⚡ 10-Second Rule
After arrest or charge, the government must move toward trial; too much unfair delay kills the case forever.
🧒 ELI-10 Scene
Librarian Mr. Patel accuses Ruby of keeping a rare atlas and freezes her library card. Then he does nothing for two years. Ruby asks for her hearing again and again. Meanwhile the desk volunteer who watched Ruby return the atlas moves to Ohio. Finally the head librarian steps in and weighs four things. How long was the wait? Whose fault was it? Did Ruby keep asking? Did the wait hurt Ruby's side of the story? Here all four cut Ruby's way. So the accusation gets erased for good — Mr. Patel doesn't get a second try.
⚖️ Actual Rule
The Sixth Amendment guarantees that "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial." The right attaches at arrest or formal charge, whichever comes first (United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307 (1971)); delay before accusation is policed only by statutes of limitations and due process. Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), rejected fixed deadlines and the demand-waiver rule, adopting a four-factor balancing test: "Length of delay, the reason for the delay, the defendant's assertion of his right, and prejudice to the defendant." No single factor is decisive. Delay approaching one year is generally treated as presumptively prejudicial, triggering full analysis (Doggett v. United States, 505 U.S. 647 (1992)). Deliberate delay weighs heavily against the government, negligence weighs less heavily, and valid reasons such as a missing witness justify appropriate delay. Prejudice includes oppressive pretrial incarceration, anxiety, and — most seriously — impairment of the defense through lost witnesses or faded memories. The remedy for a violation is dismissal of the charges with prejudice, which Barker described as "the only possible remedy" (see also Strunk v. United States, 412 U.S. 434 (1973)). Statutory speedy trial acts — such as the federal Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3161-3174, with its 70-day indictment-to-trial clock — impose separate fixed deadlines, may permit dismissal without prejudice, and are distinct from the constitutional right. [NJ-VARIANT: flagged for future Eli Explains NJ Law module]
ELI-10 translation: the clock starts at arrest or charge, four factors get weighed, and a true violation ends the case permanently.
🔍 Ask These Questions
- Has the clock started — an arrest or a formal charge? (No arrest and no charging papers means no speedy-trial clock yet.)
- Is the delay long enough to trigger the analysis — roughly a year or more? (Short waits don't even open the question.)
- Why the delay — bad faith, negligence, or a good reason? (On-purpose stalling counts hardest against the government.)
- Did the defendant assert the right and demand trial? (Complaining helps; staying silent hurts but doesn't throw the right away.)
- Was the defendant prejudiced — long jail time, anxiety, lost witnesses, faded memories? (A damaged defense is the worst kind of injury.)
- If violated, the case is dismissed with prejudice — and check any statutory deadline separately. (The case ends forever; statutes run their own stopwatch with their own rules.)
⚠️ Bar Trap
Exam language: Examiners start the clock at the date of the crime, or offer remedies short of dismissal — a new trial, sentence credit, or suppression of evidence. The constitutional clock runs only from arrest or formal charge; pre-accusation delay is a statute-of-limitations or due process issue. And the sole constitutional remedy is dismissal with prejudice, barring reprosecution. A companion trap treats a statutory-deadline violation as automatically a constitutional one, or vice versa.
ELI-10: The stopwatch starts at the arrest or the charge, never at the crime. And if the government truly blew it, the case dies — no do-overs, no consolation prizes.
🧪 Question
A defendant was arrested for armed robbery in March and released on bail. He was indicted a month later. Over the next three years, the prosecution obtained six continuances, each time telling the court its office was "backlogged" and had misplaced parts of the file. The defendant filed written demands for trial in the first and second years. During the second year, the defendant's only alibi witness died. When the case was finally set for trial, the defendant moved to dismiss on Sixth Amendment speedy trial grounds.
How should the court rule?
(A) Deny the motion, because delay caused by negligence rather than bad faith cannot violate the Sixth Amendment. (B) Grant the motion and dismiss with prejudice, because the Barker factors weigh in the defendant's favor. (C) Grant the motion, but dismiss without prejudice so the government may re-indict when prepared. (D) Deny the motion, because the defendant was free on bail and therefore suffered no cognizable prejudice.
Answer: (B). A three-year delay is presumptively prejudicial, the reason is government negligence weighed against the prosecution, the defendant repeatedly asserted the right, and the alibi witness's death impaired the defense. All four Barker factors favor the defendant, and the constitutional remedy is dismissal with prejudice.
💡 Why the Wrong Answers Are Wrong
- (A) overstates the rule; negligence still weighs against the government under Barker and Doggett, just less heavily than bad faith.
- (C) borrows the statutory remedy; the constitutional violation requires dismissal with prejudice, not a without-prejudice reset.
- (D) shrinks prejudice to incarceration; impairment of the defense — here, the dead alibi witness — is the most serious form.
- ELI-10: The misconception is thinking the government always gets a do-over. Break the speedy-trial promise badly enough and the case is gone for good.
