Najam, J.
Jarvis Peele appeals his convictions for possession of methamphetamine, as a Level 6 felony, and two counts of resisting law enforcement, each as a Class A misdemeanor, following a jury trial. Peele raises two issues for our review, but we find the following issue dispositive: whether the trial court erred when it granted the State’s motion to continue Peele’s trial, outside the timeframe required by Peele’s speedy-trial request, based on purportedly unavailable lab test results that the State had not requested from the State Police Laboratory until the same day the State asked the court to continue Peele’s trial. We reverse.
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The State charged Peele with possession of methamphetamine, as a Level 6 felony, and two counts of resisting law enforcement, each as a Class A misdemeanor. Peele requested a speedy trial at his initial hearing, and the trial court set his jury trial date for October 17 in accordance with that request.
Thirteen days before the commencement of Peele’s jury trial, the court held a status conference. Peele was present at that conference in person and by counsel. The court engaged the parties in the following colloquy:
THE COURT: So . . . we are set for [a] speedy [trial] and when is that trial set for?
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[THE DEPUTY PROSECUTOR]: . . . October 17th, Judge, but the State is going to have to request a 90[-]day continuance for the labs.
THE COURT: Labs? Ok. So, we haven’t seen that[;] as of now, Mr. Peele, we’re still set for October 17th. No change in the bond, no change in the trial date. When the State requests . . . a continuance on the trial date . . . we’ll assume your attorney to object and we’ll . . . set that for a hearing as well.
[PEELE]: Alright.
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The trial court granted the State’s request that same day and set the next status conference for February 28, 2018, and Peele’s jury trial for March 20, 2018.
One week after the State filed its motion to continue, on October 12, Peele wrote a letter to the court. In that letter, Peele asked to have his court-appointed counsel replaced because his counsel had “put [Peele’s] constitutional rights in jeopardy . . . by not filing the proper motions and/or failing to prepare a defense against the State[’]s continuance of a trial date past [Peele’s] fast and speedy trial date.” Peele further requested “an immediate court date. . . to review these matters in open court.”
On October 16, 2017, Peele informed the court that he had obtained substitute counsel. In early November, Peele filed a pro se motion for discharge, which, in late November, his substitute counsel refiled with the court. In late January of 2018, the trial court held a hearing on Peele’s discharge requests. At that hearing, the State conceded that it did not request lab results from the State Police Laboratory until October 4th, the same day the State first informed the court that it intended to file its motion to continue pursuant to Indiana Criminal Rule 4(D). After the hearing, the court denied Peele’s request for discharge.
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Peele requested a speedy trial and asserts on appeal that the trial court granted the State’s October 5, 2017, motion to continue in violation of his speedy-trial rights. The right of an accused to a speedy trial is guaranteed by the United States and Indiana Constitutions. U.S. Const. amend. VI; Ind. Const. art. 1, § 12. Indiana Criminal Rule 4 implements those rights and generally requires a criminal defendant to be brought to trial within seventy days of his speedy-trial request. Ind. Criminal Rule 4(B)(1).
However, among other reasons for extensions of that timeframe, Indiana Criminal Rule 4(D) provides as follows:
If when application is made for discharge of a defendant under this rule, the court be satisfied that there is evidence for the state, which cannot then be had, that reasonable effort has been made to procure the same and there is just ground to believe that such evidence can be had within ninety (90) days, the cause may be continued, and the prisoner remanded or admitted to bail; and if he be not brought to trial by the state within such additional ninety (90) days, he shall then be discharged.
… Peele invoked his speedy-trial rights at his earliest opportunity, at his initial hearing, and his October 17, 2018, trial date remained unchanged until the State’s Rule 4(D) motion to continue. At the final status conference prior to the trial date, a mere thirteen days before the trial was set to commence, the deputy prosecutor informed the court that the State would need a continuance “for the labs.” …
The obvious—if not intended—implication of the deputy prosecutor’s representations to the court was that testing was already underway. But the deputy prosecutor did not inform the court either orally at the status conference or in the written motion that the evidence either had not even been conveyed to the State Police Laboratory or had only been sent within, at most, the prior twenty-four hours. …
There is no question that the State failed to take reasonable efforts to procure the lab test results for purposes of Rule 4(D), and, as such, the trial court erred when it granted that motion. … Indeed, we have no hesitation in concluding that the deputy prosecutor’s omission of this obviously relevant information supports an inference that the State had not by then made a reasonable effort to procure the evidence.
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Peele preserved his speedy trial rights but was not brought to trial until well after the expiration of seventy days. As such, he was entitled to discharge of the charges against him, and the trial court erred when it granted the State’s Rule 4(D) motion to continue.
Reversed.
Bailey, J., and May, J., concur.