Cite as: 505 U. S. 647 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
based on textual and historical grounds, see Marion, supra, at 313-320, that the Sixth Amendment right of the accused to a speedy trial has no application beyond the confines of a formal criminal prosecution. Once triggered by arrest, indictment, or other official accusation, however, the speedy trial enquiry must weigh the effect of delay on the accused's defense just as it has to weigh any other form of prejudice that Barker recognized.2 See Moore v. Arizona, 414 U. S. 25, 26-27, and n. 2 (1973); Barker, supra, at 532; Smith, supra, at 377-379; Ewell, supra, at 120.
As an alternative to limiting Barker, the Government claims Doggett has failed to make any affirmative showing that the delay weakened his ability to raise specific defenses, elicit specific testimony, or produce specific items of evidence. Though Doggett did indeed come up short in this respect, the Government's argument takes it only so far: consideration of prejudice is not limited to the specifically demonstrable, and, as it concedes, Brief for United States 28, n. 21; Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-34 (Feb. 24, 1992), affirmative proof of particularized prejudice is not essential to every speedy trial claim. See Moore, supra, at 26; Barker, supra, at 533. Barker explicitly recognized that impairment of one's defense is the most difficult form of speedy trial prejudice to prove because time's erosion of exculpatory evidence and testimony "can rarely be shown." 407 U. S., at 532. And though time can tilt the case against either side, see id., at 521; Loud Hawk, supra, at 315, one cannot generally be sure which of them it has prejudiced more severely. Thus, we generally have to recognize that excessive delay presumptively compromises the reliability of a trial in ways that neither party can prove or, for that matter, identify. While
2 Thus, we reject the Government's argument that the effect of delay on adjudicative accuracy is exclusively a matter for consideration under the Due Process Clause. We leave intact our earlier observation, see United States v. MacDonald, 456 U. S. 1, 7 (1982), that a defendant may invoke due process to challenge delay both before and after official accusation.
655
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