West v. State

Per Curiam. Andrew West, the appellant, complains of a conviction of being an accessory before the fact of murder in the Criminal Court of Baltimore. His specific complaints are that he was denied the right to a speedy trial and that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the conviction. The appellant was arrested on April 30, 1966, and was indicted without a preliminary hearing by the Grand Jury on July 1st of the same year.

Eight days later West was arraigned and ⁶⁶⁴ counsel was appointed to represent him. On August 2, 1966, the trial date was postponed because Gayheart Cook, who had been charged with the murder for which West was being charged as an accessory before the fact, had not been tried. A further delay was encountered because the State’s Attorney assigned to West’s case was out of the state for approximately three weeks. On the 25th of October, 1966, West’s counsel requested that a trial date be set; the case was set for trial for the 16th of November.

On October 26th the defendant, in proper person, filed a motion for a speedy trial. On November 16th the trial was again postponed at the request of the state over the objection of the defendant because Gayheart Cook had filed a plea of insanity. West’s motion for a speedy trial was not considered at that time. The defendant, in proper person, on November 25th, filed a motion to dismiss.

Early in February of 1967 Cook was returned to Baltimore City Jail after having been examined at the Clifton T. Perkins State Hospital. The hospital authorities reported that Cook was sane at the time of the crime and sane at the time of the examination. West’s attorney requested again that a trial date be set, and the new trial date was set for March 23, 1967. However, the case was withdrawn from the assignment; neither West’s counsel nor the State’s Attorney were aware of this at the time it occurred.

On April 4, 1967, West’s attorney filed a Motion to Dismiss and the following day filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. A hearing on the petition was heard on April 10, 1967, but the writ was denied. The trial, rescheduled for May 4th, was not held on that day but was finally held on May 8, 1967, after his motion for a speedy trial had been denied. Gayheart Cook was convicted on May 4th.

The right to a speedy trial is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States through the Fourteenth Amendment, Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U. S. 213 , 87 S. Ct. 988 , 18 L. Ed. 2d 1 , and by Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, Allen v. State, 1 Md. App. 249 , 229 A. 2d 446 . In State v. Long and Nelson, 1 Md. App. 326 , 230 A. 2d 119 , 122 this court said: “The right to a speedy trial involves a nice balancing of two rights of society—the primary obligation ⁶⁶⁵ to ascertain the