Wesley William Walter v. United States

Although the petitioner, Wesley William Walter, and his co-defendants raised the identical speedy trial act claim on their separate appeals from their criminal convictions on narcotics offenses, we held that Walter’s claim lacked merit but reached the opposite conclusion in his codefendants’ case. As a result, we affirmed Walter’s conviction and reversed his codefendants’. The instant appeal raises the question of whether a federal prisoner may remedy such disparate treatment by means of collateral attack. We conclude he may.

I

Walter was charged with the offenses relevant to the instant appeal on June 12, 1986. The indictment was voluminous; it included 56 counts and named 33 defendants, including Walter, Leslie Roy Jordan, and Ronald Bernard Croft. The Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3161 et seq., ordinarily requires that a defendant be tried within 70 days of a filing of an indictment or information, or the first appearance before a judge or a magistrate. 18 U.S.C. § 3161 (c)(1). In exceptional cases, however, the act allows delay in excess of 70 days. Specifically, it contains certain exclusions that toll the running of the 70 day period. Relevant to this case is the exclusion…