State v. AllenState v. Allen
We granted this writ application filed by the State of Louisiana to determine whether the two-year time limit for commencing trial in non-capital felony cases set by
For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that the guilty plea under the circumstances of this case suspended the running of the time period for commencing trial. Therefore, under Article 580, the State had the remainder of the two-year time limit set forth in Article 578, but no less than one year, from the date this court‘s judgment vacating the guilty plea became final, in which to commence trial.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The charges against the defendant arose out of an incident in September of 1996 at a small grocery store in Haughton, Louisiana. The defendant and his stepbrother, Russell Jason Allen, arrived at the store in Russell‘s truck. Russell remained in the truck while the defendant entered the store armed with a gun. When the defendant demanded money and threatened to kill the two store employees, one of them pulled her gun and shot the defendant in the upper torso. The defendant shot his gun several times, striking that employee in the arm and causing a flesh wound. The defendant was rendered a paraplegic by his injury.
The defendant and his stepbrother were charged together in two bills of information with two counts of attempted armed robbery and two counts of attempted first degree murder. Both bills of information were filed on December 13, 1996.
On April 8, 1997, less than four months after he was charged, the defendant entered a plea of guilty to one count of attempted first degree murder. Pursuant to the plea agreement negotiated between the defendant‘s counsel and the prosecution, the State dismissed the two attempted armed robbery counts and the remaining attempted first degree murder count in exchange for the defendant‘s guilty plea, a “straight” sentence of thirty years at hard labor, and the defendаnt‘s promise to testify against his stepbrother on behalf of the State.
In June of 1997, the defendant obtained a copy of the transcript of his guilty plea colloquy. On February 24, 1998, he filed an application for post-conviction relief challenging the validity of his guilty plea. After years of litigation, the defendant obtained relief on May 11, 2001, when this court granted his writ application and vacated the guilty plea on the basis that the defendant had entered his plea of guilty in reliance upon the district court‘s promise to impose a sentence rendered illegally lenient by design because it omitted any restriction on the availability of parole, a sentence relator could not by law serve as imposed. State ex rel. Allen v. State, 00-0220 (La.5/11/01), 792 So.2d 1. This court remanded the matter to the district court “to give relator the opportunity to plead anew and proceed to trial if he chooses not to plead guilty.” Id.
The court‘s order vacating the guilty plea became final on May 25, 2001, when the State did not seek a rehearing within the time period set forth in La. Sup.Ct. Rule IX, § 1. Approximately thirteen months later on June 27, 2002, the defendant pro se filed a motion to quash the bill of information and to be released from custody, asserting the State had failed to сommence trial against him within one year of the finality of this court‘s decision as required by
The court of appeal, after several refusals to entertain the defendant‘s writ application, eventually granted the writ and made it peremptory. The court of appeal, in an unрublished order, found the district court had erred in denying the motion to quash, and reversed. 38,081 (La.App. 2 Cir. 9/18/03). This court granted the State‘s writ application to review that decision. State v. Allen, 03-2815 (La.11/7/03), 857 So.2d 507.
DISCUSSION
Chapter 2 of Title XVII of the Code of Criminal Procedure governs the time limitations
The question before the court is: what effect did the defendant‘s guilty plea have upon the running of the time limitation set forth in Article 578? The defendant is seeking to have the charges against him quashed because, he asserts, the State failed to commence trial within one year аs required by Article 582 after his guilty plea was set aside by this court. Implicit in the defendant‘s argument is the assumption that the guilty plea is equivalent to a trial and thus does not interrupt or suspend the running of the time limitation of Article 578 for commencing trial, such that the two-year time period had expired and the State had only one year from the date of the finality of this court‘s judgment in which to commence trial. The State asserted in the district court that Article 582, which applies to a new trial after a defendant has been tried and the conviction has been reversed on appeal, or a mistrial has been declared, is not applicable in this case, because the defendant was not tried; he pleaded guilty.
Turning first to whether Article 582 applies to the facts of this case, we conclude that Article 582 doеs not so apply. By its own language, Article 582 presumes either that the defendant has been tried and a new trial has been granted (whether by an appellate court or the district court), or that the trial against the defendant was commenced and a mistrial was declared. In either case, “the second trial” must commence within one year from the date the new trial is granted or the mistrial ordered, оr within the time period set forth in Article 578, whichever is greater.
We agree with the reasoning of the Louisiana Fourth Circuit in State v. Barksdale, 459 So.2d 554, 555 (La.App. 4th Cir.1984), a case directly on point that held Article 582 does not apply when the defendant pleads guilty and is later granted permission to withdraw his guilty plea. In Barksdale, the defendant pleaded guilty barely one month after thе bill of information was filed, but some nine years later he was allowed to withdraw that plea. Over one year after that order, the defendant filed a motion to quash asserting the State had failed to commence trial within one year. The court of appeal declined to apply Article 582, reasoning that the situation did not involve a new trial or mistrial; instead, the defendant‘s case had been
Because we decline to equate a guilty plea with a trial for purposes of the speedy trial statutes, the issue remains whether the guilty plea serves either to interrupt or to suspend the running of the time limitation set forth in Article 578 for commencing trial. Though the State in its argument to the district court used the word “interrupts,” it actually asserted that the running of the twenty-four-month time period in Article 578 was effectively suspended when the defendant entered his plea of guilty four months after the bill of information was filed. The State argued in the district court that it therefore had the remainder of that time, or some twenty months, from the date this court‘s decision became final in which to commence trial. The district court, however, concluded that the two-year time period of Article 578 began to run anew when this court‘s decision to vacate the guilty plea became final; thus, the district court implicitly found that the guilty plea interrupted the running of the time limitation, allowing the State another twenty-four months in which to commence trial.
The court of appeal, however, ruled for the defendant and reversed the district court‘s ruling denying the motion to quash, concluding that the State had one year from May 25, 2001, in which to commence trial and that it had failed to do so. The appellate court rejected the State‘s argument that the “trial, appеal, and subsequent [post-conviction relief] applications interrupted” the time period of Article 578. We note, however, that the defendant was not tried, and there was no direct appeal, so the reasoning of the court of appeal seems erroneous. Furthermore, the court of appeal cited State v. Harris, 29,574 (La. App. 2 Cir. 5/7/97), 694 So.2d 626, which held that a conviction and the defendant‘s subsequent efforts to overturn it on direct appeal neither suspend nor interrupt the running of the time limitation of Article 578. The Harris case is inapposite, however, because the defendant there had been tried by a jury and convicted of manslaughter before he successfully overturned the conviction on appeal.
Nonetheless, the question before us remains to be answered, that is, what effect did the defendant‘s guilty plea, entered just four months after institution of prosecution, have upon the time limitation for commencing trial set forth in Article 578? After our review of the law and the circumstances of this case, we find merit to the State‘s argument, as advanced in the district court, that the guilty plea effectively suspended the running of the Article 578 time limitation, such that the district court‘s ruling denying the motion to quash was correct, and thus the court of appeal erred in reversing that ruling.5
Instead, we hold that the defendant‘s guilty plea suspended the running of the Article 578 time limitation for commencing trial in the manner that “a motion to quash or other preliminary plea” would do pursuant to Article 580. For purposes of Article 580, a preliminary plea is any pleading or motion filed by the defense that has the effect of delaying trial. State v. Brooks, 02-0792, p. 6 (La.2/14/03), 838 So.2d 778, 782; State v. Cranmer, 306 So.2d 698, 700 (La.1975); State v. Elfert, 247 La. 1047, 175 So.2d 826, 828 (1965). Such pleadings, we have found, include prоperly filed motions to quash, motions to suppress, or motions for a continuance, as well as applications for discovery and bills of particulars. State v. Brooks, 02-0792, p. 6, 838 So.2d at 782; State v. Brooks, 505 So.2d 714, 725 (La.1987); State v. Fabacher, 362 So.2d 555, 556 (La. 1978). The defendant‘s guilty plea, in our view, effectively served to “delay,” forego, or continue the trial, when later the defendant succeeded in being allowed to withdraw his plea of guilty and to plead anew.
Our holding is supported by the analysis of the Louisiana Fourth Circuit in Barksdale, which, as noted above, was confronted with the same question before this court today. The Barksdale court reasoned that, since the defendant had made the prosecution unnecessary by his guilty plea, the State was relieved of its obligation to bring the defendant to trial at that time. When that plea of guilty was ordered withdrawn, the court of appeal reasoned, “the obligation to рrosecute was reimposed on the state but to the same extent and under the same conditions as were in effect before he pled guilty.” 459 So.2d at 554. The court concluded that, when the guilty plea was ordered withdrawn, the State had two years under Article 578(2) to commence trial less the thirty-four days that had elapsed between the institution of prosecution and the defendant‘s guilty plea. Id. Thus, the Barksdale court implicitly found thаt the guilty plea had suspended the running of the Article 578 time limitation in the manner of a preliminary plea under Article 580.
The Colorado Supreme Court, confronted with the effect of a guilty plea on speedy trial statutes, was more specific, but its reasoning in a seminal case also supports our holding today. In People v. Madsen, 707 P.2d 344, 346 (Colo.1985), the
Therefore, neither the prosecutor nor the court will take any further steps to ensure that the defendant is brought speedily tо trial. If the period between the plea and the withdrawal of the plea were counted as part of the speedy trial period, the defendant could enter a plea near the end of his speedy trial period, wait for the period to run, and then obtain the consent of the trial court to withdraw his plea, resulting in a dismissal of the charges against him.
Madsen, 707 P.2d at 346 (citations omitted).
CONCLUSION
We find the defendant‘s guilty plea, which was latеr ordered set aside by this court, suspended pursuant to
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Notes
(1) The defendant at any time, with the purpose to avoid detection, apprehension, or prosecution, flees from the state, is outside the state, or is absent from his usual place of abode within the state; or
(2) The defendant cannot be tried because of insanity or because his presence for trial cannot be obtained by legal process, or for any other cause beyond the control of the state; or
(3) The defendant fails to appear at any proceeding pursuant to actual noticе, proof of which appears of record.
Article 579(B) further provides that the time limitation of Article 578 will “commence to run anew from the date the cause of interruption no longer exists.”
Also without support is the State‘s alternative contention, advanced for the first time at oral argument, that the prescriptive period was already suspended when the defendant entered his guilty plea because he had previously moved for discovery on January 2, 1997. According to the record, however, thаt motion was filed by the co-defendant. The defendant‘s counsel did file a motion on his behalf on January 9, 1997, but the district court, according to the case minutes, on January 22 and January 27, 1997, respectively deemed discovery and inspection to be satisfied as to the co-defendant and the defendant. Because the court had ruled on the discovery motions, the time period was no longer suspended when the defendant entered his plea of guilty on April 8, 1997.