United States v. Bradford Burt, United States of America v. William L. Dennis, United States of America v. Roy Dean Snarr and James F. Rounsavall

The defendants (Bradford Burt, William L. Dennis, James F. Rounsavall, and Roy Dean Snarr) bring this pretrial appeal from the denial of their motion to dismiss based on vindictive prosecution grounds. In an order filed April 21, 1980, we summarily affirmed the denial of their motion so that the trial could proceed. This opinion explains our reasons for affirming.

I. BACKGROUND

In early 1979, various California state law enforcement agencies began the investigation which eventually led to the indictments in the present case. The investigation was conducted exclusively by state officers through the use of state facilities and state search warrants. The California Department of Justice Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement (BNE), supervised the investigation.

This investigation revealed evidence of a large-scale drug manufacturing and distributing operation. The defendants allegedly operated three different laboratories for manufacturing amphetamine. One was located in Corona, California, one was near Hinkley, California, and the other was in Palm Springs, California. The indictment alleges that approximately 26 pounds of amphetamine was manufactured at the Hinkley lab, and another 26…