By Robert Phillips, Deputy District Attorney (Ret).

Among the rights the Sixth Amendment guarantees to a person accused in a criminal prosecution is the right to a speedy trial.  However, this right does not extend to everyone, even if considered to be a suspect in a criminal case, but only to those considered to be an “accused.” As noted by the U.S. Supreme Court: “On its face, the protection of the [Sixth] 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.” (Italics added; United States v. Marion (1971) 404 U.S. 307, 313.) 

The bounds of this important constitutional protection were tested in the recent Sixth District Court of Appeal case of People v. Buchanan (Nov. 8, 2022) __ Cal.App.5th __ [2022 Cal.App. LEXIS 925].  Defendants Robert Ambrose Buchanan IV and Karen Ginger Downs were issued misdemeanor citations in separate DUI cases, each with scheduled appearance dates, pursuant to Penal Code § 853.6.  The local prosecutorial agency (Santa Cruz County), however, did not proceed on the scheduled dates, letting them expire.  In fact, Santa Cruz County did not file complaints in these cases until nearly a year later, just before the statute of limitations had run. 

The trial court, in a combined hearing for both defendants, dismissed each respective defendants’ case ruling that their Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial had been violated.  The People appealed, with the Santa Cruz County Superior Court’s appellate department certifying both cases for transfer to the Sixth District Court of Appeal.  The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s rulings in both cases, holding that although the issuance of a misdemeanor citation does in fact trigger a defendant’s Sixth Amendment speedy trial rights—the defendant under these circumstances becoming an “accused”—the state’s failure to initiate the prosecution of that defendant by the date of his or her scheduled appearance as listed on the citation relieves that person of the pressures of being subject to a pending prosecution.  In effect, he then becomes an “un-accused.”  (My choice of words; not the Court’s)  Although the misdemeanor citation itself is considered to be an accusation otherwise sufficient to trigger a defendant’s Sixth Amendment protection against delay, the Court concluded that the District Attorney’s election not to file formal charges by the appearance date listed on the citation ceased any legal restraint upon the accused and had the same effect, for constitutional speedy trial purposes, as a dismissal of the charges, even if the dismissal is only for a limited period of time. Accordingly, the Court found no Sixth Amendment speedy trial violation and reversed the trial court’s decision.  This, by the way, is not meant to encourage prosecutors (or police officers) to sit on cases until the statute of limitations is close to expiring, or a case is otherwise getting old.  Delays in prosecution make it harder not only for the defense, but, in many cases, for the prosecution as well, with witnesses disappearing and memories fading.  Everyone benefits by keeping criminal cases moving on through the system.