How Long Is a Speedy Trial? Federal 70-Day and State Limits

Under federal law, a speedy trial runs about 100 days on paper: the government has 30 days after arrest to file formal charges and then 70 days to bring you to trial. State deadlines vary widely, from around 60 days for a detained misdemeanor defendant up to a full year for the most serious felonies in some jurisdictions. The Sixth Amendment adds a separate constitutional guarantee with no fixed number attached. In practice, most cases take far longer than the statutory floor because the law lets judges pause the clock for a long list of reasons.

The Federal 30-Day and 70-Day Deadlines

The Speedy Trial Act of 1974 sets two deadlines. After arrest or service of a summons, prosecutors have 30 days to file a charging document, either a grand jury indictment or a prosecutor’s information. If no grand jury is sitting during that window, the deadline stretches to 60 days.¹

Once charges are filed, trial must begin within 70 days. The 70-day clock starts on the later of two dates: the day the charging document is filed and made public, or the day you first appear before a judge in the court where the case will be tried.¹ Add the two windows together and you get the frequently cited 100-day framework.

There is also a floor. Your trial cannot start fewer than 30 days after your first court appearance through counsel unless you agree in writing to go earlier.¹ That minimum protects your defense team’s ability to prepare.

The 90-Day Rule for Defendants in Custody

If you’re being held solely because you’re awaiting trial, meaning no other sentence is keeping you locked up, a tighter deadline applies. Your trial must begin within 90 days of the start of your continuous detention. Once that period expires, you cannot be held pending trial any longer.² The same categories of excludable delay that apply to the 70-day clock apply here too, so 90 days is a net figure after excluded time is subtracted.

Why Real Cases Take Longer

The 70-day clock is not a straight countdown. Section 3161(h) lists categories of “excludable delay” that stop the clock, and these are the reason federal cases routinely run months or years past the statutory floor. The most common pauses:

Pretrial motions, from the day the motion is filed through the day the court rules on it. This is the single biggest source of excluded time in most cases.
Mental competency or physical capacity evaluations.
Interlocutory appeals by either side.
Time the court spends considering a proposed plea agreement.
Periods when you or an essential witness are absent or unavailable despite reasonable efforts to locate them.
Transportation between districts or to evaluation facilities, though any transport taking more than 10 days is presumed unreasonable.
Delays caused by a co-defendant whose own clock has not yet expired, when you’re joined for trial and have not moved to sever.
Periods under a written deferred prosecution agreement.¹

The co-defendant rule is worth knowing about. If you’re charged alongside someone whose case involves complex discovery or drawn-out motions, their delays become yours unless you successfully move for a separate trial.

The Ends-of-Justice Continuance

The broadest exception is the “ends of justice” continuance. A judge can grant one whenever the benefit of the delay outweighs both the public’s interest and your interest in a prompt trial. This is the mechanism that turns a theoretical 70-day deadline into a real-world timeline measured in months or years.

The statute directs the judge to weigh several factors:

Whether proceeding without a continuance would make the trial impossible or lead to a miscarriage of justice.
Whether the case is unusually complex because of the number of defendants, the nature of the prosecution, or novel legal questions.
Whether denying the continuance would deprive you of time to get a lawyer, disrupt continuity of counsel, or deny either side enough preparation time.

There are limits. A judge cannot grant this kind of continuance simply because the court’s calendar is congested, and it can never cover for the government’s failure to prepare or find available witnesses. The judge must also state reasons on the record, orally or in writing. Without that record, the excluded time doesn’t count and the clock keeps running.¹

State Timelines Vary Widely

State speedy trial deadlines are set by each state’s own statutes and court rules, and they change based on the severity of the charge and whether you’re in custody. A detained misdemeanor defendant might face a 60- to 90-day deadline. Felony cases commonly allow 120 to 180 days from the filing of charges. A few states extend the limit to a full year for the most serious offenses.

The structure also differs. Some states use fixed deadlines similar to the federal model. Others follow a “ready rule,” where the prosecution must declare readiness for trial within a set period (often six months for felonies) or face dismissal. Still others rely almost entirely on the constitutional balancing test rather than a hard statutory clock. The specific statutes and court rules of the state where you’re charged control your timeline.

The Constitutional Standard Under Barker v. Wingo

The Sixth Amendment provides its own speedy trial right, separate from any statute. In Barker v. Wingo, the Supreme Court set out a four-factor balancing test that courts still use to decide whether a delay has crossed the constitutional line:³

Length of the delay. A delay approaching one year is generally long enough to trigger the full inquiry. The longer the delay, the more it weighs in your favor.
Reason for the delay. Deliberate stalling by the government counts heavily against it; negligence counts too, though less so; a valid reason like an unavailable witness may justify some delay.
Whether you asserted the right. Demanding a speedy trial and being ignored helps your claim. Sitting quietly for years and raising the issue late weakens it.
Prejudice to you. The Court flagged three specific harms: oppressive pretrial incarceration, the anxiety of unresolved charges, and impairment of your defense as witnesses forget and evidence disappears.³

No single factor decides the question; courts weigh all four together. In Doggett v. United States, the Court held that when the government’s negligence causes a delay of several years, prejudice can be presumed even without specific proof of harm to the defense. An 8.5-year gap between indictment and arrest was enough for the defendant to win dismissal without showing concrete damage to his case.⁴

The constitutional test matters most in two places: state cases with no statutory speedy trial deadline, and cases where the statutory clock was technically satisfied (every delay was excludable) but the total elapsed time still looks unreasonable.

Why Many Defendants Waive the Right

You can voluntarily give up the right to a speedy trial, and defendants do it constantly. The waiver must be knowing and voluntary, usually placed on the record in court or made in a written filing. Defense attorneys often recommend it for tactical reasons.

More time lets your lawyer investigate thoroughly, track down favorable witnesses, work through complex forensic or financial evidence, and hire experts to challenge the prosecution’s case. Additional time also creates room to negotiate. When the evidence against you is strong, a plea deal reached after months of back-and-forth may produce a far better result than rushing to trial with an imminent date forcing premature decisions.

The tradeoff is real. If you’re in custody, waiver means more time behind bars before any verdict. And if the prosecution’s case leans on witness memory or physical evidence that degrades over time, delay can quietly work in your favor. A good defense lawyer weighs both sides case by case.

What Happens If the Deadline Is Missed

The remedy depends on which right was violated.

When a federal court finds the government missed a Speedy Trial Act deadline, the charges must be dismissed. The judge then decides whether the dismissal is with prejudice (permanent, barring any future prosecution for the same offense) or without prejudice (allowing the government to refile). Courts weigh three factors in that call: the seriousness of the offense, the facts and circumstances that led to the delay, and the impact reprosecution would have on the administration of justice.⁵ For minor offenses caused by government negligence, judges are more willing to dismiss with prejudice. For violent crimes, prosecutors typically get a second chance even when the delay was their fault.

A Sixth Amendment violation is different. The Supreme Court held in Strunk v. United States that dismissal with prejudice is the only available remedy. Courts have no discretion to fashion anything less, such as a reduced sentence or a new trial.⁶ That makes a constitutional speedy trial claim one of the most powerful defenses in criminal law, and one of the hardest to win, because a finding of violation means the defendant walks free for good.

One procedural warning matters regardless of which right you’re invoking: the motion to dismiss must be filed before trial or before entering a guilty plea. Going to trial or pleading guilty without raising the issue waives it entirely.⁵ Many speedy trial claims die simply because no one raised them in time.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3161 – Time Limits and Exclusions
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3164 – Persons Detained or Designated as Being of High Risk
3
Legal Information Institute. Barker v. Wingo, 407 US 514 (1972)
4
Legal Information Institute. Doggett v. United States, 505 US 647 (1992)
5
GovInfo. 18 USC 3162 – Sanctions
6
Constitution Annotated. Amdt6.2.1 Overview of Right to a Speedy Trial