Lawyers USA Your Business Partner

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide next term whether the time requested by a defense attorney to prepare pretrial motions – even if no motion is filed – is excluded from the 70-day time limit for bringing a case to trial under the Speedy Trial Act of 1974.

The Court will review an 8th Circuit case in which the defendant was indicted on drug and firearm possession charges.

Initially his attorney’s motion to extend the deadline to file pretrial motions was granted. But the defendant had a falling out with his attorney, and 28 days later he waived his right to file pretrial motions.

He was appointed new counsel, and filed a motion for leave to file pretrial motions out of time, which was denied.

He then moved to dismiss based on speedy trial violations, since more than 70 days had passed since his indictment. The motion was denied and he was convicted.

The defendant appealed, claiming his conviction violated the Speedy Trial Act.

The Act excludes the time it takes to prepare pretrial motions from speedy trial calculations, but it is silent on whether time spent when no such motion is ultimately filed should be excluded, and the circuits are split on the issue.

The 8th Circuit ruled that a delay where “the court specifically grants time for that purpose” doesn’t violate the Act.

“Here, the district court expressly extended the deadline for filing pretrial motions, at

[the defendant's] request,” the 8th Circuit opinion stated. “Therefore, the 28-day period … is excludable. The fact that [the defendant] did not actually file any pretrial motions is

irrelevant.”

U.S. Supreme Court. Bloate v. U.S., No. 08-728. Certiorari granted April 20, 2009. Ruling below: 534 F.3d 893 (8^th Cir. 2008).

Close this Window Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Print RSS Feed Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments

Connotea del.icio.us Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com

Furl Google Hugg Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo linkedin LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace

MyWeb Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot

Sphere Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Tumblr Twitter Webride Windows Live Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

More »