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Leading Cases on Trial Procedure

  • UNITED STATES v. EWELL, 383 U.S. 116 (1966)
    The right to a speedy trial depends upon all the circumstances of the case, including the effect upon the rights of the accused and the rights of society.
     
  • BARKER v. WINGO, 407 U.S. 514 (1972)
    "A defendant's constitutional right to a speedy trial cannot be established by any inflexible rule but can be determined only on an ad hoc balancing basis, in which the conduct of the prosecution and that of the defendant are weighed. The court should assess such factors as the length of and reason for the delay, the defendant's assertion of his right, and prejudice to the defendant. In this case the lack of any serious prejudice to petitioner and the fact, as disclosed by the record, that he did not want a speedy trial outweigh opposing considerations and compel the conclusion that petitioner was not deprived of his due process right to a speedy trial."
     
  • SMITH v. HOOEY, 393 U.S. 374 (1969)
    "Under the Sixth Amendment as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth the State, on petitioner's demand, was required to make a diligent, good-faith effort to bring petitioner to trial in respondent's court."
     
  • SINGER v. UNITED STATES, 380 U.S. 24 (1965)
    "...there is no constitutional impediment to conditioning a waiver of this right on the consent of the prosecuting attorney and the trial judge when, if either refuses to consent, the result is that the defendant is subject to an impartial trial by jury - the very thing that the Constitution guarantees him."
     
  • DUNCAN v. LOUISIANA, 391 U.S. 145 (1968)
    "The penalty authorized for a particular crime is of major relevance in determining whether it is a serious one subject to the mandates of the Sixth Amendment, and it is sufficient here, without defining the boundary between petty offenses and serious crimes, to hold that a crime punishable by two years in prison is a serious crime and that appellant was entitled to a jury trial."
     
  • WILLIAMS v. FLORIDA, 399 U.S. 78 (1970)
    "The constitutional guarantee of a trial by jury does not require that jury membership be fixed at 12, a historically accidental figure. Although accepted at common law, the Framers did not explicitly intend to forever codify as a constitutional requirement a feature not essential to the Sixth Amendment's purpose of interposing  between the defendant and the prosecution the commonsense judgment of his peers."
     
  • RICHMOND NEWSPAPERS, INC. v. VIRGINIA, 448 U.S. 555 (1980)
    The press and public have a right to access criminal trials unless such access would make a fair trial impossible. 

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