230 Pa. Super. 160 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1974
Opinion by
Appellant was convicted by a jury of aggravated robbery, larceny, attempt with intent to murder, use of
On the morning of September 16, 1968, appellant and three other men assaulted a Deputy United States Marshal and prison guards in the Northumberland County jail and escaped. The Marshal was returning appellant and one of the other men from New Orleans, Louisiana to Newark, New Jersey to stand trial on federal charges of bank robbery. Appellant and his three companions fled in the Marshal’s car but within a few hours appellant was caught in Dauphin County. During their flight the men robbed one Bertha Witmer, stole her car, and shot at a police officer, and it was these activities that led to the charges here at issue. On September 18,1968, appellant was released into the custody of the United States Marshal for Newark. The Dauphin County authorities continued to press their charges against appellant, and on October 10, 1968, appellant was indicted. On November 12, 1968, and on January 8, 1969, the Sheriff of Dauphin County filed detainers on the indictments with the United States Marshal in Newark. No attempt was made, however, to bring appellant to trial.
It is not possible to obtain from the record a complete account of the federal proceedings against appellant. It appears that on September 17, 1969, as a result of a guilty plea, appellant was sentenced by a judge of the United States District Court for New
On November 20, 1972, while at the federal reformatory in Marion, Illinois, appellant petitioned the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County for dismissal of the indictments pending against him on the ground that he had not been given a speedy trial. The District Attorney treated appellant’s motion as if it were a request for a trial within 180 days, made under the Agreement on Detainers, Act of Sept. 8, 1959, P. L. 829, No. 324, §1, 19 P.S. §1431,
In determining whether a defendant’s right to a speedy trial has been violated, it is first necessary to consider the length of the delay. If the delay is so long as to be “presumptively prejudicial,” it acts as a “triggering mechanism.” It then becomes necessary to engage in the “difficult and sensitive” process of balancing against the delay the reason for the delay, the defendant’s assertion of his right, and the prejudice to the defendant resulting from the delay. Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530 (1972). See also Commonwealth v. Hamilton, 449 Pa. 297, 297 A. 2d 127 (1972). See generally Comment, The Speedy Trial Guarantee: Criteria and Confusion in Interpreting Its Violation, 22 DePaul L. Rev. 839 (1973).
In the present case it appears that after appellant’s request to the Dauphin County court that the indictments against him be dismissed, the District Attorney took prompt action to bring appellant to trial. Before that time, however, the District Attorney did nothing in that direction. Between appellant’s arrest
The District Attorney in his brief offers the following explanation for the delay: “[A]fter appellant . . . was arrested and incarcerated in Dauphin County, he
A similar argument was advanced in Commonwealth v. Horne, Mass. Advance Sheets (1978) 17, 291 N.E. 2d 629 (1973). The delay there totaled two years and four months. During that time the defendant was involved in proceedings in federal courts in Tennessee and Kentucky. Said the Massachusetts Supreme Court: “[M]ost of the delays in the instant case came from the fact that there were contemporaneous Federal proceedings against the defendant which made it impractical for the Commonwealth to obtain the defendant’s presence in Massachusetts without disrupting these concurrent Federal proceedings. Our review of the facts leads us to conclude that the Superior Court judge was warranted in finding that ‘[n]o evidence appeared before me that it was practical or even possible during this period for the Massachusetts authorities to obtain the custody of the defendant for a sufficient number of weeks or months to accomplish the trial of the Massachusetts indictments.’ ”
“Thus, we conclude that the delay in the defendant’s trial . . . was justified by the Commonwealth’s decision to defer trial of the defendant until two contemporaneous Federal trials on unrelated Federal indictments had been completed. Such deference to another jurisdiction appears to be reasonable where different jurisdictions have indicted the same individual for different crimes. In this case, the Commonwealth’s decision to defer to the jurisdiction that had immediate custody of the defendant was reasonable and does not constitute an unreasonable denial of a speedy trial. . . .” Id. at 23-24, 291 N.E. 2d at 634-35.
With respect to the factor of a defendant’s assertion of his right to a speedy trial, the Court said in Barker v. Wingo, supra at 531-32: “The strength of [a defendant’s] efforts will be affected by the length of the delay, to some extent by the reason for the delay, and most particularly by the personal prejudice, which is not always readily identifiable, that he experiences. The more serious the deprivation, the more likely a defendant is to complain. The defendant’s assertion of his speedy trial right, then, is entitled to strong evidentiary weight in determining whether the defendant is being deprived of the right.” Here, appellant asserted his right to a speedy trial only once during the four year delay, i.e., when he petitioned the Dauphin County court for dismissal.
The remaining factor to be considered is the prejudice to appellant resulting from the delay. While it
The judgments of sentence are affirmed.
The Sixth Amendment provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial . . . .” This provision is applicable to the states. Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213 (1967).
Section (a) of Article III of the Agreement states: “Whenever a person has entered upon a term of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution of a party state, and whenever during the continuance of the term of imprisonment there is pending in any other party state any untried indictment ... on the basis of which a detainer has been lodged against the prisoner, he shall be brought to trial within one hundred eighty days after he shall have caused to be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer’s jurisdiction written notice of the place of his imprisonment and his request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment. . . .”
Appellants Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial attached upon his arrest. See United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307 (1971).
These other crimes were committed by appellant in Northumberland, Juniata and Mifflin Counties during his flight on September 16, 1968. Appellant has also argued that admission of this evidence was erroneous. This argument is without merit. Evidence of the entire chain of appellant’s activities from the time he escaped from the Northumberland County Jail until his capture in Dauphin County tended to establish that it was appellant who robbed the victim who was unable to give identification testimony. See Commonwealth v. Wable, 382 Pa. 80, 114 A. 2d 334 (1955) (evidence of other crimes admissible to prove identity).