Pennsylvania Rule 600 The Right To A Speedy Trial For All Criminal Defendants

3 months ago
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It's important for you to know your rights because if you don't know them you cant use them and you could be another victim to the system. Lots of criminal court cases should be thrown out due to technicality or the state and its employees violated the defendants rights. Is the court system broken or was it designed that way?
The 6th Amendment of the US Constitution is The Right To A Speedy Trial but its very broad. In Pennsylvania under Rule 600 it spells out how speedy it has to be. When the prosecutors don't have a case they will stall the case until you plead guilty. If you are on county probation, you have to sit in jail until the outcome of that case. Can you imagine sitting in jail for 2 or 3 years because you want to take it to trial for a charge that holds probation? It's organized blackmail if you ask me. District attorneys only care about their conviction rate because that means more money to the system and justice gets thrown out the window.
Under Rule 600, if you are in jail for more than 180 days you can file a Rule 600 motion and get released on nonminimal bail which is normally $1. If you are on bail the state has 365 days to get you threw trial and if they don't, the case must be thrown out with prejudice. The lower courts often deny rule 600 motions for many reasons but when people appeal they often get overturned and the Rule 600 stands like in the cases I showed in the video. The prosecutors are like CPS caseworkers, their case load is too full to be diligent to their case load and do their job properly. The system makes the rules but it's us that has to enforce them and hold them accountable. Even if you have the best paid lawyer money can buy, you still have to know the law and instruct your lawyer of what to do because lawyers are part of the system and don't always have your best interests in mind. Lawyers charge a lot more money to go to trial and getting the case dismissed before then means they lose money. Of course, lots of times a lawyer will swap you out and try to get you to plead guilty so they can get their higher paying client a better deal for a murder charge.
Up until recently, Pennsylvania courts would rule any period of time in between court dates to be excludable or extendable time and added on to the 365 days making Rule 600 almost impossible. The state courts abused this rule in almost every single case I examined to the point that if a judge had a different case that day it wouldn't count against rule 600, or if the prosecution failed to give the defense the discovery that would also count against the defense. NOT ANY MORE! It was so bad they had to completely rewrite the entire rule. The Supreme Court spelled things out very clearly in Commonwealth v. Mills docket number 255 C.D. 2023. This is gonna cause lots of problems with the states prosecution because their case load is full and if everybody decides they want to go to trial instead of take a plea bargain the system will collapse. Even if there is overwhelming evidence you can request a trial and file a Rule 600 motion and possibly get it thrown out without a trial or win on an appeal.
This video was made by me and the content in the video is shared under Fair Use under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Links to all sources are listed below to give proper credit to the authors and to make it easier for anyone wanting to do more research on the topic.

Rule 600 Pennsylvania

https://search.brave.com/search?q=rule+600+Pennsylvania&source=web&summary=1&summary_og=427fe1ab1bab79dcdee16b

Rule 600 Pennsylvania supreme court

https://search.brave.com/search?q=Rule+600+Pennsylvania+Supreme+Court&source=web&summary=1&summary_og=b9c641dc10298970dae324

RULE 600. PROMPT TRIAL.

https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Supreme/out/419crim.attach.pdf

PA Supreme Court Sharpens Teeth of Speedy Trial Rule

https://goldsteinmehta.com/blog/rule-600-speedy-trial

SPEEDY TRIAL AND RULE 600

https://www.pyferreese.com/2022/09/speedy-trial-and-rule-600-know-your-rights/

Commonwealth v. Mills 2024 Pennsylvania

https://search.brave.com/search?q=Commonwealth+v.+Mills+2024+Pennsylvania&source=desktop&summary=1&summary_og=7448437b5e16dae1b08db6

Commonwealth v. Rodriguez

https://casetext.com/case/commonwealth-v-rodriguez-394

SPEEDY TRIAL AND RULE 600

https://www.pyferreese.com/2022/09/speedy-trial-and-rule-600-know-your-rights/

Pennsylvania v. Mills (majority)

https://law.justia.com/cases/pennsylvania/supreme-court/2017/27-eap-2016.html

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