unit 6 assignment 7

Part 1 respond to stated discussion question and 2 classmates

Stated question

The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is a very prominent amendment and contains several key words that the defendant must be aware of when under investigation and while being questioned by law enforcement. One of the key factors of the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is the right to a speedy trial. Cases have been heard at the Supreme Court level regarding violations by police, law enforcement, and other judicial organizations to individuals.

Based on your readings from this unit, identify a case from the Sixth Amendment regarding speedy trial rights, and explain how the case was dismissed/rejected because of a failure to meet the requirements for a speedy trial. Further, provide a four-to eight-sentence synopsis of the case, and explain why it is important to have a speedy trial provision.

Note: Please be sure to choose a different case than one of your classmates. There are a multitude of cases that directly correlate with this amendment.

Please include the name of the person or question to which you are replying in the subject line. For example, “Tom’s response to Susan’s comment.”

Classmate 1 Yolanda

United States v. Lovasco, 431 U.S. 783 (1977)

United States v. Lovasco

No. 75-1844

Argued March 21-22, 1977

Decided June 9, 1977

431 U.S. 783

On March 6, 1975, federal prosecutors indicted Eugene Lovasco for the possession of stolen firearms and for dealing in firearms without a license. The indictment alleged that Lovasco committed the offenses between July 25 and August 31, 1973. More than 18 months before the prosecutors filed the indictment had passed. Lovasco moved to dismiss the indictment because the delay was unnecessary and prejudicial to his defense, by this time two of his witnesses had already died. The district court found that the government had collected all the necessary information and evidence needed to indict Lovasco within a month of the alleged commission of crimes. He was granted the motion to dismiss because the District Court found that the delay had not been explained or justified, and was unnecessary and prejudicial to respondent. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed (Oyez, 2020).

I believe this ruling was fair because holding a person for 18 months after federal criminal offenses were alleged to have occurred, respondent was indicted for committing them. There was little or no additional information developed in the following 17 months. They claimed that the preindictment delay was due to material defense testimony being lost, this delay deprived him of due process. The Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that the delay was based solely on the Governments hope of finding more participants in the crime. Holding someone for 18 months to do so was unjustified.

Reference

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/431/78…

United States v. Lovasco. (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved March 22, 2020, from https://www.oyez.org/cases/1976/75-1844

Classmate 2 Karrie

The case I am going to go over is Dickey v. Florida. On the morning of June 28, 1960, Clark’s motor court in Quincy Florida was robbed by an armed robber the victim Give the police an eyewitness account of what happened. All of this is going on Robert Dickie was taken into custody for federal bank robbery charges. The description of Mrs. Clark gave deputy Martin was similar to Robert Dickey when he showed her the picture of Mr. Dickey, Mrs. Clark stated that Dickey was the person who robbed her. Mr. Dickie still had the federal bank robbery charges against him and was placed into Federal custody being held at Leavenworth and then Alcatraz. (Dickey v. Florida, 1970) it is at this time that Deputy Martin decided to get a detainer for Dickey. After two years, there was still no progress when it came to the case. Mr. Dickie requested that either he is extradited to Florida, so his trial to take place or the charges be dropped due to a violation of his Sixth Amendment for a speedy trial. All his filings were denied, and he still was waiting for his trial. It then moved to the Florida supreme court, where it rejected the states’ claim that a person incarcerated for one crime has no right to demand his constitutionally guaranteed right to a speedy trial and another charge. (Dickey v. Florida, 1970) Seven years after the initial commission of the crime, there was still no trial that took place. Dickey was returned to Florida in 1968, his trial began, and it was apparent that the lone witness had memory issues. She could remember identifying Dickey as the robber, but much of anything else was hazy. Even with this, Mr. Dickey was convicted of the crime and was sentenced to ten years in prison. Mr. Dickey challenged his conviction stating that his 6th amendment right to a speedy trial was violated, having waited eight years to get a trial despite Mr. Dickey being available the entire time. The Supreme Court declared that being incarcerated does not make the accused unavailable since they can obtain custody of a prisoner being held by another jurisdiction (Dickey v. Florida, 1970) because of this Mr. Dickey’s conviction was overturned.
This is one of the most critical provisions in regard to the 6th Amendment. Without this clause, cases like Dickey v. Florida would be ongoing and not have a date. Anyone who has been apart of a trial either as a victim or suspect knows how draining the process is. Imagine if it went on with no end in sight. This provision can bring relief to those so that there can be an end to the process.

References
Dickey v. Florida, 398 U.S. 30 (1970)

Part 2

In today’s era, the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution assures every citizen the right to counsel, a speedy trial, access to witnesses, and an impartial jury.

There are a number of threats to providing an impartial jury, especially in cases that are well known to the media.

Identify what options are available to the courts to ensure the fundamental fairness that may be threatened by media exposure.
Explain potential threats that exist when trying to protect the rights of the accused from a media frenzy.
In a world that seems to record everything, describe how that presents an additional challenge to due process?
Identify one other threat to due process and successfully providing an impartial trial.

For this assignment, please write a two-page paper that addresses the questions posed above. Further, research three recent or historical cases about the Sixth Amendment.

You must be sure to provide a full synopsis of each case to support your viewpoints and statements about challenges to due process.

Choose the single most important aspect of the Sixth Amendment and defend your position about why it is the most importantâ€”be sure to include a discussion of what would be the impact if that aspect was omitted from the Sixth Amendment.

You must follow APA guidelines for the citation of your sources, both in-text and on your reference page.