# Dickey v. Florida

> Supreme Court of the United States · May 25, 1970 · 398 U.S. 30

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9424266

## Case

- **Full name:** Dickey v. Florida
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** May 25, 1970
- **Citations:** 398 U.S. 30; 90 S. Ct. 1564; 26 L. Ed. 2d 26; 1970 U.S. LEXIS 38
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Harlan
- **Judges:** Burger, Harlan, Brennan, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 709 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9424266

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding that incarceration does not make a defendant unavailable “since there have long been means by which one jurisdiction ... can obtain custody of a prisoner held by another” for purposes of a criminal trial
- holding that a federal detainee against whom only a Florida arrest warrant and detainer were filed in mid-1960 had a constitutional right upon demand to have Florida make a diligent good-faith effort to try him
- holding that “an accused cannot sustain a speedy-trial claim when delay results from his . . . making dilatory pleadings or motions, failing to object when a continuance is granted the government, . . .”
- finding a Sixth Amendment speedy trial violation notwithstanding the State’s argument that petitioner was in federal and state custody during the entire delay
- reasoning that a defendant may be “disentitled to the speedy-trial safeguard in the case of a delay for which he has, or shares, responsibility”

## Opinion text

Me. Justice Harlan,
concurring.
I join the Court's opinion with the following reservation and comment.
I think that claims such as those of the petitioner in this case, arising out of a state proceeding, should be *39 judged by the principles of procedural fairness required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and not by “incorporating” or “absorbing” into the Fourteenth Amendment the “speedy trial” provision of the Sixth Amendment. See my concurring opinion in Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U. S. 213, 226 (1967), and my separate opinion in Smith v. Hooey, 393 U. S. 374, 383 (1969). This reservation reflects the hope that some day the Court will return to adjudicating state criminal cases in accordance with the historic meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, see, e. g., my dissenting opinion in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 171 (1968).
However, whether it be the Due Process Clause or the Sixth Amendment that is deemed to apply, I fully agree that petitioner’s federal constitutional rights were violated by Florida’s actions in this instance.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9424266. Public record. Not legal advice.