Orange County judge softens stance on trial delays amid May 10 resumption

With jury trials set to resume May 10, an Orange County federal judge has softened his stance and is allowing a delay he previously rejected as unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney said the “dramatically changed” circumstances in the Central District of California quash any Constitutional concerns about a request from prosecutors to delay a trial for a month.

Carney previously refused delays and instead dismissed five criminal cases because he believes the Central District’s indefinite suspension of trials violated the defendants’ right to a speedy trial.

The judge acknowledged his previous stance in an April 9 order granting a trial continuance in a drug case, saying he “vehemently opposed” the indefinite suspension.

But with the suspension no longer indefinite, Carney said delaying a trial to accommodate the May 10 reconvening of juries is reasonable.

“The most important statutory factor is therefore whether failing to grant a one-month continuance would likely make a continuation of the proceeding impossible or result in a miscarriage of justice. The Court concludes that it would,” Carney wrote in his seven-page order.

Carney in February declined to delay the scheduled April trial for the defendant, Darren McGhee, as part of his stance against the Central District’s indefinite delay.

When prosecutors again asked to delay the trial March 31, McGhee’s lawyer, opposed and cited the same issues Carney cited in his previous dismissals: Jury trials are not impossible, and indefinitely suspending them is unconstitutional.

“Mr. McGhee does not suggest that trying cases during a pandemic is an entirely risk-free proposition. But then, neither is working at a grocery store or stocking shelves at Amazon or policing the streets. The risks of trying cases are real but are also manageable and worth taking. Infection rates are low, mitigation measures are possible and vaccines are being administered apace,” according to the brief by Deputy Federal Public Defender Elena Sadowsky.

Sadowsky in February secured the dismissal of drug, gun and immigration charges against another client, Jose Reyes, after Carney refused to delay the trial.

That’s one of the five cases dismissed by Carney that prosecutors are appealing to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In McGhee’s case, he’s accused of trying to smuggle six kilograms of cocaine in his luggage during a flight from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in November 2019.

Meghann M. Cuniff is a contributor to TimesOC.

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