No. 20-____ IN THE Supreme Court of the United States _______________________ LLOYD HARRIS, Petitioner, v. STATE OF MARYLAND, Respondent. _______________________ On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland _______________________ PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI _______________________ AMIR H. ALI Counsel of Record MEGHA RAM* RODERICK & SOLANGE MACARTHUR JUSTICE CENTER 777 6th Street NW, 11th Fl. Washington, DC 20001 (202) 869-3434
[email protected] Counsel for Petitioner *Admitted only in California; not admitted in D.C. Practicing under the supervision of the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center. QUESTION PRESENTED In United States v. Lovasco, 431 U.S. 783 (1977), this Court considered the prosecution’s “long delay” of “more than 18 months” to indict the defendant for a crime. Id. at 784, 786. The Court concluded that on the facts before it, 18 months of delay for “further in- vestigation” did not offend standards of “fair play and decency” so as to violate due process. Id. at 793-96. But the Court refrained from articulating “in the first instance” a general test for when prejudicial preindict- ment delay violates due process, instead opting to give lower courts “a sustained opportunity to consider the constitutional significance of various reasons for de- lay.” Id. at 796-97. Four decades later, all circuits, nearly every state high court, and the D.C. Court of Appeals have had the opportunity to consider the proper test for analyz- ing excessive preindictment delay, and they are en- trenched in a well-acknowledged conflict. Applying Maryland’s rigid improper-motive test, the court be- low held that twenty years of delay before indicting pe- titioner—including sixteen years in which, by the State’s account, “no significant new evidence was de- veloped”—fulfilled due process.