Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Charvez Brooks, Petitioner v. United States

No.________

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

October Term 2025

________________________________________________________________

Charvez Brooks,

Petitioner,

v.

United States of America,

Respondent.

________________________________________________________________

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

Petition for Writ of Certiorari

________________________________________________________________

MEGHAN S. SKELTON

Counsel of Record

SKELTONLAW, LLC

P.O. Box 308

Cabin John, MD 20818

(240) 425-2280

meghan@skelton.law

Attorney for Petitioner

___________________________________________________________________________

Question Presented

Whether the Speedy Trial Act’s “ends of justice” provision, 18 U.S.C. §

3161(h)(7)(A), permits open-ended continuances that lack a definite termination date,

like in the First, Third, Sixth, and Tenth Circuits, or instead requires any ends-ofjustice continuance to exclude time only for a specifically bounded period supported

by contemporaneous findings, as the Second and Ninth Circuit hold.

List of Parties

All parties to the proceedings are listing in the caption of the case.

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Table of Contents

Page

Question Presented......................................................................................................... i

List of Parties ................................................................................................................. i

Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... ii

Table of Authorities ...................................................................................................... iii

Opinions Below ............................................................................................................. 1

Jurisdiction .................................................................................................................... 1

Constitutional and Statutory Provisions Involved ....................................................... 1

Statement of the Case ................................................................................................... 2

Reasons for Granting the Petition ................................................................................ 4

The Court Should Grant Review to Resolve an Explicit And Deep Circuit

Split Regarding “Ends of Justice” Continuances Under the Speedy Trial

Act ............................................................................................................................. 4

A.

The Circuits are squarely and durably split on whether “ends of

justice” continuances may be open-ended................................................. 5

B.

The Speedy Trial Act requires procedural strictness, which

forecloses open-ended continuances.......................................................... 7

C.

This Case cleanly presents this pure question of law and is an

excellent vehicle to resolve the conflict ..................................................... 9

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 9

ii

Table of Authorities

Cases

United States v. Brooks,

734 F. Supp. 3d (D. Md. 2024) ........................................................................... 4, 7

United States v. Didier,

542 F.2d 1182 (2d Cir. 1976) .................................................................................. 6

United States v. Iaquinta

674 F.2d 260 (4th Cir. 1982) ................................................................................... 7

United States v. Jordan,

915 F.2d 563 (9th Cir. 1990) ............................................................................... 5, 6

United States v. Jones,

56 F.3d 581 (5th Cir. 1995) ..................................................................................... 6

United States v. Lattany,

982 F.2d 866 (3d Cir. 1992) .................................................................................... 6

United States v. Pollock,

726 F.2d 1456 (9th Cir. 1984) ................................................................................. 6

United States v. Richardson,

681 F.3d 736 (6th Cir. 2012) ................................................................................ 5, 6

United States v. Rush,

738 F.2d 497 (1st Cir. 1984) ................................................................................... 6

United States v. Sabino,

274 F.3d 1053 (6th Cir. 2001) ................................................................................. 6

United States v. Spring,

80 F.3d 1450 (10th Cir. 1996) ................................................................................. 6

United States v. Twitty,

107 F.3d 1482 (11th Cir. 1997) ............................................................................... 6

United States v. Woolfolk,

399 F.3d 590 (4th Cir. 2005) ................................................................................... 7

Zedner v. United States,

546 U.S. 489 (2006) ......................................................................................... 6, 7, 8

iii

Statutes

18 U.S.C. § 922(g) ........................................................................................................ 2

18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1) ................................................................................................... 5

18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1) .................................................................................................. 2

18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1)(B) .............................................................................................. 2

18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(A) .......................................................................................... 2, 7

18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2) .................................................................................................. 5

28 U.S.C. § 1254(1) ...................................................................................................... 1

iv

Petition for Writ of Certiorari

Charvez Brooks respectfully petitions for a writ of certiorari to review the

judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in this case.

Opinions Below

The opinion of the United States Court of Appeals (Pet. App. 1B-2B) is

unpublished. The decision of the district court (Pet. App. 1C-26C) is published at 734

F. Supp. 3d 447 (D. Md. 2024).

Jurisdiction

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its opinion

and judgment on July 30, 2025. The Fourth Circuit denied a timely petition for

rehearing on August 26, 2025. (Pet. App. 1A) The petitioner invokes this Court’s

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1).

Constitutional and Statutory Provisions Involved

This petition addresses issues involving the Speedy Trial Act. The following

specific sections of the Act are relevant to this petition.

18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1) states:

In any case in which a plea of not guilty is entered, the trial of a

defendant charged in an information or indictment with the commission

of an offense shall commence within seventy days from the filing date

(and making public) of the information or indictment, or from the date

the defendant has appeared before a judicial officer of the court in which

such charge is pending, whichever date last occurs.

18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(A) states:

Any period of delay resulting from a continuance granted by any judge

on his own motion or at the request of the defendant or his counsel or at

the request of the attorney for the Government, if the judge granted such

continuance on the basis of his findings that the ends of justice served

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by taking such action outweigh the best interest of the public and the

defendant in a speedy trial. No such period of delay resulting from a

continuance granted by the court in accordance with this paragraph

shall be excludable under this subsection unless the court sets forth, in

the record of the case, either orally or in writing, its reasons for finding

that the ends of justice served by the granting of such continuance

outweigh the best interests of the public and the defendant in a speedy

trial.

Statement of the Case

In late January 2020, Petitioner Charvez Brooks was indicted on one count of

possessing a firearm after having been convicted of a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 922(g). He was arraigned on March 6, 2020. His jury trial began more than four

years later, on April 15, 2024.

While the delay between arraignment and trial eclipses the 70-day speedy trial

clock, much of the time was excluded or tolled. The arraignment came just before the

start of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the court ceased having jury trials and

found that the ends of justice tolled the speedy trial clock. The petitioner was also

charged in an unrelated case that went to trial in the late summer of 2020. See 18

U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1)(B). And at points, the parties filed motions asking the trial court

to exclude other periods of delay that were excluded as serving the “ends of justice.”

18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(A).

But two significant delays totaling more than thirteen months ran without any

contemporaneous motions seeking an “ends of justice” exclusion and without any

automatic exclusion under 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(1).

The first of these delays began after January 31, 2022, the expiration date of

the last operative continuance to further the ends-of-justice. (Pet. App. 1D) No motion

for a continuance was filed, and no court order addressed the period that followed.

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(JA43-47) On July 27, 2022, nearly six months later, the district court requested a

status report. (Pet. App. 2D) The government responded on August 1, 2022, in a short

letter—filed “with the consent” of defense counsel—reporting that the appeal in

petitioner’s unrelated Hobbs Act case was still pending and asking to delay setting a

trial schedule for “at least 60 more days.” (JA49) The letter made no reference to the

Speedy Trial Act or any statutory exclusion. On August 4, 2022, the court simply

wrote “Approved” on the letter. By that point, 184 days had passed with no operative

exclusion from the 70-day clock.

The second extended delay began after December 2, 2022. On November 3,

2022, the government—again with defense counsel’s consent—filed a status report

stating that the Hobbs Act appeal was still pending and asking to submit another

report on December 2. (Pet. App. 3D) The court approved the request, but no further

status report was filed on that date. The Hobbs Act appeal was decided on January

3, 2023, yet no action was taken in this case until July 19, 2023, when the district

court ordered a new status report. (Pet. App. 5D) The government’s July 24, 2023

letter informed the court for the first time of a post-conviction proceeding in state

court, noted that it had concluded in June 2023, and asked for 45 more days to

negotiate a plea. (JA55) As with the earlier delay, this request was purely prospective;

it did not address or seek to exclude the 233 days that had already elapsed without

any court order or contemporaneous finding. (JA55-56)

Petitioner filed a motion to dismiss for violating the Speedy Trial Act. (JA70)

The district court denied the motion in a published opinion. United States v. Brooks,

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734 F. Supp. 3d 447 (D. Md. 2024). The district court acknowledged the case’s

extraordinary length, but attributed the delay primarily to pandemic-related

disruptions, overlapping proceedings in petitioner’s separate Hobbs Act prosecution,

and later state post-conviction litigation.

The district court concluded that these circumstances either automatically

tolled the Speedy Trial clock or were subject to ends-of-justice continuances. The

district court determined that no speedy trial violation occurred, effectively excusing

two extended intervals totaling over thirteen months during which no statutory

exclusion was in effect. The court treated the speedy trial orders that were in place

as creating indefinite continuances under the “ends of justice,” despite the fact that

the orders included specific termination dates when the order stopped excluding time

under the Act. See Brooks, 734 F. Supp. 3d at 478. By claiming that continuance

orders extended beyond the date at which they purportedly ended, the court treated

the continuances as indefinite. Id. at 478.

The court below adopted the decision of the district court in whole. The panel

decision thus approved indefinite continuances in violation of the terms of the orders

at issue. The court below denied petitioner’s request to review the case en banc to

address a circuit split regarding whether the ends of justice exception to the Speedy

Trial Act’s 70-day period to begin criminal trials could be indefinite.

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Reasons for Granting the Petition

THE COURT SHOULD GRANT REVIEW TO RESOLVE AN

EXPLICIT AND DEEP CIRCUIT SPLIT REGARDING “ENDS OF

JUSTICE” CONTINUANCES UNDER THE SPEEDY TRIAL ACT.

This petition presents a question of exceptional importance and asks the Court

to resolve a circuit split regarding whether the Speedy Trial Act allows indefinite

“ends of justice” continuances. The district court decided that orders granting

continuances under the ends-of-justice exception were indefinite, extending beyond

the date identified as the termination date in the orders. Several circuits have decided

that courts may grant open-ended continuances under the Speedy Trial Act, but

others have decided the opposite. Compare United States v. Richardson, 681 F.3d 736,

742 (6th Cir. 2012), with United States v. Jordan, 915 F.2d 563, 565 (9th Cir. 1990).

Granting review will ensure that Speedy Trial Act protections are applied uniformly

and that systemic disregard for those protections is not allowed to erode the integrity

of criminal proceedings.

A.

The circuits are squarely and durably split on whether

“ends of justice” continuances may be open-ended.

The Speedy Trial Act imposes specific limits within which a federal criminal

trial must commence. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1). The statutory design is mandatory: if

more than 70 non-excludable days elapse between indictment/arraignment and trial,

the indictment “shall be dismissed.” 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2). This is not a flexible

guideline but a firm rule that protects both the defendant’s rights and the public’s

interest in the prompt disposition of criminal cases. Zedner v. United States, 547 U.S.

489, 501–02 (2006).

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The Circuit have split on whether ends-of-justice exclusions can be indefinite.

Consistent with the plain terms and the intent of the Act, several Circuit hold that

an exclusion under the ends-of-justice is only valid for a specific period of time. United

States v. Jordan, 915 F.3d 563, 565 (9th Cir. 1990); United States v. Pollock, 726 F.2d

1456, 1461 (9th Cir. 1984); United States v. Didier, 542 F.2d 1182, 1189 (2d Cir. 1976).

These Circuits require periodic reassessment of continuances to ensure that the trial

courts are monitoring the delays and providing contemporaneous explanations of how

any delay does not violate the terms of the Speedy Trial Act.

Other Circuits have held that ends-of-justice exceptions may be open-ended.

United States v. Richardson, 681 F.3d 736, 742 (6th Cir. 2012); United State v.

Sabino, 274 F.3d 1053, 1065-65 (6th Cir. 2001); United States v. Spring, 80 F.3d 1450,

1458 (10th Cir. 1996). United States v. Jones, 56 F.3d 581, 586 (5th Cir. 1995); United

States v. Lattany, 982 F.2d 866, 868 (3d Cir. 1992); United States v. Rush, 738 F.2d

497, 508 (1st Cir. 1984). This approach allows for exclusions under the Act of

unlimited duration. For example, the Eleventh Circuit approved a continuance with

the simple statement that the district court would set a trial date in a “future order.”

United States v. Twittty, 107 F.3d 1482, 1489 (11th Cir. 1997).

The decision here permits indefinite exclusions of time under the ends-ofjustice exception in contravention of the plain text of the orders actually entered. The

district court found that the orders entered excluding time for a specific period of time

actually extended the exclusion for longer periods. Brooks, 734 F. Supp. 3d at 471

(describing the parties and court’s understanding that the exclusion would continue

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for as long as necessary for petitioner’s other appeal to end); Id. at 478 (“But in my

view, it would be misguided to construe the continuance granted by Order of January

6, 2022 (ECF 28) as having no significance beyond January 31, 2022.” (which was the

date ending the exclusion)).

B.

The Speedy Trial Act requires procedural strictness,

which forecloses open-ended continuances.

The Court should conclude that the Speedy Trial Act does not countenance

open-ended ends-of-justice continuances. Although the ends-of-justice exception itself

allows a number of factors to support the exclusion, the exception requires procedural

rigor. “The strategy of [the ends-of-justice exclusion] then, is to counteract

substantive open-endedness with procedural strictness.” Zedner, 547 U.S. at 509. In

order to invoke that exclusion, a district court must “set[ ] forth, in the record of the

case, either orally or in writing, its reasons for finding” that an ends-of-justice

continuance is proper. 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(A). “[T]he findings must be made, if only

in the judge’s mind, before granting the continuance.” Zedner, 547 U.S. at 506

(emphasis added).

The Speedy Trial Act “is intended to mandate an orderly and expeditious

procedure for federal prosecutions by fixing specific, mechanical time limits within

which the various progressions in the prosecution must occur.” United States v.

Woolfolk, 399 F.3d 590, 594 (4th Cir. 2005) (citing United States v. Iaquinta, 674 F.2d

260, 264 (4th Cir. 1982)). Even if the defense, prosecution, and trial court are all

content to postpone trial and push deadlines into the future, the Speedy Trial Act

protects the public interest in prompt resolution of criminal cases. Zedner, 547 U.S.

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at 501-02.

Requiring a specific end date on continuance orders and periodic

reassessments forces court to consider whether the justifications the delay still exist

ensuring decisions remain tethered to necessity, the existing ends-of-justice findings,

and the purposes of the Act rather than to convenience.

Requiring a specific end date to an ends-of-justice continuance would not

unreasonably restrict the parties or the courts. The Act does not prohibit the number

of continuances available. If additional continuances are warranted under the Act,

the parties may request them, or the trial court may on its own extend the trial date.

But the court must still identify the reasons and explain how the facts support the

continuance. Periodic reassessments would prevent a case falling through the cracks,

as this one did.

Finally, allowing indefinite and open-ended delays invites confusion and error

that intersect with the prohibition on retroactive continuances. As happened here,

treating a specific continuance as an open-ended one invites the reviewing court to

permit retroactive exclusions. The district court granted multiple requests for nunc

pro tunc exclusions, and then in a later decision explained that they were actually

contemporaneously granted ends-of-justice exclusions. (See, e.g., JA38; JA40; JA4243; JA45; JA47. See also Appellant’s Br. at 17-20.) Excusing both or either error

requires circular reasoning that cannot withstand scrutiny. The logical contortions

that approving the open-ended continuance here would erode confidence in the court

system and undermine uniform, predictable enforcement of the Act.

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C.

This case cleanly presents this pure question of law and is an

excellent vehicle to resolve the conflict.

This case is an excellent vehicle. The litigation below raised the Speedy Trial

Act issue and developed it fully. The issue of open-ended continuances is dispositive

of the motion to dismiss; and the material facts are both undisputed and apparent on

the record. The orders’ text and the district court’s rationale create a stark

presentation of the split: whether an ends-of-justice order that names a date can be

judicially treated as open-ended (or retroactively extended) without fresh findings.

No alternative grounds complicate review, and the record squarely frames the legal

question.

Conclusion

This petition for a writ of certiorari should be granted.

Respectfully submitted,

MEGHAN S. SKELTON

Counsel of Record

SKELTONLAW, LLC

P.O. Box 308

Cabin John, MD 20818

(240) 425-2280

meghan@skelton.law

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