Sixth Amendment Speedy Trial Rights and Misdemeanor Citations (Special Attention Prosecutors & Judicial Officers)

By Robert Phillips, Deputy District Attorney (Ret).

Among the rights the Sixth Amendment guarantees to a person accused in a criminal prosecution is the right to a speedy trial.  However, this right does not extend to everyone, even if considered to be a suspect in a criminal case, but only to those considered to be an “accused.” As noted by the U.S. Supreme Court: “On its face, the protection of the [Sixth] Amendment is activated only when a criminal prosecution has begun and extends only to those persons who have been ‘accused’ in the course of that prosecution.” (Italics added; United States v. Marion (1971) 404 U.S. 307, 313.) 

The bounds of this important constitutional protection were tested in the recent Sixth District Court of Appeal case of People v. Buchanan (Nov. 8, 2022) __ Cal.App.5th __ [2022 Cal.App. LEXIS 925].  Defendants Robert Ambrose Buchanan IV and Karen Ginger Downs were issued misdemeanor citations in separate DUI cases, each with scheduled appearance dates, pursuant to Penal Code § 853.6.  The local prosecutorial agency (Santa Cruz County), however, did not proceed on the scheduled dates, letting them expire.  In fact, Santa Cruz County did not file complaints in these cases until nearly a year later, just before the statute of limitations had run. 

The trial court, in a combined hearing for both ....

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