The convergence of the Sixth Amendment’s speedy trial requirement and the delay before presentment following an MDLEA interdiction often raises complex issues. On one hand, the government must have the ability to continue its mission of countering drug smuggling without overly disrupting its operations following an interdiction. On the other hand, individuals apprehended during these interdictions have—some—Constitutional rights that demand timely and fair legal proceedings. We recently looked at two cases where the court had to evaluate the time defendants spent on Coast Guard Cutters before being brought to the U.S. for prosecution in U.S. v. Iona-Dejesus and U.S. v. Henriquez. Now let’s look at a case where the Southern District of Florida (SDFL) considered the period from interdiction to trial in relation to the Sixth Amendment’s speedy trial requirement.
The facts in U.S. v. Osvaldo Gonzalez, No. 22-cr-20350-ALTMAN, 2023 WL 4580901 (S.D.Fla. July 18, 2023) are similar to most Coast Guard interdictions in the Caribbean. On Jul 8, 2022, the USS Wichita, with an attached Coast Guard law enforcement detachment (LEDET), interdicted a go-fast vessel (GFV) approximately 130 nautical miles south of Isla Saona, Dominican Republic. The vessel was treated as one without nationality after the individuals on board failed to make a claim of nationality for the vessel upon request of the boarding team. On July 26, 2022, the government filed a formal complaint in the SDFL, charging the defendants with violations of the MDLEA. That same day, the defendants were brought before a magistrate judge in Puerto Rico (PR) for their initial appearances.
MDLEA Blog Note: Defendants may have been brought to PR instead of SDFL to address the issue we discussed in U.S. v. Iona-Dejesus and U.S. v. Henriquez. That is, ensuring that the government complies with the Purvis factors and presents the defendant without “unnecessary delay.”
On August 4, 2022, a grand jury in the SDFL returned a two-count indictment alleging MDLEA offenses. Defendants appeared again before a magistrate judge in PR and then were eventually transferred to Florida; the first defendant arriving on September 22, 2022 and the second two defendants arriving on November 29, 2022. “After the Defendants arrived in Miami, though, they weren’t promptly brought before a magistrate judge to make their initial appearances. Instead, ‘due to a lack of communication between the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Magistrate Court,’ the Defendants didn’t make their first appearances in Miami until January 3, 2023[]” and January 5, 2023. The trial was set by the district court for February 13, 2023. The defendants then moved to dismiss the indictment making four arguments, one of which we will look at in this post. Specifically, they argued that, “[t]he excessive post-indictment delay experienced by the defendants … requires dismissal as a violation of their Sixth Amendment guarantee to a speedy trial.”
To determine if the defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was violated, the court considered the factors set forth in the well-known Supreme Court’s case, Barker v. Wingo. These four factors are: the “[l]ength of delay, the reason for the delay, the defendant’s assertion of his right, and prejudice to the defendant.” Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530 (1972). “The first factor”—the length of the delay—“serves a triggering function; unless some ‘presumptively prejudicial’ period of delay occurred, [the court] need not conduct the remainder of the analysis.” U.S. v. Register, 182 F.3d 820, 827 (11th Cir. 1999) (quoting Barker, 407 U.S. at 530).
In evaluating whether the detention following the interdiction triggered the Sixth Amendment, the court stated the following:
“[I]t is readily understandable that it is either a formal indictment or information or else the actual restraints imposed by arrest and holding to answer a criminal charge that engage the particular protections of the speedy trial provision of the Sixth Amendment.” The date of interdiction thus didn’t trigger the Sixth Amendment clock because, despite being physically restrained, the Defendants weren’t yet “h[eld] to answer a criminal charge.” As the Supreme Court has clarified, “[a]lthough delay prior to arrest or indictment may give rise to a due process claim under the Fifth Amendment…no Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial arises until charges are pending.”
U.S. v. Osvaldo Gonzalez, 2023 WL 4580901 at *5 (internal citations omitted and emphasis in original). Although the delay in this case lasted six months and eighteen days—from July 26, 2022, when the government filed its complaint, until the original trial date, February 13, 2023—the court held that the length of delay was “not long enough to trigger a full Barker analysis[]” because delays less than one year are not “presumptively prejudicial” in the Eleventh Circuit. As a result, according to the court, the defendants’ Sixth Amendments rights were not violated and their motion was denied.
The full decision can be found here.