“If the biker has demanded a speedy trial in his court filings, and has not delayed it himself, the prosecutor has a problem with a one year delay.”
Not really ....
http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.sanantoniobar.org/resource/resmgr/imported/SpeedyTrial.pdf
Here, too, the length of the delay is
relevant, but undefined. The United States
Supreme Court has refused to determine
what length of delay constitutes a violation
of the right, finding “no constitutional basis
for holding that the speedy trial right can be
quantified into a specified number of days or
months.” The Court held that the States,
of course, are free to prescribe a reasonable
period consistent with constitutional
standards, but neither the Texas Legislature
nor the Texas courts have prescribed a
specific period. Further, the courts consider
the type of case when evaluating the delay.
Thus, a complex RICO case will be allowed
to drag on for far longer than a simple DWI
case will.
RICO my ass.
Here’s the test for speedy trial.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has
held that a balancing test identical to the one established by the
United States Supreme Court in Barker v. Wingo
is to be used
in determining whether a defendant has been denied his state
constitutional right to a speedy trial.
Under Barker, the court weighs
four factors:
(1) whether delay before trial was uncommonly long;
(2) whether the government or the criminal defendant is more to blame for that delay;
(3) whether, in due course, the defendant
asserted his right to a speedy trial; and
(4) whether the defendant
suffered prejudice as the delay’s result.