Jason Blank Comments on the Florida Supreme Court Reworking the Speedy Trial and Formal Charges Timelines
March 14, 2025
By Mark D. Killian
www.floridabar.org
The Florida Supreme Court has revised the state’s criminal procedure rules, amending the speedy trial procedures and timeline for filing formal charges.
The new rules, which take effect July 1, extend the recapture period, set a new starting point for speedy trial deadlines — beginning when formal charges are filed rather than at the time of arrest — and set a 60-day deadline for the state to formally charge a defendant on pretrial release.
The 6-1 court acted March 13 in In Re: Amendments To Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.191, Case No. SC2022-1123, with Justice Jorge Labarga dissenting.
After considering oral arguments on a prior proposal and comments on the current proposal, the court, on its own motion, amended Rule 3.191 (Speedy Trial) as follows:
Speedy trial periods now begin from the date formal charges are filed rather than the date of arrest.
The period within which the court must set a case for trial to begin is no less than 5 days, but the 45-day period has been extended to no more than 60 days, from the date a speedy trial demand is filed.
The recapture period (the time within which the state must bring a defendant to trial after a defendant files a notice that the speedy trial time period has expired) is extended from 10 days to 30 days and is now mandatory in all situations.
Dismissals under this rule will be without prejudice, unless the defendant’s constitutional right to a speedy trial is violated, in which case the dismissal will be with prejudice.
The court also amended Rule 3.134 (Time for Filing Formal Charges) to require the state to file formal charges against defendants on pretrial release within 60 days. If charges are not filed by the deadline, the defendant must be released on their own recognizance unless good cause is shown.
The court said based, on the comments received on its proposal, additional modifications beyond the court’s published proposal are adopted, namely: the dates in subdivision (b) are modified to match the new recapture period; the wording in subdivision (e) is modified to match the definition of “formally charged” in subdivision (d); “or the court” is removed from newly relettered subdivision (o)(3) to clarify that the court is not required to act until a defendant files the required documents.
In dissent, Justice Labarga said the amendments adopted by the majority, “which further relax the speedy trial rule,” are unwarranted.
“First, I strongly disagree with the majority’s decision to define ‘speedy trial for purposes of this rule [as starting] from the date that formal charges are filed rather than from the date of arrest,’” said Labarga, noting five years ago, in Davis v. State, the court adopted the formal arrest standard as the starting point for the running of the speedy trial clock. “There, I dissented to the majority’s position that ‘the speedy trial right is in no way implicated by the length of an investigation or by the fact that an individual under investigation is a known suspect.’”
To the contrary, Labarga observed that “[a] formal arrest standard would allow law enforcement to repeatedly detain an individual for an extended period of time without triggering any procedural protections.”
Labarga said the majority’s amendments “go even further, potentially placing the start of the speedy trial period even further down the road and increasing, for affected individuals, the likelihood of what I described in my dissent in Davis as ‘procedural limbo.’”
Justice Labarga wrote that he also disagrees with extending the long-standing recapture period from 10 days to a mandatory 30 days, and providing that any discharge is without prejudice unless a high burden is met — the defendant’s constitutional speedy trial right is violated.
“Indeed, 10 days is a sufficient period of time for the State to proceed to trial on a prosecution that has already allowed the speedy trial period to lapse,” he said. “Additionally, a discharge with prejudice places an appropriate check on the State to ensure that speedy trial requirements are satisfied.”
Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers President Jason B. Blank said the FACDL is “extremely disappointed the court disregarded the real-world concerns we voiced about how this amendment will affect the criminal justice system and its participants. The negative impacts will be felt in the courts across our state and will hinder, not help, justice being found by defendants and victims alike.”
The court is also referring the traffic and juvenile speedy trial rules, 6.325 (Speedy Trial: Infractions Only) and 8.090 (Speedy Trial), to their respective committees to consider changes consistent with these amendments.
