In U.S. v. Ingram, No. 05-10866 (Apr. 25, 2006), the Court (Black, Barkett, Cox) reversed the conviction and remanded with instructions to dismiss the indictment, finding that the delay of over two years between indictment and trial deprived Ingram of his Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial.
In February 2000, Ingram, a convicted felon, while purchasing a firearm from a Greenacres City Pawn Shop, answered "no" to a question on a BATF form which asked whether he had ever been convicted of a felony. In October 2002, the government indicted Ingram for making a false statement to a firearms dealer in connection with an attempted acquisition of a firearm. The indictment was sealed, and a warrant was issued for Ingram’s address.
Between October 2002 and July 2004, the ATF agent made "minimal efforts" to contact Ingram. When Ingram was finally contacted and told he was indicted, he agreed to surrender in court; he filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on Speedy Trial grounds.
The Court noted that under Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972) four speedy trial factors are considered: (1) the length of the delay; (2) the reason for the delay; (3) the defendant’s assertion of the speedy trial right; and (4) prejudice to the defendant. If, all three first factors weigh "heavily" against the government, the defendant need not show actual prejudice.
Here, the more than two-year delay satisfied the first factor.
The Court rejected the district court’s conclusion that Ingram contributed to the delay by making himself difficult to locate. The Court pointed out that Ingram was never aware that he was indicted during the two-year period. He therefore could not having been evading prosecution. The fact that his phone numbers changed also did not show this: "There are many innocent reasons why someone’s phone numbers might change over the course of two and one-half years." The Court found that the delay was caused by the government.
Finally, the defendant did assert his rights.
The Court found that all of these three factors weighed "heavily" in Ingram’s favor, pointing further to the delay between the date of the commission of the offense and the indictment date, the fact that this was not a complex case, and that the ATF agent had knowledge of Ingram’s whereabouts. Consequently, Ingram did not have to show "actual prejudice" from delay in order to establish a Speedy Trial violation.
