Smith v. Hooey

Petitioner was indicted in 1960 on a Texas criminal charge. He was then, and still is, a prisoner in a federal penitentiary. For the next six years he vainly sought to gain a speedy trial in respondent's court. In 1967 he filed in that court a motion, which has not been acted on, to dismiss the charge for want of protection. Petitioner then filed a mandamus petition requesting an order to show cause why the charge should not be dismissed. The Texas Supreme Court denied the petition on the basis of a previous decision acknowledging that a state prisoner would have been entitled to be brought to trial but holding that a different rule applies "when two separate sovereignties are involved," since "[t]he true test should be the power and authority of the state unaided by any waiver, permission or act of grace of any other authority."

Held: Under the Sixth Amendment as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth the State, on petitioner's demand, was required to make a diligent, good-faith effort to bring petitioner to trial in respondent's court. Pp. 377-383.

Vacated and remanded.

Charles Alan Wright, by appointment of the Court, post, p. 813, argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner.

Joe S. Moss argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Crawford C. Martin, Attorney General of Texas, Nola White, First Assistant Attorney General, A.J. Carubbi, Jr., Executive Assistant Attorney General, Robert C. Flowers and Gilbert J. Pena, Assistant Attorneys General, and Carol S. Vance.