United States v. Nixon
Opinion
This appeal grew out of dual prosecutions of Mr. Keon Nixon. In state court, he was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree assault, and use of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. After these charges were filed, federal authorities indicted Mr. Nixon for possessing a firearm after a felony conviction.
See
After Mr. Nixon was eventually arraigned, he moved to dismiss the federal indictment, contending that the delay in the federal case violated his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. The district court denied the motion, concluding that
• federal authorities had a valid reason for the delay,
• Mr. Nixon had waited too long to invoke his right to a speedy trial after learning of the federal charge, and
• the delay had not created prejudice.
We agree with these conclusions and affirm the denial of Mr. Nixon's motion to dismiss.
I. The state and federal charges against Mr. Nixon take two separate tracks.
Before charging Mr. Nixon with murder, state authorities had also brought multiple counts of possessing a firearm after a felony conviction in violation of state law. Months later, the factual allegations underlying these charges led federal authorities to indict Mr. Nixon for possessing a firearm after a felony conviction in violation of federal law. Given the federal indictment, state authorities moved to dismiss their gun charges, telling the state court and Mr. Nixon that he was "being federally charged."
*1269 By that time, state authorities had begun the murder case against Mr. Nixon. In light of that case, federal authorities decided to postpone their prosecution. After the federal indictment was pending almost a year, however, federal authorities decided that they couldn't wait any longer. So they brought Mr. Nixon to federal court for an arraignment.
A few weeks later, Mr. Nixon moved to dismiss the indictment based on a denial of his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. While this motion was pending, the state murder case went to trial and Mr. Nixon was acquitted. Shortly thereafter, the district court denied Mr. Nixon's motion to dismiss.
II. We conclude that the delay didn't violate the Sixth Amendment.
We reject Mr. Nixon's speedy-trial claim.
A. Standard of Review
The sole issue is whether the federal delay violated the Sixth Amendment. The district court concluded that the delay hadn't violated the Sixth Amendment, and we engage in de novo review of that legal conclusion.
United States v. Dirden
,
B. Application of the Constitutional Test for a Speedy Trial
We apply these standards of review to the constitutional test for a speedy trial.
1. Length of the Delay as a Trigger for Further Scrutiny
Under this test, the threshold inquiry is whether the federal delay was long enough to create a presumption of prejudice.
United States v. Batie
,
The delay period starts with the indictment or arrest, whichever comes first.
Jackson v. Ray
,
This delay period consisted of approximately fifteen months. Because this period exceeded one year, it created a presumption of prejudice, triggering further scrutiny.
See
United States v. Seltzer
,
2. The Four Applicable Factors
When engaging in further scrutiny, we consider four factors:
1. the length of the delay
2. the reason that the government gave for the delay *1270 3. the defendant's assertion of a speedy-trial right
4. the prejudice to the defendant
Barker v. Wingo
,
a. Length of the Delay
As noted above, the delay of roughly fifteen months was long enough to create a presumption of prejudice.
See
p. 5, above. But we must decide how much weight to assign this delay, considering the length of time and the complexity of the federal case.
See
Doggett v. United States
,
The length of the delay, roughly fifteen months, is considerable. But we must also consider the extent to which the delay "exceeds the bare minimum for judicial examination of the claim."
Jackson v. Ray
,
But we must also gauge the delay based on the simplicity or complexity of the federal charge. The government conceded in district court that the felon-in-possession charge was not complex, and we agree.
See
Seltzer
,
b. Reason for the Delay
We also consider the reason for the delay. Here federal authorities waited because of the pending state charges. With dual prosecutions, federal authorities wanted to avoid logistical burdens from simultaneous proceedings in state and federal courts. Otherwise, authorities might have needed to continually shuttle Mr. Nixon between state and federal custody.
Avoiding competing custodial needs . When federal authorities indicted Mr. Nixon, he was in state custody. To begin their prosecution, federal authorities needed to either put Mr. Nixon in federal custody or shuttle him back and forth between state and federal custody through multiple writs of habeas corpus ad prosequendum.
Both options posed difficulties. Taking federal custody of Mr. Nixon would require state authorities to execute a writ whenever Mr. Nixon was needed for a state-court proceeding. And if federal authorities left Mr. Nixon in state custody, federal authorities would need to execute a writ whenever they needed Mr. Nixon in federal court. To avoid ping-ponging Mr. Nixon between state and federal custody, federal authorities decided to wait on the state-court proceedings. This approach was permissible.
See
*1271
United States v. Grimmond
,
Mr. Nixon questions the genuineness of this reason, pointing out that federal authorities ultimately arraigned him before the start of the state murder trial. But the government has explained that decision: After waiting nearly a year, federal authorities decided that they could no longer afford to continue waiting. They knew that a delay approaching one year would create a presumption of prejudice (as discussed above), risking a speedy-trial violation if the state case continued to linger. So federal authorities stopped waiting and brought Mr. Nixon to federal court for an arraignment. We see little reason to question the genuineness of the government's explanation for the delay.
Mr. Nixon's incarceration close to the federal courthouse
. Mr. Nixon contends that the burden of shuttling him between federal and state custody would have been softened by his proximity to the federal courthouse. Transportation itself was not the problem, for Mr. Nixon was detained within 1 ½ miles of the federal courthouse.
See
United States v. Seltzer
,
The district court's characterization of the state murder case as "very active" and "complex . " Mr. Nixon also challenges the district court's description of the state case as "very active" and "complex." We reject these challenges.
To review the district court's characterization of the state case as "very active," we apply the clear-error standard.
See
*1272
United States v. Banks
,
Mr. Nixon also challenges the district court's characterization of the state case as "complex." We reject this challenge. The overarching question is whether deference to a more complicated state prosecution constitutes a legitimate reason to postpone a federal prosecution. In the context of a state murder case, we answered in
United States v. Frias
, stating that federal authorities could postpone a federal prosecution to allow the state murder case to proceed.
We might justify this deference based on the inherent complexity of murder cases.
See, e.g.
,
United States v. Steel
,
c. Invocation of the Right to a Speedy Trial
In addition to the length of the delay and reasons for it, we consider whether the defendant invoked his right to a speedy trial.
Barker v. Wingo
,
During this period of almost a year, Mr. Nixon had counsel on the state murder charge but not on the federal charge. Despite Mr. Nixon's lack of representation in the federal case, however, he quickly learned about the federal charge: Within two weeks of the federal indictment, state authorities moved to dismiss the state gun charges, explaining that Mr. Nixon was "being Federally charged." R. Vol. I at 69. Based on this explanation, the district court found that Mr. Nixon was on notice of the federal charge. And we must credit that finding because it is not clearly erroneous. 4
Though Mr. Nixon had notice of the federal charge, he denies obtaining the
*1273
actual indictment until his arraignment. But the indictment had not been sealed; Mr. Nixon knew that he was being charged and could have obtained the indictment at any time.
Cf.
United States v. Frias
,
The resulting issue is the impact of Mr. Nixon's knowledge of the forthcoming federal charge despite his lack of representation. The Supreme Court addressed the impact of this knowledge in
Doggett v. United States
,
Under this dicta, the third factor cuts against Mr. Nixon. Though he was unrepresented in the federal case, he knew within two weeks of his federal indictment that he was being federally charged. Under
Doggett
, this awareness of the federal charge weighs heavily against Mr. Nixon.
See
United States v. Tchibassa
,
Mr. Nixon contends that he needed legal assistance to inform him of his right to a speedy trial. This contention suggests that the Supreme Court's dicta in
Doggett
was erroneous, but we do not second-guess the Supreme Court's dicta.
See
Gaylor v. United States
,
d. Prejudice
The final factor (prejudice) also supports the government.
Mr. Nixon's burden and the presumption of prejudice.
Mr. Nixon bore the burden of showing prejudice, and this burden required more than showing a mere possibility of prejudice.
See
United States v. Larson
,
*1274 Three potential interests bearing on the issue of prejudice . Rather than presume prejudice, we consider three potential interests underlying the right to a speedy trial:
1. Preventing oppressive incarceration
2. Minimizing the anxiety and concern of the defendant
3. Limiting the possibility that the defense will be impaired
United States v. Seltzer
,
Oppressive incarceration
. Mr. Nixon was detained in both the state case and the federal case, and all of the detention time in the two cases had to be credited toward the federal sentence.
Mr. Nixon denies that he had an opportunity to present this argument in district court. He points out that (1) the contention remained academic until he obtained an acquittal in the state murder case and (2) the hearing on his motion to dismiss the federal charge (based on the right to a speedy trial) had preceded his acquittal in state court. But Mr. Nixon could have argued in his motion to dismiss that
• if he were to obtain an acquittal in state court, he would go into federal custody and
• the delay in his federal case would cost him an opportunity to earn good-time credits.
Or he could have supplemented his motion to dismiss after obtaining the acquittal. 7
Because Mr. Nixon failed to present the district court with this theory of prejudice, it is considered forfeited.
Puckett v. United States
,
Under the plain-error standard, Mr. Nixon must show that a plain error was committed, that the error affected his substantial rights, and that the error seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.
United States v. Gonzalez-Huerta
,
• no precedent exists to support this theory and
• we can only speculate on whether Mr. Nixon would have earned additional good-time credits.
*1275
An error can ordinarily be obvious only if the Supreme Court or our court has previously addressed the issue.
United States v. Thornburgh
,
We might assume, for the sake of argument, that an error might be obvious even without an applicable precedent. Here, though, the Supreme Court has suggested that the prejudice must come from oppressive incarceration before the trial (rather than after it):
The speedy trial guarantee is designed to minimize the possibility of lengthy incarceration prior to trial, to reduce the lesser, but nevertheless substantial, impairment of liberty imposed on an accused while released on bail, and to shorten the disruption of life caused by arrest and the presence of unresolved criminal charges.
United States v. MacDonald
,
Mr. Nixon's new theory of prejudice not only lacks supporting precedent but also rests on speculation. Mr. Nixon could have gained eligibility for good-time credits only by displaying exemplary compliance with the prison's disciplinary regulations.
Given the uncertainties of how Mr. Nixon would behave in the future or how authorities would exercise their discretion in the future, the district court couldn't have known whether an earlier arraignment would have speeded Mr. Nixon's good-time credits.
See
Goodrum v. Quarterman
,
In similar circumstances, we've rejected a theory of prejudice based on speculation that a defendant could have earned good-time credits if he'd been housed in a state prison rather than a county jail.
Perez v. Sullivan
,
Anxiety and concern
. Mr. Nixon also urges prejudice based on anxiety and concern from the delay. But this argument consists of only a single clause in his opening brief: "This Defendant has been deprived of his right to counsel for over a year for no valid reason, impairing the defense and
imposing unnecessary anxiety and concern on the part of this Defendant
." Appellant's Opening Br. at 28-29 (emphasis added). This single clause does not suffice for prejudice.
See
United States v. Larson
,
Impairment of the defense
. Finally, Mr. Nixon contends that his defense was impaired. For impairment of a defense, we ordinarily consider the loss of particular pieces of evidence.
United States v. Hicks
,
We've twice considered a defendant's claim of prejudice based on the inability to obtain legal representation during the delay period: once in
United States v. Seltzer
,
Here Mr. Nixon does not point to anything that happened during the delay period to hamper his defense. Instead, he argues only that he lacked an attorney between his federal indictment and arraignment. We have no indication of (1) any steps taken by the government to continue investigating Mr. Nixon during this delay period or (2) a lost opportunity for Mr. Nixon's defense.
Mr. Nixon appeared to concede this reality in oral argument. There he was asked what the government should have done differently. He answered that the government should have postponed its request for an indictment. 11 If the government had pursued this suggested course, however, Mr. Nixon would have remained without counsel during the delay period. Given Frias , the lack of counsel-in itself-does not constitute prejudice.
But Mr. Nixon also alleges that if he had been arraigned earlier, he would have had a viable argument for dismissal under the Speedy Trial Act.
12
We again addressed this argument in both
Seltzer
and
Frias
. In
Seltzer
, we recognized that the lost opportunity to invoke the Speedy Trial Act could constitute prejudice.
Seltzer
,
Here too we reconciled the different outcomes based on the difference in facts, explaining that the lost opportunity to invoke the Speedy Trial Act constituted prejudice in
Seltzer
only because the defendant had shown other lost opportunities for his defense during the delay period.
Mr. Nixon has not shown any lost opportunities for his defense during the delay
*1278
period. Like the defendant in
Frias
, Mr. Nixon argues only that he would have had a viable legal argument under the Speedy Trial Act if he had been arraigned earlier. In
Frias
, we held that this argument didn't support prejudice. That holding governs here, requiring us to reject Mr. Nixon's theory of prejudice based on his inability to invoke the Speedy Trial Act.
See
Medina
, No. 17-1455,
* * *
When considering whether a delay violates a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial, we balance four factors.
Jackson v. Ray
,
The first factor, the length of the delay, supports Mr. Nixon. But the other three factors support the government. Given this weighing of the factors, we conclude that the delay did not violate Mr. Nixon's right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment. We thus affirm the denial of Mr. Nixon's motion to dismiss.
Mr. Nixon contends that the delay period should end with the date of the trial setting. But the district court vacated the trial date when ruling on Mr. Nixon's motion to dismiss, so there was no trial setting at the time of the ruling. We thus calculate the delay period as roughly fifteen months, which is slightly longer than Mr. Nixon's calculation. See Appellant's Reply Br. at 1 ("[T]he relevant period of delay is the gap between the filing of the indictment and the jury trial setting, which in this case was approximately fourteen months.").
At oral argument, defense counsel acknowledged that the federal arraignment could create potential problems for state charging authorities:
Court: ... and so, and so what the federal government did do doesn't prejudice your client any more than had it simply delayed charging?
Defense Counsel: Well your honor, actually it, it complicates things when one is charged federally. One, they're-if they are brought over to the district court for an arraignment ... for initial appearance it does complicate things because they're now going to ... be maintained in federal custody. Once the federal government has an individual, they don't like to give them back to the state. And frankly it was rather unusual in this particular case, the court asked whether, well what did you do, Mr. Reisch? You were representing Mr. Nixon on his state case; did you contact the federal government? No. In my experience, if there's been a state case and the Feds pick it up, they immediately swoop in and get the individual on that writ and they don't give him back until the federal case is over. So even in some point in state cases where speedy trial is ticking.
The district court explained that some of these potential conflicts materialized once federal authorities began their prosecution. For example, a hearing in state court delayed the federal arraignment. For the arraignment, the federal district court issued a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum on May 10, 2017. But the state court conducted a hearing on May 26, so the federal district court was not able to conduct the arraignment until June 15, over a month after issuance of the writ.
Mr. Nixon conceded at oral argument that he had been advised that a federal charge was forthcoming.
The district court stated that one could reasonably infer that Mr. Nixon had not invoked his right to a speedy trial because he wanted to go to trial first in his state murder case. We need not address the reasonableness of this inference.
While the appeal has been pending, the government notified the court that Mr. Nixon has been credited with all of the time spent in pretrial detention for both the state case and the federal case.
Mr. Nixon's state murder trial took place three weeks after the hearing on the motion to dismiss. But the district court didn't rule on the motion to dismiss until over three weeks after Mr. Nixon's acquittal in the state case.
Mr. Nixon contends that
Perez
is distinguishable because there we were addressing a delay between a guilty plea and sentencing. Given the guilty plea, the defendant's liberty interest was diminished.
Perez
,
This theory of prejudice assumes that if federal authorities had accelerated their prosecution, Mr. Nixon would have started serving his federal sentence earlier. This assumption is itself speculative. Once Mr. Nixon was arraigned on the federal charge, the federal court had the discretion to
• release him and lodge a detainer in the event that he was released from state custody or
• detain him.
If the federal court had released Mr. Nixon with a detainer, he may have returned to state custody even after his federal sentencing.
At oral argument, Mr. Nixon suggested for the first time that the delay had prevented him from learning about DNA evidence. But Mr. Nixon waived this argument by failing to present it in his appeal briefs.
United States v. Brown
,
This was the exchange:
Court: So what should the government have done ... the federal government, that you would then say they did not violate the Sixth Amendment?
Defense Counsel: Well your honor, I think what the government should have done was look at the case ... and the dates in the statute of limitations. There is a 5-year statute of limitations in this particular case. If they were worried about interfering with the state case or something along those lines which I mean, they say they ... that was their concern, but it wasn't because they did interfere by bringing ... writting him back to the federal courts or bringing to the federal courts. They could have simply waited. They could have waited and then gone seek an indictment once the state court case was over.
Court: So charging ... that's one way they could have delayed their charge?
Defense Counsel: Yes, your honor.
Mr. Nixon also said in his opening brief that the government could have avoided simultaneous prosecutions by waiting to obtain an indictment until the state case was over.
At oral argument, the government contended that Mr. Nixon's time spent in state custody would be excludable under the Speedy Trial Act.
Cf.
United States v. Occhipinti
,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Keon Anthony NIXON, A/K/A Young Taz, Defendant - Appellant.
- Cited By
- 17 cases
- Status
- Published