In United States v. Pikus, 39 F.4th 39 (2d Cir. 2022), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit once again considered the extent to which a multi-year delay from a defendant's indictment to trial is permissible under the Speedy Trial Act. Senior District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York Jed Rakoff, sitting by designation on the Second Circuit, authored the unanimous opinion of the panel, in which Circuit Judges Michael Park and Beth Robinson joined. The Second Circuit held that the district court erred in denying the defendant's multiple motions to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that the three-year delay from his arrest to trial violated the Speedy Trial Act and that the district court judge failed to issue sufficient factual findings to justify the delay. The court's decision in Pikus is the most recent entry in a line of decisions where the Second Circuit has strictly enforced the provisions of the Speedy Trial Act.

The Speedy Trial Act

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides, among other things, that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial." The Speedy Trial Act implements this constitutional right for federally-charged defendants by requiring the government to file an information or indictment within 30 days from the date of a defendant's arrest or service of summons on the defendant. The Speedy Trial Act further provides that the defendant's trial must commence within 70 days from the date the information or indictment is filed or from the date the defendant appears before an officer of the court (i.e., an arraignment) in the court where the charge is pending, whichever is later. If the defendant's trial does not commence within the 70-day timeframe, then the district court judge must dismiss the indictment on motion by the defendant.

Recognizing that, in a number of federal cases presenting complex legal and factual issues or extensive discovery, this timeframe is not feasible, the Speedy Trial Act provides an enumerated set of circumstances where the district court may hold that certain periods of pre-trial time can be excluded for the purposes of calculating the 70-day timeframe. These circumstances include delay resulting from the filing of a pretrial motion and delay resulting from the absence or unavailability of the defendant or an essential witness. The Act further allows the district court to exclude any delay resulting from a continuance on the court's own initiative or on motion of a party, provided that "the judge grant[s] such continuance on the basis of [the judge's] findings that the ends of justice served by taking such action outweigh the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial."