STEVE BRYANT V. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
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2005-SC-000194-TG
STEVE BRYANT
V.
DAT`~
APPELLANT
APPEAL FROM CALDWELL CIRCUIT COURT
HON. BILL CUNNINGHAM, JUDGE
NO. 02-CR-000038-001
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
APPELLEE
OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUSTICE ROACH
AFFIRMING
Appellant, Steve Bryant, entered a conditional guilty plea in the Caldwell Circuit
Court to charges of first-degree robbery and first-degree assault . He was sentenced to
ten years in prison for the robbery and eleven years for the assault. Appellant's
sentences were to be served consecutively for a total of twenty-one years in prison .
Pursuant to his conditional guilty plea, Appellant reserved the right to appeal the trial
court's denial of his motion to dismiss . Specifically, he claims the charges against him
should have been dismissed because he was not brought to trial within 180 days
following his request for final disposition of his indictment in accordance with the
Interstate Agreement on Detainers ("IAD"), KRS 440.450 . He appeals to this Court as a
matter of right . Ky. Const. § 110(2)(b) .
I. Background
On June 4, 2002, Appellant was indicted for a robbery and assault that had
occurred in Caldwell County on December 12, 2001 . Sometime after the occurrence of
those crimes, Appellant was incarcerated in the Illinois River Correctional Center
("IRCC") in Canton, Illinois . On July 1, 2002, G .L. Ovey, the Caldwell County
Commonwealth's Attorney, lodged a detainer against Appellant at IRCC based on the
Kentucky indictment .
On or about July 16, 2002, and pursuant to the IAD, IRCC's warden informed
Appellant of the charges that were pending against him in Caldwell County. Appellant
signed and returned to the warden Agreement on Detainers Forms I and 11. Form I gave
Appellant official notice of the Kentucky indictment; his signature on the document
acknowledged that he had received notice . Form II contained Appellant's request for
disposition of the Kentucky charges . IRCC staff sent two separate copies of Appellant's
disposition request, along with other required forms, to Kentucky officials via certified
mail. The first was sent to James S . Miller, the County Attorney for Caldwell County,
and was signed for and received by Miller. The second was addressed to the Clerk of
the Court, Caldwell County and was signed for and received by Betty Holt, a staff
member in the office of the Caldwell County Judge Executive .
In February 2003, the Caldwell County Commonwealth's Attorney's office
requested temporary custody of Appellant in order to bring him to trial on the robbery
and assault charges. On April 30, 2003, Appellant was brought from IRCC to Caldwell
County for the trial. He was arraigned in the Caldwell Circuit Court May 6, 2003 and
was appointed a public defender. Trial was scheduled for August 26, 2003, which
There is some discrepancy as to whether Appellant was notified of the
indictments pending against him on July 16 or July 18 because conflicting dates were
listed on at least one of the forms signed by Appellant . Regardless, the difference
between these dates is of no legal significance to Appellant's argument.
would have been 118 days from the date Appellant was transferred to the
Commonwealth's custody.
On June 10, 2003, Appellant filed a motion to dismiss the charges pending
against him because he had not been brought to trial within 180 days of his request for
final disposition as required by the IAD. Included with Appellant's motion were the IAD
Forms I and II he had executed almost a year earlier, in July 2002. The Commonwealth
contested the motion to dismiss, arguing that Appellant had failed to give notice of his
request for disposition to the appropriate individuals as required by the IAD. The
Commonwealth attached a fax from IRCC which showed certified mail receipts
indicating delivery of Appellant's IAD paperwork to Miller and Holt, as noted above.
Also included with the motion was an affidavit from JoAnn Newsom, the Clerk of the
Caldwell County District and Circuit Courts, which stated that Appellant had not filed any
request for disposition with either of the Caldwell Courts.
The trial court held a hearing on Appellant's motion to dismiss on July 1, 2003.
Appellant introduced additional evidence at the hearing, including a letter from IRCC's
Warden to County Attorney Miller describing the transfer process under the IAD and an
affidavit from Holt describing the way misdirected mail was typically handled within the
office of the Caldwell County Judge Executive . Appellant argued that any error in the
delivery of his disposition request could be attributed to the staff at IRCC and that it
would be unfair to impute that error to him. The Commonwealth argued that Appellant
had failed to comply with the notice provisions of the IAD, specifically that he had not
delivered his disposition request to either (1) the proper "prosecuting officer," in this
case the Caldwell County Commonwealth's Attorney, Glycon L . Ovey, or (2) the
"appropriate court of the prosecuting officer's jurisdiction," in this case the Caldwell
Circuit Court.
The trial court reserved its ruling, allowing the parties five days to supplement the
record regarding Appellant's assertion that the County Attorney's office had actually
forwarded IAD correspondence concerning Appellant to the Commonwealth's Attorney's
office . Despite the extra time, neither party offered any additional evidence and the trial
court issued an order denying the motion to dismiss . Within the order the trial court
noted that there was "no evidence that proper notice was given to the Commonwealth
Attorney who is the appropriate prosecuting officer for this the appropriate Court of
felony jurisdiction in Kentucky." After a motion by the Commonwealth, the trial court
made additional findings of fact concerning Appellant's motion to dismiss. First, the trial
court held that neither Appellant, nor anyone acting on his behalf, filed any IAD
documents with the Caldwell County Circuit Court . Second, the trial court held that the
office of the Caldwell County Judge Executive was not the appropriate office with which
to file IAD paperwork because it did not "perform any judicial function or possess any
judicial authority."
The case proceeded to trial as scheduled on August 26, 2003. The next day,
after three hours of jury deliberations and despite two attempts to vote, the jury
indicated that it had been unable to reach a verdict as to Appellant's guilt or innocence .
The trial court then read the charge provided in RCr 9.57, commonly known as the Allen
charge after Allen v. United States , 164 U .S. 492, 17 S.Ct. 154 (1896), and ordered the
jury to continue deliberations . While the jury continued to deliberate, the parties entered
into plea negotiations. Ultimately, they agreed that Appellant would enter a conditional
guilty plea to the offenses of first-degree robbery and first-degree assault, reserving his
right to appeal the trial court's denial of his motion to dismiss . In exchange, the
Commonwealth's Attorney agreed to recommend a reduced sentence of 10 years for
the robbery and 11 years for the assault, to be served consecutively. After his guilty
plea, Appellant requested immediate sentencing and waived the presentence
investigation report. The trial court sentenced Appellant, consistent with the
Commonwealth's recommendation, to a total of 21 years imprisonment.
11. Analysis
Appellant asks that his conviction be reversed on the grounds that the trial court
improperly denied his motion to dismiss the charges against him . Specifically, he
argues that the Commonwealth's failure to bring him to trial within 180 days of his
request for a disposition of the indictment violated his rights under the IAD, which
requires reversal in such cases. We disagree and affirm Appellant's conviction .
As detailed above, there is no dispute in the record that Appellant requested
disposition of the charges pending against him in July 2002 . Likewise, there is no
dispute that IRCC staff failed to give notice of Appellant's disposition request to the
appropriate officials as required by the IAD. The sole question presented in this case is
whether, in light of these circumstances, the IAD required dismissal of the charges
against Appellant since he was not brought to trial within 180 days of his request for a
disposition of those charges under the statute .
The IAD clearly sets forth the time limits within which a defendant who is subject
to the statute must be tried . The first paragraph of Article III of the IAD, KRS 440.450,
provides :
Whenever a person has entered upon a term of imprisonment in a penal
or correctional institution of a party state, and whenever during the
continuance of the term of imprisonment there is pending in any other
party state any untried indictment, information or complaint on the basis of
which a detainer has been lodged against the prisoner, he shall be
brought to trial within one hundred eighty (180) 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 . . . .
Paragraph three of Article V of the IAD also sets forth that dismissal is the required
remedy when a defendant is not brought to trial within the prescribed period :
If the appropriate authority shall refuse or fail to accept temporary custody
of said person, or in the event that an action on the indictment, information
or complaint on the basis of which the detainer has been lodged is not
brought to trial within the period provided in Article III or Article IV hereof,
the appropriate court of the jurisdiction where the indictment, information
or complaint has been pending shall enter an order dismissing the same
with prejudice, and any detainer based thereon shall cease to be of any
force or effect.
Despite the clearly-stated time limits, there is arguably some ambiguity in the statutory
language describing what is necessary to trigger the 180-day limit. The IAD states that
a defendant "shall be brought to trial within one hundred eighty (180) 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 . . . ." KRS 440 .450(Art . 111)(1) . Here, by informing the IRCC warden of his
request for a final disposition of the Kentucky indictment, Appellant did all that was
required of him under the IAD. At the same time, it is unquestioned that IRCC's staff
failed to transmit Appellant's request to the appropriate parties, a function they are
required to perform under the IAD.
The only Kentucky Supreme Court case to address this precise issue is Lovitt v.
Commonwealth, 592 S.W.2d 133 (Ky. 1980) . Although the facts underlying that case
are not clearly set out in the opinion, the Court reversed the conviction of a defendant,
reasoning that he "did all that the statute required of him to secure a prompt trial as
defined in the statute ." Id. at 134. In reaching this decision, the Court adopted the
reasoning of the Delaware Supreme Court which had stated in a similar case: "The
burden of compliance with the procedural requirements of the IAD rests upon the party
states and their agents; the prisoner, who is to benefit by this statute, is not to be held
accountable for official administrative errors which deprive him of that benefit." Pittman
v. State, 301 A.2d 509, 514 (Del. 1973), superseded by statute , Del. Code Ann . tit. 11, §
2542(g) .
This is essentially the same position advanced by Appellant . In his reply brief
Appellant quotes extensively from Pittman and states that its "reasoning was adopted
by this Court in Lovitt, supra , and it stands as a statement of the law of this
Commonwealth." But this argument ignores controlling case law on this subject, in
particular, the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Fex v. Michigan , 507 U .S . 43,
113 S .Ct. 1085, 122 L .Ed.2d 406 (1993).2 The Kentucky Court of Appeals
'Although the IAD is enacted at KRS 440.450, it is nevertheless a federal law
and is subject to federal construction under Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the United
States Constitution (also known as the Compact Clause) . See Cuyler v. Adams, 449
U.S . 433, 438-42, 101 S.Ct. 703, 706-09, 66 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981). "[W]here Congress
has authorized the States to enter into a cooperative agreement, and where the subject
matter of that agreement is an appropriate subject for congressional legislation, the
consent of Congress transforms the States' agreement into federal law under the
Compact Clause ." Id. at 440. "In the case of the detainer agreement, Congress gave its
consent in advance by enacting the Crime Control Consent Act of 1934. . . ... Id. at 441 .
"Because this Act was intended to be a grant of consent under the Compact Clause and
because the subject matter of the act is an appropriate subject for congressional
acknowledged as much in Wright v. Commonwealth , 953 S.W.2d 611 (Ky. App. 1997),
wherein it noted that Fex
impliedly overrul[ed] Lovitt by holding that the 180-day time period in
Article III of the IAD did not commence until the prisoner's request for final
disposition of the charges against him had actually been delivered to the
court or prosecuting officer of the jurisdiction that had lodged the detainer
against him.
Wright, 953 S.W.2d at 615 . We agree with the Court of Appeals' analysis and note that
our decision in Lovitt has been overruled to the extent that it would compel a different
result than would the Supreme Court's opinion in Fex.
Although the facts of Fex are slightly different than in this case, the rule it
announced nevertheless dictates the result in this case . In Fex, a detainer was filed by
Michigan authorities against a prisoner in Indiana custody . On September 7, 1988, after
being informed of the detainer, the prisoner requested disposition of the Michigan
charges. On September 26, 1988, the prisoner's disposition request was delivered to
the appropriate authorities in Michigan . After being transferred to Michigan custody, the
prisoner was brought to trial on March 22, 1989, 177 days after his disposition request
was received by Michigan authorities but 196 days after the prisoner had given the
request to Indiana prison authorities . Predictably, the prisoner argued that his case
should be dismissed under the IAD since he was not tried within 180 days of delivering
his disposition request to Indiana prison officials. The Supreme Court summarized the
issue:
The outcome of the present case turns upon the meaning of the phrase, in
Article 111(a), "within one hundred and eighty days after he shall have
legislation, we conclude that the Detainer Agreement is a congressionally sanctioned
interstate compact the interpretation of which presents a question of federal law." Id . at
441-42 .
caused to be delivered ." The issue, specifically, is whether, within the
factual context before us, that phrase refers to (1) the time at which
petitioner transmitted his notice and request . . . to the Indiana correctional
authorities; or rather (2) the time at which the Michigan prosecutor and
court . . . received that request.
Fex, 507 U.S. at 47 .
Despite the key factual distinction between this case and Fexthat Appellant's
request was never actually received by the appropriate authorities in Caldwell County
whereas the prisoner's disposition request in Fex was received by both the prosecutor
and the courtthe Supreme Court's opinion clearly addresses the issue we are faced
with here:
[Michigan] argues that no one can have "caused something to be
delivered" unless delivery in fact occurs. That is self-evidently true, and so
we must reject petitioner's contention that a prisoner's transmittal of an
IAD request to the prison authorities commences the 180-day period even
if the request gets lost in the mail and is never delivered to the "receiving"
State (i.e., the State lodging the detainer, see Article II(c)).
Id . at 47-48 (internal footnotes omitted) . The Supreme Court went on to hold "that the
180-day time period in Article III(a) of the IAD does not commence until the prisoner's
request for final disposition of the charges against him has actually been delivered to
the court and prosecuting officer of the jurisdiction that lodged the detainer against him."
Id. at 52.
In light of this holding, Appellant's conviction and sentence must be affirmed .
The trial court conducted a hearing on Appellant's motion to dismiss prior to trial and
specifically found that his disposition request was never delivered to either the Caldwell
County Commonwealth's Attorney or to the Caldwell Circuit Court. As such, the 180day time limit imposed by the IAD never began to run because neither the prosecutor
nor the court was ever informed of Appellant's request for disposition of the charges .
The judgment of the Caldwell Circuit Court is affirmed .
All concur.
COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT:
Thomas M . Ransdell
Assistant Public Advocate
Department of Public Advocacy
100 Fair Oaks Lane - Suite 302
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE :
Gregory D. Stumbo
Attorney General
Kevin Ricky Branscum
Assistant Attorney General
Office of Criminal Appeals
1024 Capital Center Drive
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601-8204
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