Hernandez v. State

544 P.3d 40

Ralph HERNANDEZ, Appellant,

v.STATE of Alaska, Appellee.

Court of Appeals No. A-13618

Court of Appeals of Alaska.

February 9, 2024

Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Michael L. Wolverton, Judge. Trial Court No. 3AN-11-10733 CR

Renee McFarland, Assistant Public Defender, and Samantha Cherot, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant.

Heather Stenson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Treg R. Taylor, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.

Before: Allard, Chief Judge, and Harbison and Terrell, Judges.

OPINION

Judge HARBISON, writing for the Court

Although a speedy trial is guaranteed to a criminal defendant by the United States and Alaska constitutions,¹ Ralph Hernandez was not brought to trial until over seven years after his arrest. During the trial court proceedings, Hernandez was represented by a series of court-appointed attorneys, none of whom objected to the delay in bringing the case to trial. Hernandez himself did object, however, and he also moved for dismissal of the charges on constitutional speedy trial grounds. The trial court summarily denied his motions without conducting an evidentiary hearing. The case proceeded to trial, and Hernandez ultimately was convicted of three counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one count of attempted second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.²

Hernandez appeals his convictions, arguing that the delay violated his right to a speedy trial.

For the reasons explained in this opinion, we conclude that the length of the pretrial delay was presumptively prejudicial under both the Alaska and the United States constitutions, and accordingly the case must be remanded to the trial court so that it may conduct an evidentiary hearing to develop a sufficient record on which to evaluate the merits of Hernandez’s constitutional speedy trial claims.

The pretrial delay was presumptively prejudicial requiring remand for an evidentiary hearing

[1] The right to a speedy trial is guaranteed by Article I, Section 11 of the Alaska Constitution and by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Alaska Supreme Court recently explained the reason for this constitutional protection:

[T]he core evil that the right was originally designed to prevent was lengthy pretrial incarceration. But modern cases have recognized that the right has broader purposes. Inordinate delay, regardless of incarceration, may impair a defendant’s ability to prepare an effective defense. And regardless of prejudice in attempting to defend on the merits, long delay may "seriously interfere with [a] defendant’s liberty, whether he is free on bail or not, and … 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."³

The United States Supreme Court has similarly stated that the right to a speedy trial ensures that defendants are treated fairly.⁴ Furthermore, in Barker v. Wingo, its seminal case on this subject, the Court emphasized that society also has an interest in the swift resolution of criminal cases that "exists separate from, and at times in opposition to, the interests of the accused."⁵ The Court stated:

The inability of courts to provide a prompt trial has, contributed to a large backlog of cases in urban courts which, among other things, enables defendants to negotiate more effectively for pleas of guilty to lesser offenses and otherwise manipulate the system. In addition, persons released on bond for lengthy periods awaiting trial have an opportunity to commit other crimes. … Moreover, the longer an accused is free awaiting trial, the more tempting becomes his opportunity to jump bail and escape. [The] delay between arrest and punishment may have a detrimental effect on rehabilitation.

If an accused cannot make bail,, he is generally confined, … in a local jail [which] contributes to the overcrowding and generally deplorable state of those institutions. Lengthy exposure to these conditions "has a destructive effect on human character and makes the rehabilitation of the individual offender much more difficult." At times the result may even be violent rioting. Finally, lengthy pretrial detention is costly … amount[ing] to millions across the Nation. In addition, society loses wages which might have been earned, and it must often support families of incarcerated breadwinners.⁶

[2] In explaining that the right to a speedy trial might actually work against the interests of the accused, the Barker court observed: "Delay is not an uncommon defense tactic. As the time between the commission of the crime and trial lengthens, witnesses may become unavailable or their memories may fade. If the witnesses support the prosecution, its case will be weakened, sometimes seriously so."⁷ For this reason, unlike the right to counsel or the right to be free from compelled self-incrimination, deprivation of the right to a speedy trial does not per se prejudice the accused’s ability to defend themselves.

[3] The Supreme Court ultimately concluded that the "amorphous quality" of the right to a speedy trial means that any inquiry into a speedy trial claim "necessitates a functional analysis of the right in the particular context of the case."⁸ It thus adopted a balancing test, identifying "some of the factors" which courts should assess in determining whether the defendant’s right to speedy trial has been violated.⁹ These factors are; the length of delay, the reason for the delay, the defendant’s assertion of the right, and the prejudice to the defendant.¹⁰ Alaska’s appellate courts subsequently adopted this test for use in evaluating speedy trial claims under the Alaska constitution.¹¹

[4, 5] Despite Barker's rejection of a "rigid approach" to determining whether a defendant’s right to speedy trial has been violated and its conclusion that speedy trial claims must be assessed in the context of a particular case, the United States Supreme Court stopped short of requiring such an assessment in all cases.¹² Instead, it held that the length of the delay must be used as a starting point to determine whether it is necessary for a court to conduct such an assessment.¹³ In order to trigger a speedy trial analysis, the defendant must allege that the interval between accusation and trial has crossed the threshold dividing ordinary delay from presumptively prejudicial delay. In other words, the defendant must establish that their case was not prosecuted with "custom- ary promptness."¹⁴ If the defendant makes this showing, then the court should conduct an inquiry, applying and balancing the Barker factors, to determine whether the defendant’s constitutional right to a speedy trial has been violated.

[6] There is no question that the required showing has been made here. In Doggett v. United States, the United States Supreme Court noted that delays "approach[ing] one year" are generally sufficient to trigger review of the Barker factors.¹⁵ Here, the delay from the time of arrest to the beginning of trial was just over seven years. Such a lengthy delay clearly requires analysis of the Barker factors.¹⁶

In arguing otherwise, the State relies on Alaska Supreme Court case law that predates Alaska’s adoption of the Barker balancing test. Under this prior case law, the total length of delay is immaterial.¹⁷ Instead, to determine whether the length of delay qualifies as presumptively prejudicial, the delay that is attributable to the defendant is subtracted from the total length of delay.¹⁸ If the remaining length of delay is more than fourteen months, Alaska courts have treated the delay as "presumptively prejudicial" for purposes of the Alaska constitution’s speedy trial right.¹⁹ If the remaining length of delay is less than eight months, the defendant must demonstrate actual prejudice.²⁰

But this Court adopted the Barker test in State v. Mouser.²¹ And as various commentators have explained, deducting the time attributable to the defendant for purposes of this initial threshold inquiry is inconsistent with the Barker test, which treats the reason for the delay as a separate factor to be considered if (and only if) the initial threshold under the first factor is met.²² For example, in his treatise on criminal procedure, Professor LaFave has explained:

Some lower courts apply the first Barker factor "not simply by adding together the number of days between accusation and trial but rather by deducting from this total pretrial period the number of days’ delay caused by, or attributable to, either the defense or circumstances otherwise beyond the prosecution’s control." This is incorrect, for such matters are to be considered under the second and third factors.²³

[7] Since our adoption of the Barker test in 1991, Alaska courts have not explicitly rejected the prior approach of considering the reason for the delay as part of the initial threshold inquiry, but both this Court in State v. Mouser and the supreme court in State v. Wright calculated the first Barker factor without considering the reason for the delay.²⁴ We recognize that our Court has, in later decisions, continued to use the pre-Mouser accounting method in evaluating length of delay.²⁵ But we have done so without acknowledging the obvious tension with the Barker test, which reserves consideration of the reason for delay until the initial threshold inquiry has been met. In order to hew to our adoption of Barker, we will not rely on this alternative method of accounting in this or future cases.

[8] Here, the total length of delay was more than sufficient to trigger an analysis of the Barker factors. We accordingly conclude that the superior court should have engaged in the "difficult and sensitive balancing process" required by Barker—considering the length of delay, the reason for delay, the defendant’s assertion of their speedy trial right, and prejudice to the...