Appeal
from the Superior Court, Fourth Judicial District, Fairbanks,
Bethany S. Harbison, Judge. Trial Court No. 4FA-14-318 CR
Timothy W. Terrell, Assistant Attorney General, Office of
Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney
General, and James E. Cantor, Acting Attorney General,
Juneau, for the Appellant.
Dan S.
Bair, Assistant Public Advocate, Appeals and Statewide
Defense Section, and Richard Allen, Public Advocate,
Anchorage, for the Appellee.
Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock,
Superior Court Judge. [*]
OPINION
ALLARD
JUDGE
This
appeal requires us to construe Alaska Criminal Rule 45(c)(3)
and to clarify when criminal offenses arise from the
"same criminal episode" for purposes of determining
a defendant's speedy trial rights under Criminal Rule 45.
Relevant
facts
Responding
to a tip about drug dealing at a local gas station, an Alaska
State Trooper observed Timothy Santa Baker drive up to a gas
pump and a woman get into Baker's vehicle. The trooper
then watched as Baker drove his car across the parking lot
and parked next to another parked vehicle. Once there, Baker
interacted with the woman and another man outside of the two
vehicles.
After
observing this activity, the trooper approached Baker and the
two other people and requested their identifications. In
response, Baker fled the scene on foot, abandoning his phone
and several small plastic bags filled with a white powdery
substance along the way. (The police later collected the
plastic bags and field-tested their contents, which tested
presumptively positive for cocaine.)
The
trooper gave immediate chase to Baker and eventually caught
him. After discovering that Baker was on bail release and
that his driver's license was revoked, the trooper
arrested Baker and charged him with the following misdemeanor
offenses: driving while license revoked, violating the
conditions of his release, and disorderly conduct. (The
disorderly conduct charge was later dismissed at
arraignment.) Baker was not charged with any drug-related
crimes at that time.
Approximately
three months after his arrest, Baker pleaded guilty to the
driving while license revoked charge, and the State dismissed
the remaining violating conditions of release charge. In the
interim, the State obtained a search warrant for Baker's
mobile phone, which revealed evidence that he was engaged in
drug distribution. The State also sent the white powder for
further testing at the crime lab, and the lab confirmed that
the white powder was cocaine.
Approximately
four months after Baker's initial arrest, and one month
after Baker pleaded guilty to the driving while license
revoked charge, the State indicted Baker for third-degree
misconduct involving a controlled substance (possessing
cocaine with intent to distribute).[1]
Approximately
a year into the pretrial litigation of the drug charge,
Baker's defense attorney moved to dismiss the indictment,
arguing that the drug charge arose from "the same
criminal episode" as the driving while license revoked
charge and therefore, under Alaska Criminal Rule 45(c)(3),
the speedy trial time for the drug charge began running when
the earlier charges were served on Baker.
The
superior court agreed with the defense attorney that the
driving while license revoked charge and the felony drug
charge arose out of the same criminal episode. In its written
order explaining its decision, the superior court
acknowledged that there was no evidentiary or elemental
overlap between the two charges. But the court concluded that
the two charges nevertheless arose from the "same
criminal episode" for purposes of calculating
Baker's speedy trial time under Criminal Rule 45(c)(3)
because Baker's act of driving across the parking lot
helped facilitate the drug deal. Based on this purported
causal relationship, the court concluded that the speedy
trial time for the drug charge had already run, and the court
therefore dismissed the felony drug indictment with prejudice
under Criminal Rule 45(g).
The
State now appeals that dismissal.
The
definition of "same criminal episode " under
Criminal Rule 45(c)(3)
Alaska
Criminal Rule 45 governs a defendant's statutory right to
a speedy trial under Alaska law. Under Criminal Rule 45(b),
the State is required to try a criminal defendant within 120
days after the day that the charging document is served on
the defendant - subject to certain statutory exceptions that
toll the running of the speedy trial time
period.[2]
Criminal
Rule 45(c)(3) addresses situations in which the State files a
new charge that arises out of "the same criminal
episode" as the original charge. This provision
declares, in pertinent part,
[t]he Rule 45 commencement date for a new charge arising out
of the same criminal episode shall be the same as the
commencement date for the original charge, unless the
evidence on which the new charge is based was not available
to the prosecution on the commencement date for the original
charge.[3]
The
provision further provides, that if the evidence for the new
charge arising out of the same criminal episode was
not available at the time the original charges were
filed, and the State can show that it was diligent in
investigating and bringing the new charge, then the Rule 45
speedy trial time is calculated from the time the new charge
was filed.[4]
Criminal
Rule 45(c)(3) - and, in particular, the term "same
criminal episode" - is derived from former Standard
12-2.2 of the American Bar Association's Standards for
Criminal Justice.[5] As the Commentary to that Standard
explains, the purpose of applying the same speedy trial
calculation to all charges arising from the "same
criminal episode" is to ensure that the prosecution is
not penalized "simply because the defendant is being
held to answer on an unrelated offense," while the
defendant does not lose the benefit of a speedy trial
"simply because the offense charged ... differs somewhat
from the offense for which the defendant is being held to
answer."[6]As the Commentary also clarifies, the
speedy trial protection granted to charges "arising out
of the same criminal episode" is distinct from the due
process protections that exist to protect defendants from the
more general problem of pre-accusation prosecutorial
delay.[7]
The
former ABA standard refers to charges "based on the same
conduct or arising from the same criminal
episode."[8] The Commentary explains that the term
"same conduct" covers "those cases where
several offenses arise out of the same act, [such] as where a
defendant recklessly operates an automobile and kills two
persons."[9] Likewise, the term "same criminal
episode" covers those situations involving multiple but
related criminal acts such as "the simultaneous robbery
of seven individuals," "the killing of several
people with successive shots from a gun," "the
successive burning of three pieces of property," or
"such contemporaneous and related crimes as burglary and
larceny, or kidnapping and robbery."[10]
Alaska
appellate court decisions have also provided further guidance
on when criminal offenses should be considered as
"arising from the same criminal episode" for
purposes of the speedy trial calculation under Rule 45(c)(3).
[11]
In State v. Dunten, this Court summarized the prior
Alaska case law and identified the governing principle as
follows:
No Alaska speedy trial case has found separate charges to
arise from the same criminal episode merely because they
occurred simultaneously or at closely related times. In each
case, some additional similarity between the initial and
later charges - either a causal link or a close evidentiary
or elemental "nexus" - has justified the finding of
a single criminal episode.[12]
Thus,
under Alaska law, criminal offenses that occur within close
temporal proximity to one another should be considered as
arising out of the "same criminal episode" for
purposes of calculating the defendant's speedy trial time
only when there is a close elemental or evidentiary overlap
between the charged offenses or when there is a causal link
that directly connects the commission of one criminal offense
to the other offense - such as exists in the
"contemporaneous and related crimes of burglary and
larceny, kidnapping and robbery" mentioned in the ABA
commentary. Other jurisdictions with speedy trial rules
modeled on the same ABA standard use similar
formulations.[13]
After
articulating this standard in Dunten, we then
applied it to the facts of that case.[14]Dunten involved a woman who shot her husband
following an argument in a parked car.[15] Prior to the
shooting and immediately after the shooting, Dunten (who was
intoxicated) drove the car.[16] Dunten was arrested and
prosecuted for driving while under the
influence.[17] However, the State did not charge Dunten
with the murder of her husband until eighteen months
later.[18] Dunten moved to dismiss the murder
indictment under Criminal Rule 45, arguing that the
State's delay in bringing that charge violated her speedy
trial rights under that rule.[19] Dunten argued that the driving
while under the influence charge and the murder charge both
arose out of the "same criminal episode" and
therefore the speedy trial time for the murder charge began
running when the DUI charge ...