State v. Hamilton

The Supreme Court of the United States has said that the right to a speedy trial is “one of the most basic rights preserved by our Constitution,” Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U. S. 213, 226, a guarantee “as fundamental as any of the rights secured by the Sixth Amendment,” id. at 223. But, as is not unusual, it has furnished little guidance as to the meaning and application of the right. Mr. Justice Brennan pointed out in his concurring opinion in Dickey v. Florida, 398 U. S. 30, at 40, that the Court has given scant attention to questions essential to the definition of the speqdy trial…