[gamblor956]

Speedy trials are a constitutional right enshrined in the 6th Amendment; the only reason a person would spend years in jail waiting for trial is if they have explicitly waived their right to a speedy trial, which is either their fault or the fault of their incompetent legal counsel.

Edit: In California, this is 60 days after arraignment for a felony. In the 5th Circuit (i.e,. the South) this can be up to 2 years. Most jurisdictions are between these two.

[vidarh]

Or an utterly broken legal system that disproportionally victimises people too poor to hire legal counsel that actually have the resources to present an effective attack on these abuses.

This has been a massive ongoing problem in New York. The state gets away with regularly saying they're ready to proceed, get a court date well into the future, and then ask for more time again when the court date gets closer, and effectively gets most of the time "not counted" for the purpose of the court considering any claims about the lack of a speedy trial.

They grind down defendants without sufficient resources to get anywhere before said defendants find it too gruelling and plead guilty. It's a system so broken that we even get cases like this[1] where someone who "beat it" ended up committing suicide afterwards.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kalief-browder-he...