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California
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Criminal Law -Trial -Constitutional Right to a speedy trial
(KLOPFER v. NORTH CAROLINA)

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Criminal Law -Trial -Constitutional Right to a speedy trial
(KLOPFER v. NORTH CAROLINA)

The North Carolina Supreme Court's conclusion - that the right to a speedy trial does not afford affirmative protection against an unjustified postponement of trial for an accused discharged from custody - has been explicitly rejected by every other state court which has considered the question. 4 That conclusion has also been [386 U.S. 213, 220] implicitly rejected by the numerous courts which have held that a nolle prossed indictment may not be reinstated at a subsequent term. 5 [386 U.S. 213, 221]

We, too, believe that the position taken by the court below was erroneous. The petitioner is not relieved of the limitations placed upon his liberty by this prosecution merely because its suspension permits him [386 U.S. 213, 222] to go " whithersoever he will." The pendency of the indictment may subject him to public scorn and deprive him of employment, and almost certainly will force curtailment of his speech, associations and participation in unpopular causes. By indefinitely prolonging this oppression, as well as the " anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation," 6 the criminal procedure condoned in this case by the Supreme Court of North Carolina clearly denies the petitioner the right to a speedy trial which we hold is guaranteed to him by the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

While there has been a difference of opinion as to what provisions of this Amendment to the Constitution apply to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, that question has been settled as to some of them in the recent cases of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), and Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 (1965). In the latter case, which dealt with the confrontation-of-witnesses provision, we said:

" In the light of Gideon, Malloy, and other cases cited in those opinions holding various provisions of the Bill of Rights applicable to the States by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, the statements made in West and similar cases generally declaring that the Sixth Amendment does not apply to the States can no longer be regarded as the law. We hold that petitioner was entitled to be tried in accordance with the protection of the confrontation guarantee of the Sixth Amendment, and that that guarantee, like the right against compelled self-incrimination, is `to be enforced against the States under the Fourteenth Amendment according to the same standards that protect those personal [386 U.S. 213, 223] rights against federal encroachment.' Malloy v. Hogan, supra, 378 U.S., at 10 ." 7

We hold here that the right to a speedy trial is as fundamental as any of the rights secured by the Sixth Amendment. That right has its roots at the very foundation of our English law heritage. Its first articulation in modern jurisprudence appears to have been made in Magna Carta (1215), wherein it was written, " We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right" ; 8 but evidence of recognition of the right to speedy justice in even earlier times is found in the Assize of Clarendon (1166). 9 By the late thirteenth century, justices, armed with commissions of gaol delivery and/or oyer and terminer 10 were visiting the [386 U.S. 213, 224] countryside three times a year. 11 These justices, Sir Edward Coke wrote in Part II of his Institutes, " have not suffered the prisoner to be long detained, but at their next coming have given the prisoner full and speedy justice, . . . without detaining him long in prison." 12 To Coke, prolonged detention without trial would have been contrary to the law and custom of England; 13 but he also believed that the delay in trial, by itself, would be an improper denial of justice. In his explication of Chapter 29 of the Magna Carta, he wrote that the words " We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right" had the following effect:

" And therefore, every subject of this realme, for injury done to him in bonis, terris, vel persona, by any other subject, be he ecclesiasticall, or temporall, free, or bond, man, or woman, old, or young, or be he outlawed, excommunicated, or any other without exception, may take his remedy by the course of the law, and have justice, and right for the injury done to him, freely without sale, fully without any deniall, and speedily without delay." 14 [386 U.S. 213, 225]

Coke's Institutes were read in the American Colonies by virtually every student of the law. 15 Indeed, Thomas Jefferson wrote that at the time he studied law (1762-1767), " Coke Lyttleton was the universal elementary book of law students." 16 And to John Rutledge of South Carolina, the Institutes seemed " to be almost the foundation of our law." 17 To Coke, in turn, Magna Carta was one of the fundamental bases of English liberty. 18 Thus, it is not surprising that when George Mason drafted the first of the colonial bills of rights, 19 he set forth a principle of Magna Carta, using phraseology similar to that of Coke's explication: " [I]n all capital or criminal prosecutions," the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 provided, " a man hath a right . . . to a speedy trial . . . ." 20 That this right was considered fundamental at this early period in our history is evidenced by its guarantee in the constitutions of several of the States of the new nation, 21 [386 U.S. 213, 226] as well as by its prominent position in the Sixth Amendment. Today, each of the 50 States guarantees the right to a speedy trial to its citizens.

The history of the right to a speedy trial and its reception in this country clearly establish that it is one of the most basic rights preserved by our Constitution.

For the reasons stated above, the judgment must be reversed and remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with the opinion of the Court.

It is so ordered.

KLOPFER v. NORTH CAROLINA, 386 U.S. 213 (1967) U.S. Supreme Court Reports

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Smith v. Hooey (1969) 393 U.S. 374, 378-Right to speedy trial
People v Lowe H026889 1/24/05 CA6 Right to speedy trial
Reichardt v. Hoffman (1997) 52 Cal.App.4th 754, 764-765
Bruton v. United States, supra, 391 U.S. 123 [20 L.Ed.2d 476]
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