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State v. Adams5/12/2004
iggered by the length of time that a particular case has been in the system, rather than by the effect of the delay on a particular defendant."
318 Or at 467. This court has held that "ORS 135.747 is intended to serve the courts' interest in judicial efficiency." State v. Green, 140 Or App 308, 312, 915 P2d 460 (1996). Both of these constructions emphasize that the statute is a device for purging cases that clog and clutter the judicial system because they have been there too long, regardless of the reason. That conclusion also follows from the statute's text: "If a defendant * * * is not brought to trial within a reasonable period of time, the court shall order the accusatory instrument to be dismissed." It is the "period of time" that must be "reasonable," not the cause of the delay or its effect on the defendant.
To the extent that we might excuse a lengthy delay based on the state's lack of culpability, we do not find that the circumstances of this case justify doing so. It is true that neither the law enforcement officers involved in the case, nor the prosecutors, nor the courts stand accused of negligence or bad faith. Conversely, however, it could not be argued that the delay resulted from unavoidable circumstances over which the state had no control. The state, as a unitary political entity, is the plaintiff in this case: State v. Adams. "The state" includes the legislative branch as well as the executive officers who apprehended and prosecuted defendant and the judicial officers who tried him. As such an entity, "the state" has evidently chosen not to expend the resources necessary to bring defendant to trial in under 23 months. That may or may not have been a reasonable decision; it is not our office to sit in judgment on the reasonableness of the legislature's funding priorities. It is our office, however, to interpret the legislature's command that defendants be brought to trial within a reasonable period of time, a different inquiry entirely. In the present case, the state did not do so.
Affirmed.
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