Justices accept case involving the right to a speedy trial (Oct. 1, 2008)

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that examines the right to a speedy trial for a poor individual who is being represented by a public defender.

Michael Brillon was charged with felony domestic assault for striking his girlfriend in July 2001. Since Brillon had three prior felony convictions, he was also charged as a habitual offender, making him eligible for a life sentence. Three years after being charged, a jury in June 2004 found Brillon guilty, and he was sentenced to 12 to 20 years.

Brillon spent those three years in jail without bail. The prosecution argued that he delayed the case by seeking to dismiss six lawyers and create conflicts that might lead to dismissal of the case.

Brillon contends that his first attorney announced he was unprepared for trial because of his heavy caseload before he fired him, and that lawyers assigned “subsequently did little or nothing to bring the case to trial.”

In March 2008, the Vermont Supreme Court held that delay in bringing the case to trial had violated Brillon’s rights.

“When, as in this case, a defendant presses for, but is denied, a speedy trial because of the inaction of assigned counsel or a breakdown in the public defender system,” Justice Denise R. Johnson wrote for the majority, “the failure of the system to provide the defendant a constitutionally guaranteed speedy trial is attributable to the prosecution, and not defendant.”

In asking the Supreme Court to review the case, the state called the ruling “a first in the history of American jurisprudence.”

“In what appears to be a first in the history of American jurisprudence, the Vermont Supreme Court has vacated a felony conviction and barred a retrial due to speedy trial right violations that were caused solely by the defendant and his public defender(s),” the brief states.

On Oct. 1, 2008, the Supreme Court accepted the case for review.

Question presented: Whether delays caused by a public defender can deprive a criminal defendant of his right to a speedy trial.