# Speedy Trial Act The **Speedy Trial Act of 1974** (18 U.S.C. §§ 3161–3174) puts statutory clocks on a federal prosecution: **30 days** from arrest to indictment, and **70 days** from indictment or first appearance to the start of trial. Where the [[Sixth Amendment]] guarantees a speedy trial as a standard, the Act supplies the numbers, and a violation of the 70-day clock requires dismissal — with or without prejudice, at the court's discretion. The clocks are less binding than they read, because § 3161(h) excludes long categories of time: pretrial motions from filing through disposition, interlocutory appeals, competency proceedings, and — the broad one — any continuance the judge finds serves the **ends of justice**. A complex multi-defendant case can sit for years without the 70-day clock ever running out. The Act's real function in the pipeline is therefore not to cap delay but to force the delay to be *explained on the record*, which makes it one of the few places where the pretrial phase leaves a documentary trail. See [[How a Federal Prosecution Begins and Ends]] for the clock's position in the sequence. > [!note] Stub > Phase 1 spine stub. Expand: the 1974 Act and its 1979 amendments, the § 3161(h) exclusions, *Zedner v. United States* on prospective waiver, *Bloate*, dismissal with vs. without prejudice, and the interaction with detention under the Bail Reform Act. ## See also - [[How a Federal Prosecution Begins and Ends]] - [[Sixth Amendment]] - [[Judiciary Hub]]