-favored method, there would have been 42 days of speedy trial time when respondent became a fugitive, and thus no speedy trial violation in this case. Brief for United States 5-6, n. 4. Inasmuch as that argument was neither raised below nor pressed here, we do not consider it.

The Government also argues that some of the time charged by the courts below as speedy trial time should have been excludable under § 3161(h) (1)(D) of the Act, see n. 3, supra, and thus that only 9 instead of 15 non-excludable days elapsed after respondent’s capture. Brief for United States 24-26. Because, as is detailed below, our decision in this case does not turn on the distinction between a violation of 8 or of 14 days, we need not decide whether the District Court’s application of the Act was erroneous in this respect.

7 Although, like Justice Scalia, we are all in favor of fostering the democratic process, we do not agree that the statutory text renders it “so obviou[s],” post, at 345, that the presence or absence of prejudice to the defendant is one of the “other factors” that a district court is required by the Speedy Trial Act to consider. A brief review of the floor debate, cited above, demonstrates that at least some Members of Congress were uncertain about, and repeatedly sought clarification of, precisely what they were voting for.

8 Because the provision at issue here was amended on the floor of the House, and that version was subsequently accepted by the Senate, we find largely unhelpful the preamendment Committee Report discussions, supporting dismissal with prejudice in all or most cases. Similarly, a House Judiciary Committee statement, made five years later and while in the process of considering and recommending a temporary suspension of the dismissal sanction, to the effect that dismissal without prejudice should be “the exception and not the rule,” H. R. Rep. No. 96-390, pp. 8-9 (1979), cannot override the contemporaneous legislative history and create a presumption that reprosecution will be barred. In light of the compromise eventually reached, we are unwilling to read such a preference into the statute, which evinces no presumptions. We are similarly disinclined to read a contrary presumption into a statute that began as a bill barring reprosecution in all cases, and was amended to provide for the current balancing test as a compromise.

9 Even more important, respondent had not entered a guilty plea to, or been convicted of, the drug charges. It would have been highly improper — and we shall not presume the District Court assumed such unbridled discretion — to sentence respondent with undue harshness on one count, on the basis of the Court’s untested and unsubstantiated assumption of what the facts might have been shown to be with regard to the drug charges, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 29-30, without the sort of inquiry conducted, in another context, under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32. Although we realize it could be tempting to wrap up the “equities” in a single package and, with the best of intentions, effect what could be regarded as an essentially just result, we could not condone an approach that would violate the rights of defendants and misapply the Speedy Trial Act in the hope that the errors would balance out in the end. Contrary to the dissent’s suggestion, see post, at 348-349, we do not question here the wisdom of Congress’ decision to assess different penalties for failure to appear depending on the severity of the underlying charge. What we cannot countenance is a decision to punish someone more severely than would otherwise have been considered appropriate for the charged offense, solely for the reason that other charges had been dismissed under the Act.

10 The third judge on the panel noted that most of the 15-day delay seemed largely attributable to a misunderstanding about who was responsible for moving respondent before the state hold was lifted, and the happenstance that notification of the lifting of the state hold had come right before a weekend. See 821 F. 2d, at 1387.

11 A Department of Justice proposal to restart the 70-day period following recapture of a defendant who has fled prior to trial, see A. Partridge, Legislative History of Title I of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, pp. 120-122 (Federal Judicial Center 1980), was rejected by Congress in favor of merely excluding “[a]ny period of delay resulting from the absence or unavailability of the defendant.” § 3161(h)(3)(A).

12 In Barker v. Wingo, the Court articulated criteria by which the constitutional right to a speedy trial was to be judged, but declined to specify a time period within which a defendant must be brought to trial, leaving that kind of legislative or rulemaking activity to others better positioned to do so. 407 U. S., at 523. Congress now has taken up that responsibility and decreed that a defendant must be tried within 70 days of indictment, § 3161(c)(1), with certain exceptions for specified delays, § 3161(h). If the Government fails to try the defendant within the statutory time frame, the defendant is entitled to dismissal. Although Congress specified certain factors to be considered by the district court in deciding whether to bar reprosecution, it did not define a second threshold that must be crossed, whether in number of days or otherwise, before dismissal may be with prejudice. As in Barker, we decline to undertake such rulemaking. Indeed, during oral argument, the Government appeared to concede that it would be appropriate under some circumstances, as, for example, where there was a systemic problem with the procedures of a particular United States Attorney’s Office, for a district court to bar reprosecution in a case involving a delay of only a few days. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 23.

13 We do not decide that as a matter of law there could never be any prejudice to a defendant whose speedy trial rights were violated, but who was also being held on other charges. Because “prejudice” may take many forms, such determinations must be made on a case-by-case basis in the light of the facts.

14 The Speedy Trial Act also permits a district court directly to punish dilatory counsel, including a prosecutor, through a monetary fine, § 3162(b)(0), suspension from practice, § 3162(b)(D), or by filing a report with the appropriate disciplinary committee, § 3162(b)(E). That Congress expressly provided for these sanctions is further indication that the greater didactic effect of dismissal with prejudice should not by itself overcome what consideration of other factors would suggest is the appropriate remedy. Liberal use of direct sanctions may serve to “send a message” whenever one is warranted.

15 As should be evident from our discussion about the nature of a district court’s discretion under the Speedy Trial Act, see supra, at 336-337, we do not hold today, despite the dissent’s suggestion, post, at 350, that a district court can “best avoid reversal by adopting a consistent practice of dismissing without prejudice.” Indeed, we have expressly concluded that there is no presumption in favor of either form of dismissal. See supra, at 335, and n. 8.