UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CARLOS DASHAWN BROWN - Articles

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CARLOS DASHAWN BROWN

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Apr 30, 2024

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ON BRIEF: Kevin M. Schad, FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant.

Attorneys 2: ON BRIEF: Justin Seabury Gould, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Judge(s): SILER, NALBANDIAN, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Cleveland

SILER, Circuit Judge. Like any other criminal defendant, Carlos Brown has a right to be brought to trial within seventy days of his arraignment—absent, of course, the Speedy Trial Act’s laundry list of exclusions. 18 U.S.C. § 3161 et seq. Yet Brown alleges that, in the 1,176 days between his arraignment and his guilty plea, his right to a speedy trial was twice violated. Either violation would warrant the dismissal of his indictment. We consider whether these violations were covered by the Act’s exclusions. Id. § 3161(c)(1), (h)(1).

The first violation involved a thirty-six-day delay in transporting Brown from Ohio to the Federal Medical Center (“FMC”), Lexington for his competency evaluation. This delay, according to the district court, was excludable. It denied Brown’s motion to dismiss. The second violation involved a twenty-one-day period after the denial of Brown’s first motion to dismiss. Again, the district court denied Brown’s motion to dismiss. It instead entered a twenty-one-day retroactive ends-of-justice continuance. We find that the district court erred in denying both motions, vacate his conviction, and remand to the district court to determine whether his indictment should be dismissed with or without prejudice.

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