United States v. Marion

404 U.S. 307

Case Year: 1971

Case Ruling: 7-0, Reversed

Opinion Justice: White

FACTS

Prior to the late 1960s, the speedy trial provision of the Sixth Amendment was seldom invoked. Most cases proceeded from arrest to trial in a timely fashion. Then backlogs of cases began to build at the trial court level. Very little legal doctrine existed, and the cases coming to the Court raised basic issues about the meaning of the Speedy Trial Clause. In one of the first, United States v. Marion (1971), the justices were asked to determine what stages of the criminal process the Speedy Trial Clause governed. Some lawyers argued that the constitutional ban against unreasonable delays covered the period from the commission of the crime to the beginning of the trial. Others held that the provision governed only the period from formal charges (arrest, indictment, or information) to the beginning of the trial.

Marion originated with a series of articles published in the Washington Post in October 1967. The pieces alleged fraudulent practices by home improvement firms, including a company called Allied Enterprises. One of the articles quoted a U.S. attorney as saying that indictments against an unnamed business would be forthcoming. Sure enough, during the summer of 1968, federal prosecutors conducted interviews with Allied officials. In the fall, a grand jury was impaneled; in April 1970 it handed down indictments against Allied officials.

Before their trial, Allied employees argued that their Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial had been violated because of the three-year lapse between the commission of the alleged offense and the grand jury indictment. During this prolonged period, they claimed, witnesses had forgotten certain events and bias against Allied had grown. They asked the Court to rule that the delay between the commission of the crime and arrest or indictment was unreasonable.

 

MR. JUSTICE WHITE DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

This appeal requires us to decide 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....

Appellees do not claim that the Sixth Amendment was violated by the two-month delay between the return of the indictment and its dismissal. Instead, they claim that their rights to a speedy trial were violated by the period of approximately three years between the end of the criminal scheme charged and the return of the indictment; it is argued that this delay is so substantial and inherently prejudicial that the Sixth Amendment required the dismissal of the indictment. In our view, however, the Sixth Amendment speedy trial provision has no application until the putative defendant in some way becomes an "accused," an event that occurred in this case only when the appellees were indicted on April 21, 1970.

The Sixth Amendment provides that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial...." On its face, the protection of the Amendment is activated only when a criminal prosecution has begun and extends only to those persons who have been "accused" in the course of that prosecution. These provisions would seem to afford no protection to those not yet accused, nor would they seem to require the Government to discover, investigate, and accuse any person within any particular period of time. The Amendment would appear to guarantee to a criminal defendant that the Government will move with the dispatch that is appropriate to assure him an early and proper disposition of the charges against him....

Our attention is called to nothing in the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Amendment indicating that it does not mean what it appears to say, nor is there more than marginal support for the proposition that, at the time of the adoption of the Amendment, the prevailing rule was that prosecutions would not be permitted if there had been long delay in presenting a charge. The framers could hardly have selected less appropriate language if they had intended the speedy trial provision to protect against pre-accusation delay....

Legislative efforts to implement federal and state speedy trial provisions also plainly reveal the view that these guarantees are applicable only after a person has been accused of a crime....

Appellees' position is, therefore, at odds with longstanding legislative and judicial constructions of the speedy trial provisions in both national and state constitutions.

It is apparent also that very little support for appellees' position emerges from a consideration of the purposes of the Sixth Amendment's speedy trial provision, a guarantee that this Court has termed "an important safeguard to prevent undue and oppressive incarceration prior to trial, to minimize anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation and to limit the possibilities that long delay will impair the ability of an accused to defend himself."... Inordinate delay between arrest, indictment, and trial may impair a defendant's ability to present an effective defense. But the major evils protected against by the speedy trial guarantee exist quite apart from actual or possible prejudice to an accused's defense. To legally arrest and detain, the Government must assert probable cause to believe the arrestee has committed a crime. Arrest is a public act that may seriously interfere with the defendant's liberty, whether he is free on bail or not, and that may disrupt his employment, drain his financial resources, curtail his associations, subject him to public obloquy, and create anxiety in him, his family and his friends.... So viewed, it 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. Invocation of the speedy trial provision thus need not await indictment, information, or other formal charge. But we decline to extend the reach of the amendment to the period prior to arrest. Until this event occurs, a citizen suffers no restraints on his liberty and is not the subject of public accusation: his situation does not compare with that of a defendant who has been arrested and held to answer. Passage of time, whether before or after arrest, may impair memories, cause evidence to be lost, deprive the defendant of witnesses, and otherwise interfere with his ability to defend himself. But this possibility of prejudice at trial is not itself sufficient reason to wrench the Sixth Amendment from its proper context. Possible prejudice is inherent in any delay, however short; it may also weaken the Government's case.

The law has provided other mechanisms to guard against possible as distinguished from actual prejudice resulting from the passage of time between crime and arrest or charge. As we said in United States v. Ewell, "the applicable statute of limitations ... is ... the primary guarantee against bringing overly stale criminal charges." Such statutes represent legislative assessments of relative interests of the State and the defendant in administering and receiving justice; they "are made for the repose of society and the protection of those who may [during the limitation] ... have lost their means of defense." These statutes provide predictability by specifying a limit beyond which there is an irrebuttable presumption that a defendant's right to a fair trial would be prejudiced....

There is thus no need to press the Sixth Amendment into service to guard against the mere possibility that pre-accusation delays will prejudice the defense in a criminal case since statutes of limitation already perform that function....

Reversed.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS WITH WHOM MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN AND MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL JOIN, CONCURRING IN THE RESULT.

I assume that if the three-year delay in this case had occurred after the indictment had been returned, the right to a speedy trial would have been impaired and the indictment would have to be dismissed. I disagree with the Court that the guarantee does not apply if the delay was at the pre-indictment stage of a case....