The state appeals the trial court’s order dismissing with prejudice the charges against James McCarter aka Joey Carter.1 The state argues that the trial court erroneously dismissed the charges because the Interstate Agreement on Detainers the “IAD”2 afforded the state 180 days to try McCarter following his complete satisfaction of the IAD’s notification procedures, and that this time period had not expired when the trial court entered its dismissal order. We agree and reverse. “When questions of law are at issue, as here, we owe no deference to the trial court’s ruling and apply the ‘plain legal error’ standard of review.”3 The facts are not in dispute. McCarter was indicted in Fulton County on August 11, 2006, for the crimes of aggravated assault, aggravated battery, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. On August 13, 2010, McCarter, then in federal custody in Florida, filed in the Superior Court of Fulton County a demand for speedy resolution of the pending charges pursuant to the IAD. On September 9, 2010, the Fulton County district attorney asked the federal correctional institute to place a detainer on McCarter. On October 19, 2010, the district attorney and the superior court clerk received, by certified mail, return receipt requested, written notification from McCarter’s custodian in Florida that McCarter was requesting under the IAD disposition of the pending Georgia charges, together with an inmate status certification. The sheriff produced McCarter in Fulton County on March 8, 2011. Noting McCarter’s August 13, 2010 filing with the clerk of the superior court, the trial court entered an order on April 12, 2011, dismissing the charges against McCarter because of the district attorney’s “failure to prosecute the defendant within 180 days.”
The IAD contemplates that if a person is imprisoned in a penal or correctional institution of a party state, and there is pending an untried indictment against him in another party state for which a detainer has been lodged, he shall be brought to trial within one hundred eighty days after he shall have caused to be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer’s jurisdiction written notice of the place of his imprisonment and his request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment, information or complaint, provided that for good cause shown in open court, the prisoner or his counsel being present, the court having jurisdiction of the matter may grant any necessary or reasonable continuance.4 Further,
