Speedy Trial Act Doesn’t Always Pause During Plea Negotiations

US v. Hart: Hart was involved in drug distribution and sex trafficking and drew the attention of federal investigators. When he found out that one of his prostitutes had been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury he told her not to attend and, after she did anyway, “he physically assaulted her and threatened to kill her son.” For this he was charged, by complaint, on April 26, 2017, with witness intimidation. At the request of the parties, the district court entered an order on May 30, 2017 to “delay the filing of an Indictment and the holding of a preliminary hearing to discuss the possibility” a plea agreement. No agreement was reached, however, and Hart was ultimately indicted on July 17, 2017, 60 days after his was arrested. A superseding indictment added drug and sex trafficking counts to the witness intimidation charge. The district court denied Hart’s motion to dismiss under the Speedy Trial Act and he was convicted on all counts at trial.

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed the witness intimidation count, affirmed convictions on all other counts, and remanded the case for resentencing. The court first addressed whether the late initial indictment violated the Speedy Trial Act. The court held it did, as none of the time between the running of the 30-day deadline for indictment and the actual indictment (another 30 days later) was properly excluded. The court held that intervening Supreme Court law had abrogated prior Fourth Circuit decisions that time during which plea negotiations were ongoing was automatically excluded. Instead, it could be excluded only if the district court made the proper findings required for “end of justice” continuances. As there was no such finding here, the Speedy Trial Act had been violated and required dismissal of at least the witness tampering count. The court rejected Hart’s argument that all counts should be dismissed, concluding that the evidence presented on the witness intimidation count would have been admissible even if that count had been dismissed and therefore there was no “prejudicial spillover” from the Speedy Trial Act violation.