Issues: speedy trial, Rule 600, judicial delay, prosecutorial due diligence, discovery requests related to speedy trial.

In this case, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that a trial court can only rely upon “judicial delay” as a reason to deny a defendant’s Rule 600 motion to dismiss for violations of speedy trial rules only after the Commonwealth has proven that it complied with the due diligence requirements of Pa.R.Crim.P. 600 at all relevant periods throughout the entire case. 

The defendant filed a motion to dismiss the case pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 600 on the day of trial. In his motion, the defendant argued that the Commonwealth failed to exercise due diligence since they did not produce discovery in a timely manner. The trial court denied this motion because the trial court was occupied with another trial and could not have conducted this trial. Then, on the day trial was rescheduled, the Commonwealth produced more discoverable items that were withheld from the defense. The defense then filed another Pa.R.Crim.P. 600 motion. The trial court then denied this second motion for the same reasons as the first motion. 

After litigation in the Superior Court, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided to hear the appeal and enunciated a new Pa.R.Crim.P. 600 standard by adopting Justice Wecht’s concurring opinion in a previous case, Mills. The new standard that was adopted provides that the trial court must first determine that the Commonwealth has acted with due diligence before it can use judicial delay as an excuse to deny a defendant’s motion to dismiss. 

This is important since previously, time would be excluded just because of circumstances beyond the Commonwealth’s control such as the trial court’s busy docket even if the Commonwealth was not prepared to proceed to trial. Instead, the Commonwealth must now show that it is prepared to proceed to trial before a judge will decide if there are circumstances that delayed the prosecution beyond the Commonwealth’s control. After enunciating the correct burden, the Supreme Court held that the Commonwealth did not act with due diligence since they failed to properly provide discovery. This resulted in the dismissal of the defendant’s case.