NCJ Number
125691
Editor(s)
L L Weinreb
Date Published
1990
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This chapter presents two edited, leading U.S. Supreme Court decisions involving the right of accuseds to a speedy trial.
Abstract
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Marion (1971) focused on whether dismissal of a Federal indictment was constitutionally required by reason of a period of three years between the occurrence of the alleged criminal acts and the filing of the indictment. The district court judge dismissed the indictment for "lack of speedy prosecution." Although the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure authorize dismissal of an indictment, information, or complaint if there is unnecessary delay in presenting the charge to a grand jury or in filing an information against a defendant who has been held to answer to the district court, or if there is unnecessary delay in bringing a defendant to trial, in the case at issue the delay between the end of the offense charged in the indictment and the date of the indictment did not extend beyond the period of the applicable statute of limitations. The district court's ruling was reversed. In Barker v. Wingo (1972), the Court ruled that barring extraordinary circumstances, a defendant cannot be judged to have been denied a speedy trial when the record strongly indicates, as in the Barker case, that the defendant did not want a speedy trial. 29 footnotes.