ZEDNER v. UNITED STATES
No. 05-5992
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 18, 2006—Decided June 5, 2006
547 U.S. 489
Daryl Joseffer argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Fisher, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, and Thomas E. Booth.
JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to consider the application of the doctrines of waiver, judicial estoppel, and harmless error to a violation of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974 (Speedy Trial Act or Act),
I
In March 1996, petitioner attempted to open accounts at seven financial institutions using counterfeit $10 million United States bonds. The quality of the counterfeiting was, to put it mildly, not expert. One bond purported to be issued by the “Ministry of Finance of U. S. A.” 401 F. 3d 36, 39 (CA2 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). Others contained misspelled words such as “Thunted States” and the “Onited States” (United States), “Dhtladelphla” (Philadelphia), “Cgicago” (Chicago), and “forevev” (forever). Id., at 39, n. 1 (internal quotation marks omitted). After petitioner presented these bonds, the Secret Service was contacted, and petitioner was arrested. Following arraignment on a criminal complaint, he was released on bond.
On April 4, 1996, a grand jury in the Eastern District of New York indicted petitioner on seven counts of attempting to defraud a financial institution, in violation of
At the November 8 status conference, petitioner requested, without opposition from the Government, a further adjournment to January 1997. Concerned about the difficulty of fitting petitioner‘s trial into its heavily scheduled calendar and the prospect that petitioner might “only waive [the Act] for so long as it is convenient for [him] to waive,” the District Court instructed petitioner as follows: “I think if I‘m going to give you that long an adjournment, I will
The District Court then addressed petitioner directly and appears to have attempted to explain the operation of a provision of the Act,
The District Court then produced a preprinted form—apparently of its own devising—captioned “Waiver of Speedy Trial Rights.” Id., at 79. The court led petitioner and his counsel through the form, and both signed it. Among other things, the form stated: “I wish to waive my rights to a speedy trial ... under the Speedy Trial Act of 1974 (
At the January 31 status conference, petitioner sought yet another continuance “to tap ... the proper channels to authenticate [the] bonds.” Id., at 81. Petitioner and the Government emphasized that this request raised no issue under the Act because petitioner had “waived for all time,” though the Government suggested that it “would like to try the case sometime in 1997.” Ibid. After a brief discussion between the court and petitioner‘s counsel about the need to investigate the authenticity of what seemed such obviously fake bonds, the court offered to set trial for May 5, 1997. Id., at 86. The court admonished petitioner‘s counsel to “[g]et to work” and noted: “This [case] is a year old. That‘s enough for a criminal case.” Id., at 86, 85. Nevertheless, apparently satisfied with petitioner‘s waiver “for all time,” the District Court made no mention of the Act and did not make any findings to support exclusion of the 91 days between January 31 and petitioner‘s next court appearance on May 2, 1997 (1997 continuance).
The four years that followed saw a variety of proceedings in petitioner‘s case, but no trial. See 401 F. 3d, at 40-41. Counsel sought to be relieved because petitioner insisted that he argue that the bonds were genuine, and the court ultimately granted counsel‘s request to withdraw. At the court‘s suggestion, petitioner was examined by a psychiatrist, who determined that petitioner was competent to stand trial. Petitioner then asked to proceed pro se and sought to serve subpoenas on, among others, the President, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the late Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, and “The Treasury Department of Treasury International Corporation.” Id., at 40; App. 129. After a year of quashed subpoenas, the District Court set the case for trial, only to conclude on the morning of jury selection that it had
On March 7, 2001, while the competency issue remained under submission, petitioner moved to dismiss the indictment for failure to comply with the Act. The District Court denied the motion on the ground that petitioner had waived his Speedy Trial Act rights “for all time,” mentioning in passing that the case was complex. Id., at 128-129. In the same order, the court found petitioner incompetent. Id., at 135. That latter determination was upheld on interlocutory appeal, and petitioner was committed for evaluation. After several months of hospitalization, petitioner was found to be delusional but competent to stand trial, and he was released.
Finally, on April 7, 2003, more than seven years after petitioner was indicted, his trial began. The jury found petitioner guilty on six counts of attempting to defraud a financial institution,1 and the court sentenced him to 63 months of imprisonment.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of conviction.2 Acknowledging that “a defendant‘s waiver of rights under the Speedy Trial Act may be ineffective” because of the public interest served by compliance with the Act, the Court of Appeals found an exception for situations “when defendant‘s conduct causes or contributes to a period of
We granted certiorari to resolve the disagreement among the Courts of Appeals on the standard for analyzing whether a defendant has made an effective waiver of rights under the Act. 546 U. S. 1085 (2006).
II
As noted above, the Speedy Trial Act generally requires a trial to begin within 70 days of the filing of an information or indictment or the defendant‘s initial appearance,
To promote compliance with its requirements, the Act contains enforcement and sanctions provisions. If a trial does not begin on time, the defendant may move, before the start of trial or the entry of a guilty plea, to dismiss the charges, and if a meritorious and timely motion to dismiss is filed, the district court must dismiss the charges, though it may choose whether to dismiss with or without prejudice. In making that choice, the court must take into account, among other things, “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 [the Act] and on the administration of justice.”
This scheme is designed to promote compliance with the Act without needlessly subverting important criminal prosecutions. The more severe sanction (dismissal with prejudice) is available for use where appropriate, and the knowledge that a violation could potentially result in the imposition of this sanction gives the prosecution a powerful incentive to be careful about compliance. The less severe sanction (dismissal without prejudice) lets the court avoid unduly impairing the enforcement of federal criminal laws—though even this sanction imposes some costs on the prosecution and the court, which further encourages compliance. When an indictment is dismissed without prejudice, the prosecutor may of course seek—and in the great majority of cases will be able to obtain—a new indictment, for even if “the period prescribed by the applicable statute of limitations has expired, a new indictment may be returned ... within six calendar months of the date of the dismissal.”
III
Petitioner contends, and the Government does not seriously dispute, that a defendant may not prospectively waive the application of the Act.4 We agree.
A
1
As our discussion above suggests, the Speedy Trial Act comprehensively regulates the time within which a trial must begin. Section
The purposes of the Act also cut against exclusion on the grounds of mere consent or waiver. If the Act were de-
2
This interpretation is entirely in accord with the Act‘s legislative history. As both the 1974 House and Senate Reports illustrate, the Act was designed not just to benefit defendants but also to serve the public interest by, among other things, reducing defendants’ opportunity to commit crimes while on pretrial release and preventing extended pretrial delay from impairing the deterrent effect of punishment. See S. Rep. No. 93-1021, pp. 6-8 (citing “bail problems,” offenses committed during pretrial release, and the “seriously undermined ... deterrent value of the criminal process” as “the debilitating effect[s] of court delay upon our criminal justice system“); H. R. Rep. No. 93-1508, p. 8 (“The purpose of this bill is to assist in reducing crime and the danger of recidivism by requiring speedy trials ... “). The Senate Report accompanying the 1979 amendments to the Act put an even finer point on it: “[T]he Act seeks to protect and promote speedy trial interests that go beyond the rights of the defendant; although the Sixth Amendment recognizes a societal interest in prompt dispositions, it primarily safeguards the defendant‘s speedy trial right—which may or may not be in accord with society‘s.” S. Rep. No. 96-212, p. 29; see also id., at 6; H. R. Rep. No. 96-390, p. 3 (1979). Because defendants may be content to remain on pretrial release, and indeed may welcome delay, it is unsurprising
B
The District Court reasoned that
It is significant that
Instead of granting broad opt-out rights,
For these reasons, we reject the District Court‘s reliance on
IV
A
The Government contends that because “petitioner‘s express waiver induced the district court to grant a continuance without making an express ends-of-justice finding ... , basic principles of judicial estoppel preclude petitioner from enjoying the benefit of the continuance, but then challenging the lack of a finding.” Brief for United States 10. In this
As this Court has explained:
“‘[W]here a party assumes a certain position in a legal proceeding, and succeeds in maintaining that position, he may not thereafter, simply because his interests have changed, assume a contrary position, especially if it be to the prejudice of the party who has acquiesced in the position formerly taken by him.’ Davis v. Wakelee, 156 U. S. 680, 689 (1895). This rule, known as judicial estoppel, ‘generally prevents a party from prevailing in one phase of a case on an argument and then relying on a contradictory argument to prevail in another phase.’ Pegram v. Herdrich, 530 U. S. 211, 227, n. 8 (2000).” New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U. S. 742, 749 (2001).
Although this estoppel doctrine is equitable and thus cannot be reduced to a precise formula or test,
“several factors typically inform the decision whether to apply the doctrine in a particular case: First, a party‘s later position must be clearly inconsistent with its earlier position. Second, courts regularly inquire whether the party has succeeded in persuading a court to accept that party‘s earlier position. . . . A third consideration is whether the party seeking to assert an inconsistent position would derive an unfair advantage or impose an unfair detriment on the opposing party if not estopped.” Id., at 750-751 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
In applying this doctrine to the present case, we must first identify the “position” of petitioner‘s that the Government seeks to enforce. There are three possibilities: (1) petitioner‘s promise not to move for dismissal under
First, we are unwilling to recognize an estoppel based on petitioner‘s promise not to move for dismissal because doing so would entirely swallow the Act‘s no-waiver policy. We see little difference between granting a defendant‘s request for a continuance in exchange for a promise not to move for dismissal and permitting a prospective waiver, and as we hold above, prospective waivers are inconsistent with the Act.
Second, petitioner‘s (mistaken) agreement that Speedy Trial Act waivers are valid also does not provide a ground for estoppel. Petitioner did not “succee[d] in persuading” the District Court to accept the proposition that prospective waivers of Speedy Trial Act rights are valid. On the contrary, it was the District Court that requested the waiver and produced the form for petitioner to sign. And while the other relevant factors (clear inconsistency and unfair advantage or detriment) might in isolation support the Government, we think they do not predominate where, as here, the Government itself accepted the District Court‘s interpretation without objection.
Finally, petitioner‘s representation to the District Court at the January 31 status conference that a continuance was needed to gather evidence of the bonds’ authenticity does not support the Government‘s estoppel argument because the position that petitioner took then was not “clearly inconsistent” with the position that he now takes in seeking dismissal of the indictment. This would be a different case if petitioner had succeeded in persuading the District Court at the January 31 status conference that the factual predicate for a statutorily authorized exclusion of delay could be established—for example, if defense counsel had obtained a continuance only by falsely representing that he was in the midst of working with an expert who might authenticate the bonds. In fact, however, the discussion at the January 31 status
B
While conceding that the District Court “never made an express finding on the record” about the ends-of-justice balance, Brief for United States 30, the Government argues that such an express finding did not need to be entered contemporaneously—and could be supplied on remand—because, given the circumstances in 1997, the ends-of-justice balance in fact supported the 1997 continuance. We reject this argument. In the first place, the Act requires express findings, and in the second place, it does not permit those findings to be made on remand as the Government proposes.
The Act requires that when a district court grants an ends-of-justice continuance, it must “se[t] forth, in the record of the case, either orally or in writing, its reasons” for finding that the ends of justice are served and they outweigh other interests.
The Government suggests that this error, stemming as it does from the District Court‘s technical failure to make an express finding, may be regarded as harmless. Brief for United States 31, n. 8. Harmless-error review under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(a) presumptively applies to “all errors where a proper objection is made,” Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1, 7 (1999), and we have required “strong support” to find an implied repeal of Rule 52, United States v. Vonn, 535 U. S. 55, 65 (2002). We conclude, however, that the provisions of the Act provide such support here.
The relevant provisions of the Act are unequivocal. If a defendant pleads not guilty, the trial “shall commence” within 70 days “from the filing date (and making public)
Applying the harmless-error rule would also tend to undermine the detailed requirements of the provisions regulating ends-of-justice continuances. The exclusion of delay resulting from an ends-of-justice continuance is the most open-ended type of exclusion recognized under the Act and, in allowing district courts to grant such continuances, Congress clearly meant to give district judges a measure of flexibility in accommodating unusual, complex, and difficult cases. But it is equally clear that Congress, knowing that the many sound grounds for granting ends-of-justice continuances could not be rigidly structured, saw a danger that such
V
We hold that the 91-day continuance granted on January 31 was not excluded from petitioner‘s speedy trial clock. Because this continuance by itself exceeded the maximum 70-day delay provided in
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE SCALIA, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the opinion of the Court with the exception of its discussion of legislative history in Part III-A-2. For reasons I have expressed elsewhere, I believe that the only language that constitutes “a Law” within the meaning of the Bicameralism and Presentment Clause of
It may seem that there is no harm in using committee reports and other such sources when they are merely in accord with the plain meaning of the Act. But this sort of intellectual piling-on has addictive consequences. To begin with, it accustoms us to believing that what is said by a single person in a floor debate or by a committee report represents the view of Congress as a whole—so that we sometimes even will say (when referring to a floor statement and committee report) that “Congress has expressed” thus-and-so. See, e. g., Conroy, supra, at 516-517. There is no basis either in law or in reality for this naive belief. Moreover, if legislative history is relevant when it confirms the plain meaning of the statutory text, it should also be relevant when it contradicts the plain meaning, thus rendering what
Notes
“(A) Any period of delay resulting from a continuance granted by any judge on his own motion or at the request of the defendant or his counsel or at the request of the attorney for the Government, if the judge granted such continuance on the basis of his findings that the ends of justice served by taking such action outweigh the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial. No such period of delay resulting from a continuance granted by the court in accordance with this paragraph shall be excludable under this subsection unless the court sets forth, in the record of the case, either orally or in writing, its reasons for finding that the ends of justice served by the granting of such continuance outweigh the best interests of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial.
“(B) The factors, among others, which a judge shall consider in determining whether to grant a continuance under subparagraph (A) of this paragraph in any case are as follows:
“(i) Whether the failure to grant such a continuance in the proceeding would be likely to make a continuation of such proceeding impossible, or result in a miscarriage of justice.
“(ii) Whether the case is so unusual or so complex, due to the number of defendants, the nature of the prosecution, or the existence of novel questions of fact or law, that it is unreasonable to expect adequate preparation for pretrial proceedings or for the trial itself within the time limits established by this section. . . .
“(iv) Whether the failure to grant such a continuance in a case which, taken as a whole, is not so unusual or so complex as to fall within clause (ii), would deny the defendant reasonable time to obtain counsel, would unreasonably deny the defendant or the Government continuity of counsel, or would deny counsel for the defendant or the attorney for the Government the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation, taking into account the exercise of due diligence.
“(C) No continuance under subparagraph (A) of this paragraph shall be granted because of general congestion of the court‘s calendar, or lack of diligent preparation or failure to obtain available witnesses on the part of the attorney for the Government.”