State v. Huffine

392 Mont. 103

422 P.3d 102

2018 MT 175

STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Appellee,

v.Lewis Eldon HUFFINE, Defendant and Appellant.

DA 16-0087

Supreme Court of Montana.

Submitted on Briefs: January 3, 2018

Decided: July 17, 2018

For Appellant: Chad Wright, Appellate Defender, Koan Mercer, Assistant Appellate Defender, Helena, Montana

For Appellee: Timothy C. Fox, Montana Attorney General, Jonathan M. Krauss, Assistant Attorney General, Helena, Montana Bruce E. Becker, Park County Attorney, Kathleen Carrick, Deputy County Attorney, Livingston, Montana

Justice Dirk Sandefur delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 Lewis Eldon Huffine appeals the judgment of conviction of the Montana Sixth Judicial District Court, Park County on four counts of felony violation of a protective order. Huffine collaterally challenges the validity of the underlying 2006 protective order and further asserts that pretrial delay denied him a speedy trial in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and Article II, Section 24 of the Montana Constitution. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

¶2 Huffine presents the following issues for review:

1. Did the District Court err by failing to analyze Huffine’s speedy trial claim?

2. Did the District Court err by denying Huffine’s motion to dismiss in which he collaterally challenged the constitutional validity of the 2006 protective order?

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

¶3 In 2006, Toba Lord filed a petition in the Montana 18th Judicial District Court, Gallatin County, for a permanent order of protection against Huffine. The petition alleged that Huffine stalked Lord and her family and sent numerous unwanted communications causing her to fear for their safety. Huffine failed to appear at the show cause hearing on the petition on November 16, 2006, and the court granted the petition and issued a permanent protective order enjoining Huffine from having contact with Lord and her family. On December 22, 2006, Huffine timely appealed and challenged, inter alia , the validity of the protective order on the asserted ground that he did not receive notice of the November 2006 hearing upon which the District Court issued the order. He subsequently filed numerous rambling related pro se motions and petitions. On November 14, 2007, we dismissed the appeal on procedural grounds pursuant to M. R. App. P. 12(1)(f) (2007) due to failure to cite to relevant legal authorities and the pertinent portions of the District Court record upon which he asserted error.

¶4 In spring 2007, while his appeal was still pending, Huffine again sent numerous letters to Lord’s address. In June 2007, the State charged him in the Montana Eighteenth Judicial District Court with one count of stalking and two counts of violating a protective order. At Huffine’s request, the court appointed a public defender to represent him. After the State amended the charges to eight counts of violating a protective order in violation of § 45-5-626, MCA, the matter proceeded to jury trial on January 29, 2009. On the morning of trial, Huffine alleged that the District Court did not have jurisdiction over him, that the court was biased and prejudiced against him, that he had the right to represent himself, that the court unlawfully denied him the right to depose Lord and file legal documents in the case, and that the State failed to provide him with requisite discovery. Later that same day, the court allowed Huffine to leave the courtroom¹ and observe the trial via closed-circuit television from another room. On the second day of trial, Huffine returned to the courtroom but the court later excluded him after he ignored repeated warnings to be quiet and allow his counsel to represent him. Huffine did not challenge the validity of the 2006 protective order in the 2007 criminal proceeding. After the jury convicted him on all eight counts of violating a protective order, Huffine timely appealed, asserting only that his 2009 conviction was invalid on the ground that the District Court denied him his constitutional rights to be personally present and represent himself at trial. In March 2010, we affirmed his 2009 conviction. State v. Huffine , 2010 MT 67N, 355 Mont. 550, 228 P.3d 452.

¶5 Between 2013 and 2015, in continued disregard of the 2006 protective order, Huffine sent four additional letters to Lord. On March 4, 2015, the State charged Huffine in Park County Justice Court with four counts of attempted violation of a protective order in violation of § 45-5-626, MCA. Upon dismissal in Justice Court, the State refiled the charges in District Court on March 19, 2015. After the District Court continued the original April 21st hearing date, Huffine appeared on June 9, 2015, for initial appearance and arraignment. Huffine subsequently filed hundreds of rambling pro se documents challenging the validity of the underlying 2006 protective order due to lack of notice and opportunity to be heard. Lacking pertinent legal citation, cogent legal analysis, and supporting evidentiary showing, Huffine’s filings, liberally construed, are best characterized as motions to dismiss. At various hearings on April 21, June 9, July 14, and September 15, 2015, Huffine continued to orally assert that the underlying protective order was invalid, each time without evidentiary showing or request for an evidentiary hearing.

¶6 At a pretrial conference on September 15, 2015, in opposition to the State’s August 2015 motion for a trial continuance, Huffine orally objected that the requested continuance would violate his constitutional right to a speedy trial. The District Court overruled the objection and granted the requested continuance on the asserted ground that the 200-day trigger for the constitutional speedy trial analysis had yet to elapse. The court set trial for November 19, 2015, 260 days after the State filed the original charges in Justice Court and 245 days after refiling in District Court.

¶7 At trial on November 19, 2015, upon consideration of Huffine’s incessant, unsupported written and oral ramblings, the District Court denied his motions to dismiss on alternative grounds. The court first ruled that Huffine could not, in a subsequent criminal proceeding, collaterally challenge the validity of a protective order previously issued by another court of competent jurisdiction. Additionally, the court ruled that Huffine, in any event, failed to make a threshold evidentiary showing sufficient to support his repeated cursory assertions of procedural error in the 2006 proceeding. Inter alia , Huffine also reiterated his prior and continuing assertion that the November trial date violated his right to a speedy trial. The court advised Huffine to "[f]eel free to raise that in your appeal." The matter ultimately proceeded to trial following which the jury convicted Huffine of four counts of felony violation of a protective order.

¶8 Huffine timely appealed. On appeal, Huffine filed numerous pro se documents that may be liberally construed as motions to set aside the guilty verdicts based on the alleged invalidity of the underlying 2006 protective order. Huffine centrally asserts that the delay between the filing of the original Justice Court charges and subsequent District Court trial violated his constitutional rights to a speedy trial and that the underlying 2006 protective order was invalid ab initio due to lack of notice of the predicate hearing in violation of his federal and state constitutional due process rights.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶9 Whether the pertinent facts manifest a violation of the right to a speedy trial is ultimately a question of law. State v. Steigelman , 2013 MT 153, ¶ 10, 370 Mont. 352, 302 P.3d 396 (citing State v. Ariegwe , 2007 MT 204, ¶ 119, 338 Mont. 442, 167 P.3d 815 ). The standard of review for a district court’s pertinent findings of fact is whether they are clearly erroneous, and we review the district court’s conclusions of law de novo for correctness. Ariegwe , ¶ 119.

DISCUSSION

¶10 1. Did the District Court err by failing to analyze Huffine’s speedy trial claim?

¶11 The Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article II, Section 24 of the Montana Constitution guarantee criminal defendants the right to a speedy trial. In addressing constitutional speedy trial claims, we consider four factors: (1) the length of the delay; (2) the reasons for the delay; (3) the accused’s responses to the delay; and (4) prejudice to the accused as a result of the delay. Ariegwe , ¶¶ 106-13. Under the first factor, a delay between accusation and trial in excess of 200 days is presumptively prejudicial and triggers careful consideration and balancing of the other three factors. Ariegwe , ¶¶ 62, 107, see also City of Billings v. Bruce , 1998 MT 186, ¶ 55, 290 Mont. 148, 965 P.2d 866. The speedy trial clock begins to run upon the filing date of a formal complaint, indictment, or information, or the date of arrest on the original charge, whichever occurs first. Ariegwe , ¶ 42, (citing State v. Larson , 191 Mont. 257, 261, 623 P.2d 954, 957-58 (1981) ); see also United States v. Marion , 404 U.S. 307, 320, 92 S.Ct. 455, 479, 30 L.Ed.2d 468 (1971).

¶12 While we are reluctant to hold a district court in error on a speedy trial claim not raised by a supported motion,² the State acquiesces and concedes on appeal that, in addition to not making pertinent findings on Huffine’s speedy trial objection, the District Court overruled the objection on the basis of an erroneous calculation of pretrial delay (from the date of Huffine’s arraignment), resulting in an erroneous ruling that the 200-day trigger for the speedy trial analysis had yet to elapse. Based on the State’s concession, we hold that the District Court erroneously failed to address Huffine’s speedy trial claim.³

¶13 2. Did the District Court err by denying Huffine’s motion to dismiss in which he collaterally challenged the...