Title: Wade v. State

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC21-1094 
____________ 
 
FREDRICK L. WADE, 
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA, 
Respondent. 
 
February 24, 2022 
 
PER CURIAM. 
 
 
Fredrick L. Wade, an inmate in state custody, petitions the 
Court for a writ of mandamus compelling the First District Court of 
Appeal to reinstate his appeal of a circuit court order denying him 
postconviction relief.1  The First District dismissed Wade’s appeal as 
untimely, finding that the prison legal mail logs produced by Wade 
were insufficient to establish he timely delivered his notice of appeal 
to prison officials for mailing under the inmate filing rule in Florida 
 
 
1.  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(8), Fla. Const. 
 
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Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.420(a)(2).  We disagree, and for the 
reasons set out below, we grant Wade’s petition and direct the First 
District to reinstate his appeal. 
I. 
Wade was convicted of second-degree murder and is currently 
serving a forty-five-year prison sentence.  At some point after his 
conviction and sentence became final, Wade filed a pro se motion 
for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 
3.850 in the circuit court.  The circuit court denied Wade’s motion 
on November 4, 2020, but did not file its order with the circuit court 
clerk until the next day, November 5, 2020, giving Wade until 
December 7, 2020, in which to appeal the circuit court’s order.2  
 
2.  All the parties agree that Wade had until December 7, 
2020, in which to file a notice of appeal.  A stamp on the first page 
of the order denying Wade’s postconviction motion indicates that it 
was filed with the circuit court clerk on Thursday, November 5, 
2020.  The 30-day period for Wade to file a timely notice of appeal 
thus ran from Friday, November 6, 2020, to Saturday, December 5, 
2020.  Fla. R. App. P. 9.141(b)(1) (appeals from postconviction 
proceedings shall proceed the same as civil cases, except as 
modified by rule 9.141(b)); 9.110(b) (“Jurisdiction of the court under 
this rule shall be invoked by filing a notice . . . with the clerk of the 
lower tribunal within 30 days of rendition of the order to be 
reviewed . . . .”); 9.020(h) (“An order is rendered when a signed, 
written order is filed with the clerk of the lower tribunal.”).  As the 
last day of the 30-day period fell on a Saturday, Wade had until 
 
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Wade indicates that he delivered his notice of appeal to prison 
officials for mailing on December 7, 2020, and the notice was 
stamped and docketed by the circuit court clerk as received 
December 11, 2020. 
After reviewing the notice, the First District ordered Wade to 
show cause why his appeal should not be dismissed as untimely, 
given that his notice of appeal was presumptively filed under rule 
9.420(a)(2) on December 11, 2020, the date it was stamped and 
docketed as received by the circuit court clerk.  Wade filed a 
response to the show cause order, and later filed an amended 
response with a copy of the prison’s legal mail log indicating that he 
timely delivered his notice of appeal to prison officials for mailing 
under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A) on December 7, 2020.  The First District 
dismissed Wade’s appeal as untimely on April 12, 2021, and denied 
his subsequent request for rehearing. 
 
Monday, December 7, 2020, in which to file a notice of appeal.  Fla. 
R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.514(a)(1)(C) (“[I]f the last day is a 
Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday . . . the period continues to run 
until the end of the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or 
legal holiday . . . .”). 
 
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Wade then filed for relief in this Court, requesting that we 
issue a writ of mandamus compelling the First District to reinstate 
his appeal.  He argues the prison’s legal mail logs clearly establish 
he timely filed his notice of appeal under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A) on 
December 7, 2020, when he delivered it to prison officials for 
mailing.  We ordered the First District and the State to respond to 
Wade’s petition.  Both filed responses maintaining that the First 
District’s dismissal of the appeal was entirely proper, and that rule 
9.420(a)(2) does not contemplate the use of prison mail logs to 
establish the timely filing of a document under the rule. 
II. 
A petition for writ of mandamus is the proper vehicle to correct 
a district court’s determination that it lacks jurisdiction.  See Griffin 
v. Sistuenck, 816 So. 2d 600, 601 (Fla. 2002); Sky Lake Gardens 
Rec., Inc. v. Dist. Ct. of Appeal, Third Dist., 511 So. 2d 293, 294 (Fla. 
1987) (“The district court’s dismissal of petitioner’s appeal as 
untimely filed was a determination of lack of jurisdiction.”).  Our 
issuance of the writ is conditioned on a petitioner establishing a 
clear legal right to the requested relief, the existence of an 
indisputable legal duty to perform the requested act, and the 
 
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absence of another adequate remedy.  Huffman v. State, 813 So. 2d 
10, 11 (Fla. 2000). 
The Inmate Filing Rule 
 
We begin our analysis of this case with the text of the inmate 
filing rule itself, which is contained in rule 9.420(a)(2).  The rule 
provides the following: 
 
(2) Inmate Filing.  The filing date of a document filed 
by a pro se inmate confined in an institution shall be 
presumed to be the date it is stamped for filing by the 
clerk of the court, except as follows: 
 
(A) the document shall be presumed to be filed on 
the date the inmate places it in the hands of an 
institutional official for mailing if the institution has a 
system designed for legal mail, the inmate uses that 
system, and the institution’s system records that date; 
or 
 
(B) the document shall be presumed to be filed on 
the date reflected on a certificate of service contained 
in the document if the certificate is in substantially the 
form prescribed by subdivision (d)(1) of this rule and 
either: 
 
(i) the institution does not have a system 
designed for legal mail; or 
 
(ii) the inmate used the institution’s system 
designed for legal mail, if any, but the institution’s 
system does not provide for a way to record the date 
the inmate places the document in the hands of an 
institutional official for mailing. 
 
 
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Fla. R. App. P. 9.420(a)(2). 
 
 
From our review of the notice of appeal Wade filed with the 
circuit court clerk, it is clear the notice lacks any indicia of when it 
was turned over to prison officials for mailing.  The notice does not 
contain a prison date stamp indicating when it was placed in the 
hands of prison officials for mailing, and no dates are set out in the 
notice’s certificate of service.  The First District thus correctly 
presumed at the outset under rule 9.420(a)(2) that Wade’s notice of 
appeal was filed on December 11, 2020, the date it was stamped by 
the circuit court clerk, and it properly directed Wade to show cause 
why his appeal should not be dismissed as untimely. 
However, from our review of the prison mail log Wade provided 
to the First District in response to the show cause order, we are 
convinced that Wade sufficiently established that his notice of 
appeal was timely filed under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A).  The prison mail 
log is dated December 7, 2020, and is labeled “Outgoing Legal 
Mail.”  The log indicates that Wade turned over to prison officials a 
piece of mail addressed to the circuit court clerk and Attorney 
General’s Office.  The log does not specifically identify what was 
mailed, but given the circuit court clerk’s receipt of Wade’s notice of 
 
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appeal a few days later, and the fact that it was stamped and 
docketed as received on December 11, 2020, we believe it is 
reasonable to conclude that the piece of mail identified in the prison 
mail log is Wade’s notice of appeal. 
 
The First District and the State argue in their respective 
responses that prison mail logs are insufficient to establish 
timeliness under rule 9.420(a)(2) and suggest that only a prison 
date stamp in conformity with Florida Department of Corrections’ 
rule 33-210.102(8), Fla. Admin. Code—which sets out the 
procedures for the processing of inmate legal mail—will suffice.  
Neither response cites any case law in support of this assertion, 
and the text of the rule itself takes no position on what form an 
institutional mail system must take.3  Indeed, under the plain 
language of rule 9.420(a)(2)(A), an inmate is entitled to the benefit of 
the rule if he or she uses an institution’s system for legal mail, and 
the system records the date the inmate placed his or her filing into 
 
 
3.  The only reference to a specific institutional mail system in 
rule 9.420 is contained in the Committee Notes, which reference 
rule 33-210.102(8) as an example of one type of institutional mail 
system.  But, just like the rule itself, the Committee Notes take no 
position on what form an institutional mail system must take. 
 
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the hands of prison officials for mailing.  As evidenced by the prison 
mail log, Wade did exactly what the rule requires.  He utilized the 
institution’s system for legal mail to send his notice of appeal, and 
that system recorded the date he delivered the notice to prison 
officials for mailing. 
The Shifting of Burdens 
This case is similar to Thompson v. State, 761 So. 2d 324 (Fla. 
2000).  There, an inmate housed at a correctional institution that 
did not maintain mail logs was unable to establish when he turned 
his notice to invoke over to prison officials for mailing.  In light of 
the inconsistent legal mail practices maintained by many 
correctional institutions at the time, we held that a document would 
be deemed filed by an inmate on the date in the certificate of service 
indicating when it was delivered to prison officials for mailing, and 
that the burden would then shift to the State to prove the document 
was not timely placed in the hands of prison officials for mailing.  
Id. at 326. 
Here, as in Thompson, the institution’s apparent use of legal 
mail logs rather than prison date stamps as required by rule 33-
210.102(8), along with the First District’s refusal to accept such 
 
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logs, has left Wade without any way to establish the timeliness of 
his notice of appeal.  Wade has no control over what legal mail 
system the correctional institution at which he is housed uses, nor 
does he have the ability to require prison officials to comply with 
rule 33-210.102(8).  Thus, as in Thompson, when Wade produced 
the prison mail log in response to the First District’s show cause 
order indicating he timely submitted his notice of appeal to prison 
officials for mailing under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A), the burden shifted to 
the State to demonstrate that the notice was either not timely 
delivered to prison officials for mailing, or that Wade is otherwise 
not entitled to the benefit of rule 9.420(a)(2)(A). 
The First District and the State make the latter argument in 
their respective responses in this case.  They point to the prison 
date stamp on Wade’s postconviction motion as evidence that a 
system for legal mail employing date stamps existed at the 
institution where Wade is housed, and that Wade failed to use that 
system to send his notice of appeal.  But the fact that Wade’s 
postconviction motion contains a prison date stamp is irrelevant, as 
such is only indicative of what the institution’s system for legal mail 
was on April 2, 2020, not what that system was months later on the 
 
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date Wade delivered his notice of appeal to prison officials for 
mailing.  The institution, for any number of reasons—e.g., a 
damaged or misplaced date stamp, change in security or COVID-19 
protocols, or change in staffing—may not have employed the same 
system on the date Wade mailed his notice of appeal that was in 
place months earlier when he mailed his postconviction motion. 
The same is true with respect to rule 33-210.102(8).  The rule, 
while resulting in greater consistency in handling of legal mail 
across correctional institutions, is by no means dispositive of what 
legal mail system was in place at the institution where Wade is 
housed on the date he mailed his notice of appeal.  See Waters v. 
Dep’t. of Corr., 144 So. 3d 613, 617 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) (“[I]t is not 
the existence of the rule or mechanism that rebuts the presumption 
that the document was placed in the mail on the date the inmate 
asserts, but the institutional stamp itself which the Department has 
taken steps to ensure is always in place.”). 
Ultimately, neither the State nor the First District directs our 
attention to any facts or evidence in the record that would even 
suggest a legal mail system other than that utilized by Wade was in 
place at the institution at which he is housed on the date he mailed 
 
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his notice of appeal.  Also, and perhaps more significantly, neither 
response questions the accuracy or disputes the validity of the 
prison mail logs produced by Wade.  Thus, based on the record 
before us, we must conclude that Wade timely filed his notice of 
appeal under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A) on December 7, 2020, and that he 
possesses a clear legal right to the reinstatement of his appeal. 
A Belated Appeal as an Adequate Alternate Remedy 
The First District also suggests that Wade has an adequate 
alternate remedy in the form of a petition for belated appeal under 
rule 9.141(c).  But that rule, by definition, governs untimely 
appeals.  Given our conclusion that Wade timely filed his notice of 
appeal, rule 9.141(c) has no application here. 
III. 
We adopted the inmate filing rule in an effort to promote 
simplicity and fairness in how pro se inmates access the courts, as 
such persons are “unable to do anything but trust the prison 
officials and court clerks to process [their filings] in a timely 
manner.”  Haag v. State, 591 So. 2d 614, 617 (Fla. 1992).  We also 
sought to avoid the “arbitrariness that could undermine equal 
protection and equal access to the courts.”  Id.  These principles 
 
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remain at the root of the inmate filing rule, and we ask that all 
courts apply the rule with these principles in mind. 
In this case, the First District erred in not accepting Wade’s 
notice of appeal as timely filed without a prison date stamp because 
the prison mail log produced by Wade indicated the notice was 
timely turned over to prison officials for mailing under rule 
9.420(a)(2)(A).  Wade did all that the text of the inmate filing rule 
requires. 
We therefore grant Wade’s petition and direct the First District 
Court of Appeal to reinstate Wade’s appeal in Frederick L. Wade v. 
State of Florida, Case No. 1D21-598.  Because we are confident the 
district court will act in a manner consistent with this opinion, we 
withhold issuance of the writ. 
 
It is so ordered. 
CANADY, C.J., and POLSTON, LABARGA, LAWSON, MUÑIZ, 
COURIEL, and GROSSHANS, JJ., concur. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION 
AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
Original Proceeding – Mandamus 
 
Susanne K. Sichta and Rick A. Sichta of Sichta Law, LLC, 
Jacksonville, Florida, 
 
 
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for Petitioner 
 
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Julian Markham, Assistant 
Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent