State v. Foat

I would grant the writ to decide pre-trial the question of whether defendant, Virginia Foat, has been denied her constitutional right to a speedy trial.

This constitutional guarantee is one of the most fundamental, being found not only in the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (“the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial”), but also in our state Constitution of 1974 (“every person charged with a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty and is entitled to a speedy, public and impartial trial”). In fact, this principle has been embeddied in the law…