United States v. Cockrane

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. No. 96-4470 JACKIE CLAYTON COCKRANE, Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Shelby. Lacy H. Thornburg, District Judge. (CR-91-90) Submitted: January 23, 1997 Decided: February 10, 1997 Before RUSSELL, WILKINS, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges. _________________________________________________________________ Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. _________________________________________________________________ COUNSEL Charles W. McKeller, Brevard, North Carolina, for Appellant. Mark T. Calloway, United States Attorney, Jerry W. Miller, Assistant United States Attorney, Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellee. _________________________________________________________________ Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c). _________________________________________________________________ OPINION PER CURIAM: Jackie Cockrane appeals from the district court's order revoking his supervised release and sentencing him to twelve months incarcera- tion. We affirm. Cockrane was sentenced in December 1991 to fifteen months imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. Cock- rane began his period of supervised release on January 20, 1993, but absconded from supervision in March 1993. In June 1993, a petition was filed in the district court alleging a violation of supervised release. Cockrane was arrested on state charges in South Carolina the following month, and a detainer was filed with state authorities in October 1993. Although a detainer had been filed, Cockrane was not delivered to the United States Marshal's Service upon his release from his state imprisonment in September 1995--Cockrane was not arrested by the United States Marshal's Service until April 1996. On June 3, 1996, the district court revoked Cockrane's supervised release and sen- tenced him to twelve months imprisonment.* Cockrane claims that the thirty-four-month delay between the filing of the supervised release revocation petition and his initial appearance in district court violated Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(a)(2) and his constitu- tional right to a speedy trial. To show that a delay in disposing of charges violated the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial, a court considers four factors: (1) whether the delay was uncom- monly long; (2) whether the government or the defendant is more to blame for the delay; (3) whether, in due course, the defendant asserted his right to a speedy disposition; and (4) whether the defendant suf- _________________________________________________________________ *Cockrane's imprisonment on state charges tolled the term of super- vised release for 26 months. See 18 U.S.C.§ 3624(e) (1994) ("A term of supervised release does not run during any period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction for a Federal, State, or local crime."). Therefore, Cockrane's term of supervised release would not have expired until March 19, 1998. 2 fered any prejudice as the delay's result. United States v. Thomas, 55 F.3d 144, 148 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 64 U.S.L.W. 3248 (U.S. Oct. 2, 1995) (No. 95-5689). On balance, these factors weigh against Cockrane. Cockrane is to blame for most, if not all, of the delay in this case, and he failed to assert his interest in a speedy disposition. We therefore find that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was not violated. Finally, we find that the seventy-day period between Cockrane's arrest and the revocation hearing was not "unreasonable" within the meaning of Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(a)(2) (requiring a revocation hear- ing to be held "within a reasonable time"). Accordingly, we affirm. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materi- als before the court and argument would not aid the decisional pro- cess. AFFIRMED 3