Washington v. Cline, ___ N.C. App. ___, 833 S.E.2d 219 (Sept. 3, 2019)

The plaintiff sued the State of North Carolina, City of Durham, various people who worked for the State Bureau of Investigation, the Durham Police Department, and the Durham County District Attorney’s office for a permanent injunction and money damages to redress harms allegedly suffered in connection with his pretrial detention, investigation, and prosecution. The plaintiff, then the criminal defendant, was arrested in 2002 for a home invasion involving an armed robbery and attempted sexual assault and was tried almost five years later. The Court of Appeals, in State v. Washington, 192 N.C. App. 277, vacated his conviction, finding a denial of his speedy trial rights under the United States and North Carolina Constitutions. The trial judge in this case granted the civil defendants’ motion for summary judgment against the plaintiff on his claim that the defendants violated his state constitutional right to a speedy trial. The Court of Appeals recognized that a victim of a constitutional violation may sue for some constitutional violations, such as a violation of the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures under the United States Constitution, but the right to sue for damages has not been extended to the deprivation of the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. The Court declined to recognize a private cause of action for the deprivation of the right to a speedy trial under the North Carolina Constitution. Noting that the plaintiff did not appeal the trial judge’s decision about the causes of action alleged by the plaintiff other than his state constitutional claim, the Court declined to address the other causes of action.