United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Harry
D. Leinenweber, Judge United States District Court.
Defendant
Gregory Ritter brings a Motion to Compel Prosecution (Dkt.
Nos. 72, 76), a Motion to Suppress (Dkt. No. 75), and a
Motion to Dismiss the indictment for violating the Sixth
Amendment and the Speedy Trial Act (Dkt. No. 78). For the
reasons stated herein, the Motion to Compel and Motion to
Dismiss are denied. The Motion to Suppress is denied in part
as moot and continued in part to the motion hearing date,
which the Court will set at the next status hearing.
I.
BACKGROUND
Defendant
Gregory Ritter (“Ritter”) is accused of robbing a
bank. Magistrate Judge Gilbert issued an arrest warrant for
Ritter on December 20, 2018. (Warrant, Dkt. No. 5.) On
December 27, 2018, FBI agents found Ritter at a hotel in New
York City, where they detained him in the lobby and searched
his two hotel rooms and his vehicle. Ritter signed a document
consenting to the searches. (Signed Consent to Search Form,
Ex. A to Pl.'s Resp., Dkt. No. 79-1.) Ritter has been in
custody since his arrest. During that time, he has undergone
a competency evaluation (Dkt. No. 63), filed many pretrial
motions (See, e.g., Mot. for Dismissal, Dkt. No. 46;
Mot. to Suppress Contents of Hotel Room, Vehicle and Storage
Unit, Dkt. No. 44; and Mot. to Suppress Pictures and Videos,
Dkt. No. 40) and been represented by three different
court-appointed attorneys. Ritter currently has
court-appointed standby counsel and now moves pro se
to compel the prosecution of a man he alleges attacked him at
the Metropolitan Correctional Center, to suppress evidence
obtained during a search of his hotel rooms and vehicles in
New York City, and to dismiss the indictment against him
pursuant to the Speedy Trial Act and the Sixth Amendment.
II.
DISCUSSION
Pro
se complaints and motions are to be construed liberally
and held to less stringent standards than those drafted by
lawyers. Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972).
A.
Motion to Compel Prosecution
Ritter
moves the Court to compel the Government to prosecute a man
who allegedly attacked him at the Metropolitan Correctional
Center in Chicago. However, decisions “to indict,
allege specific charges, or dismiss charges [are] inherently
an exercise of executive power, ” not of judicial
power. United States v. Martin, 287 F.3d 609, 623
(7th Cir. 2002). The judiciary's “check on the
prosecutorial power is a very limited one, ” and the
Court “cannot compel prosecutions.” Id.
For this reasons, Ritter's Motion to Compel Prosecution
is denied.
B.
Motion to Dismiss
1.
Speedy Trial Act
Ritter
further moves to dismiss the indictment for Speedy Trial Act
(the “Act”) and Sixth Amendment violations.
(Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss, Dkt. No. 78.) The Act provides
that an indictment must be filed within 30 days of the date
that the individual was arrested or served with a summons. 18
U.S.C. § 3161(b). It also provides that if a defendant
pleads not guilty, the trial on the indictment must commence
within 70 days of the filing date or the date when the
defendant appears before the Court, whichever date occurs
later. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1). However, the Act provides
several circumstances in which “periods of delay shall
be excluded in computing the time within which an information
or an indictment must be filed, or in computing the time
within which the trial of any such offense must
commence.” 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h). These include
delay resulting from proceedings to determine the mental
competency of the defendant, delay resulting from pretrial
motions, and when there is a finding that justice is served
by the exclusion of time. 18 U.S.C. §§
3161(h)(1)(A), (1)(D), (7)(A). Delays are excludable in the
interest of justice only if the Court makes findings
enumerated in the statute but delays for circumstances
enumerated in §§ 3161(h)(1)-(5) are excluded
automatically without any independent judicial finding.
See Bloate v. United States, 559 U.S. 196, 203
(2010).
Ritter
argues that he never consented in writing to any delays, and
that by law his trial must commence no later than 70 days
from the date of either charges being filed or the
indictment, whichever is later. Because he had been detained
for 270 days as of September 27, 2019, Ritter argues that the
Act requires the Court to dismiss with prejudice the charges
against him.
However,
all the time since Ritter's arraignment on January 28,
2019, has been properly excluded. Time from January 28 to
February 28 was excluded for pretrial motions pursuant to
§ 3161(h)(1)(D). (Dkt. Nos. 32, 39, 40.) Time from
February 28 to May 23 was excluded pursuant to §§
3161(h)(7)(A), (B). (Dkt. Nos. 48, 53, 55). Time from May 23
to July 30 was excluded pursuant to §§
3161(h)(7)(A), (B) and for a mental competency examination
under § 3161(h)(1)(A). (Dkt. Nos. 62, 63.) Time from
July 30 to October 9 was excluded pursuant to §§
3161(h)(7)(A), (B). (Dkt. Nos. 67, 69.) And time from October
9 until the present has been excluded under §
3161(h)(1)(D) for the purpose of considering Ritter's
pretrial motions. (Dkt. Nos. 72, 75, 76, 78.) Thus, all time
since Ritter's arraignment has been properly excluded.
More to
the point, many of these exclusions have been for the purpose
of allowing Ritter time to meet with his multiple
court-appointed attorneys and to give him time to file his
many pro se pretrial motions. Ritter has to date not
made a demand to go to trial under the Act; on the contrary,
Ritter himself has been responsible for the ...