WALTER PILGRIM, PETITIONER,
v.
HONORABLE MAYNARD F. SWANSON, JR., CIRCUIT JUDGE, SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, RESPONDENT
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A Florida appellate court granted a writ of prohibition vacating a speedy trial extension where a defendant charged in Pinellas County was incarcerated in Hillsborough County. The court held that while Pinellas County knew of the defendant's whereabouts and made unsuccessful efforts to obtain him, those efforts were insufficient under the speedy trial rule to justify the extension.
The court held that under these facts, the defendant was not unavailable for trial and the motion to discharge should have been granted. The charging county's unsuccessful efforts to obtain the defendant through transportation orders were insufficient to toll the speedy trial time, especially where no evidence showed the defendant was legitimately unavailable due to concurrent proceedings in the other county.
[1] A defendant is not considered "unavailable" for trial in a charging county if that county knows of the defendant's incarceration in another county.
[2] A charging county's unsuccessful efforts to obtain a defendant from incarceration in another county do not automatically render the defendant "unavailable" for speedy tri…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“We are presented here with a situation where the charging county knew of the defendant's incarceration in another county (unlike the first line of authority) but did make unsuccessful efforts to obtain the defendant's presence (unlike the second line of authority).”
Describes the novel issue presented by this case falling between two established lines of authority regarding speedy trial unavailability.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceWalter Pilgrim was charged with grand theft in Pinellas County while incarcerated in Hillsborough County on a murder charge. Pinellas County authoriti…
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PER CURIAM.
This petition for writ of prohibition presents a speedy trial scenario which falls midway between two lines of authority and, thus, poses a novel issue. The petition is brought after the denial of a motion for discharge and the granting of an extension of the speedy trial time.
Pilgrim was charged with grand theft in Pinellas County. He also faced a murder charge in Hillsborough County and was incarcerated in the Hillsborough County jail. It is not only undisputed but affirmatively appears from the record that the Pinellas County authorities knew of Pilgrim’s whereabouts at all times during the running of the speedy trial time on the Pinellas County charge. The circuit judge in Pinellas County issued several transportation orders to obtain Pilgrim from the Hillsborough County jail but without success. There are brief remarks of counsel at several hearings in the record indicating that the transportation order was not honored by the Hillsborough County sheriff, based on the order of a Hillsborough County circuit judge.
The case law applying the speedy trial rule to a multiple county situation can be said to involve two lines of authority. On the one hand, if a defendant is charged in one county but incarcerated in another without the knowledge of the first county, no knowledge is imputed to the first county. Therefore, the defendant is considered “unavailable” for trial in the first county within the meaning of rule 3.191(e), Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure. See State v. Rasul, 468 So. 2d 1088 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985); Garnett v. State, 457 So. 2d 1144 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984); Singleton v. Gross, 436 So. 2d 132 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983).
On the other hand, if the charging county has knowledge that the defendant is incarcerated in another county, the defendant is not considered “unavailable” for trial in the charging county. See Walker v. State, 492 So. 2d 772 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986); Tirado v. Reese, 478 So. 2d 883 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985); Robbins v. State, 453 So. 2d 877 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984). In all three of these cases no real effort to obtain the defendant from the place of incarceration in another county was made by the charging county. As stated in Tirado, 478 So. 2d at 885, the county in that case “should have taken steps to produce him in timely fashion.”
We are presented here with a situation where the charging county knew of the defendant’s incarceration in another county (unlike the first line of authority) but did make unsuccessful efforts to obtain the defendant’s presence (unlike the second line of authority).
We are sympathetic to Pinellas County’s dilemma in this case. That its efforts were not successful, however, was through no fault of the defendant.1 Other than the transportation orders which were directed to the Sheriff of Hillsborough County, and a capias, the record does not indicate whether there were any other efforts, such as a formal application for judicial relief in Hillsborough County.2 Thus we are not called upon to decide whether a more substantial, but also unsuccessful, effort to obtain Pilgrim would have sufficed to extend the speedy trial time. We find that under the facts of this case the denial of the motion to discharge was in error. Therefore, we grant the petition and prohibit Pilgrim’s trial on the grand theft charge.
SCHEB, A.C.J., and DANAHY and LEHAN, JJ., concur. . We can envision some circumstances where the refusal of a county to transport a prisoner back to another county for trial would be justified and in which defendant would be considered “unavailable" for trial. If, for example, the defendant had multiple charges with trials set in one county, or was in the midst of a very lengthy trial in that county, the defendant might be said to be "unavailable” for trial in another county during the same time period. In this case, although the murder charge was pending in the county of incarceration, there was no evidence, or even any allegation, that the Hills-borough County murder trial was scheduled or even imminent at the times that Pinellas County issued the transport orders.
. The transcript of the hearing on the motion for discharge does indicate a commendable administrative arrangement between Pasco County and the Chief Judge of Hillsborough County, apparently made as a result of this case, to effectuate the timely transportation of prisoners and prevent what happened in this case.
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Trainer v. Honorable Virginia Gay Broome, 666 So. 2d 1019 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996)…s v. State, 573 So. 2d 185 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991); State v. Dukes, 443 So. 2d 471 (Fla. 5th DCA 1984). The Palm Beach County authorities obviously had knowledge of Trainer’s whereabouts and had the burden of producing him for trial. Pilgrim v. Swanson, 558 So. 2d 176 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990); Walker v. State, 492 So. 2d 772 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986). Accordingly, Trainer’s speedy trial time for the Palm Beach charges commenced when he was booked and had a first appearance on the same on June 20, 1992. Hence, because Trainer…
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Jones v. State, 573 So. 2d 185 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991)…4); State v. Dukes, 443 So. 2d 471 (Fla. 5th DCA 1984). An exception to this general rule exists when the defendant is incarcerated in another county within the state, but no one on behalf of the state knows of his incarceration. Pilgrim v. Swanson, 558 So. 2d 176 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990); State v. Rasul, 468 So. 2d 1088 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985); Garnett v. State, 457 So. 2d 1144 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984) review denied 464 So. 2d 554 (Fla.1985). The state has sufficient notice of an accused’s presence in another county when so…
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Mainwaring v. State, 11 So. 3d 986 (Fla. 5th DCA 2009)…case the trial judge struck Mr. Mainwaring’s speedy trial documents because he deemed the accused to be unavailable for trial. This is not the first time this scenario has been presented to the appellate courts of this state. In Pilgrim v. Swanson, 558 So. 2d 176 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990), virtually the same facts led our sister court in the Second District to describe two lines of cases applying the speedy trial rule to multiple county scenarios. It summed up by saying that: On the one hand, if a defendant is cha…1 / 2
Authorities Cited
- Robbins v. State, 453 So. 2d 877 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984)
- State v. Natal Rasul, 468 So. 2d 1088 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985)
- Tirado v. Reese, 478 So. 2d 883 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985)
- Walker v. State, 492 So. 2d 772 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986)
- Errol Garnett v. State, 457 So. 2d 1144 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984)
- Hammock v. State, 436 So. 2d 132 (Fla. 2d DCA 1982)
- Singleton v. The Honorable Howard Gross, 436 So. 2d 132 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983)