Title: Ex Parte Wright

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

860 So. 2d 1253 (2002)
Ex parte Motis Franklin WRIGHT.
(In re Motis Franklin Wright v. State).
1001181.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 3, 2002.
Motis F. Wright, pro se.
William H. Pryor, Jr., atty. gen., and Cedric B. Colvin, asst. atty. gen., for respondent.
JOHNSTONE, Justice.
The defendant, Motis Franklin Wright, was convicted of first-degree robbery and was sentenced under the Habitual Felony Offender Act to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Acting pro se, Wright filed a Rule 32, Ala. R.Crim. P., petition complaining that the indictments in his cases were void, and the trial court denied the petition. Wright appealed the *1254 denial, and the Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed his appeal for untimeliness, without an opinion. Wright v. State, (No. CR-00-1073, March 1, 2001) 821 So. 2d 1047 (Ala.Crim.App.2001) (table). The Court of Criminal Appeals subsequently dismissed Wright's motion to reinstate the appeal and his application for rehearing.
We granted Wright's petition for a writ of certiorari to determine whether the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in dismissing Wright's appeal as untimely filed. The only issue before us is whether Wright timely filed his notice of appeal. We reverse and remand with instructions.
On December 27, 2000, the trial judge signed and dated a separate order, not in bench notes or on the case action summary, denying Wright's Rule 32 petition. This order was date-stamped as received by the trial court clerk on January 8, 2001.
Wright received notice of this order through the mail on January 10, 2001. Wright alleges that he placed his notice of appeal in the prison mailbox on February 19, 2001. February 19 was 42 days after the January 8 date of the trial court clerk's receipt of the trial judge's order. Wright's notice of appeal bears a "Declaration of Mailing" signed by Wright and three witnesses stating: "I hereby certify that I have this 19th day of February, 2001, placed the foregoing Notice of Appeal in this Institution's mailbox, postage pre-paid and properly addressed, pursuant to Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266 [(1988)]." On February 21, 2001, the trial court clerk date-stamped Wright's notice of appeal as received.
"[P]ostconviction proceedings filed pursuant to Rule 32 are civil proceedings." State v. Hutcherson, 847 So. 2d 378, 383 (Ala.Crim.App.2001). "[I]n all cases in which an appeal is permitted by law as of right to the supreme court or to a court of appeals, the notice of appeal required by Rule 3[, Ala. R.App. P.,] shall be filed with the clerk of the trial court within 42 days (6 weeks) of the date of the entry of the judgment or order appealed from...." Rule 4(a)(1), Ala. R.App. P. See also Rule 32.10(a), Ala. R.Crim. P. "In the context of postconviction relief, the 42-day appeal period runs from the date of the trial court's denial of the Rule 32 petition." Ex parte Jones, 773 So. 2d 989, 989 (Ala.1998). (Citation omitted.) "Clearly, the wording of the Rule [4(a)(1), Ala. R.App.P.,] states that [a] notice of appeal must be filed within 42 days `after a judgment' has been entered in a case." Miles v. State, 822 So. 2d 468, 469 (Ala.Crim.App.2000). See also Thigpen v. State, 825 So. 2d 241, 244 (Ala.Crim.App.2001)." `[W]hen a judge renders a judgment by a separate written order, that judgment is not entered until it is filed in the clerk's office.'" Allstate Ins. Co. v. Coastal Yacht Servs., Inc., 823 So. 2d 632, 633 (Ala.2001) (quoting Smith v. Jackson, 770 So. 2d 1068, 1071-72 (Ala. 2000)) (emphasis added). See also Rule 58(c), Ala. R. Civ. P.
Therefore, Wright's 42-day appeal time began on January 8, 2001, when the separate-order denial of his Rule 32 petition was filed in the trial court clerk's office. If Wright's notice of appeal be deemed and found to have been filed by February 19, 2001, then his appeal was timely and relief will be due.
In Holland v. State, 621 So. 2d 373 (1993), the Court of Criminal Appeals observed and held:
Holland, 621 So. 2d  at 374-75. In Jones, 773 So. 2d  at 989, this Court explained and held:
Jones, 773 So. 2d  at 989-90 (emphasis added).
In Hatfield v. State, 784 So. 2d 377 (Ala. Crim.App.2000), Hatfield, a pro se inmate, timely appealed the denial by the trial court of his Rule 32 petition. In his Rule 32 petition, Hatfield had prayed that the trial court grant him an out-of-time direct appeal from his convictions because, he claimed, his original direct appeal had *1256 been improperly dismissed. Reversing the denial by the trial court of Hatfield's Rule 32 petition, the Court of Criminal Appeals observed that Hatfield apparently had mailed from prison his notice of direct appeal exactly 42 days after the pronouncement of his sentence even though the trial court clerk did not mark the notice as filed until two days later. The Court of Criminal Appeals reasoned and ruled:
Hatfield, 784 So. 2d  at 378 (citations omitted and emphasis added).
Likewise, in Thigpen v. State, supra, the Court of Criminal Appeals remanded Thigpen's case to the trial court to determine whether Thigpen's notice of appeal was timely filed:
Thigpen, 825 So. 2d  at 243-44. On return from remand, the Court of Criminal Appeals stated that "the parties stipulated that the notice was delivered to the Holman Prison mail facility in a timely manner." Thigpen v. State, 825 So. 2d 241, 244 (Ala.Crim.App.2001), opinion on return to remand. Accordingly, Thigpen's appeal was reinstated. Id.
While Rule 4(c), Ala. R.App. P., includes a provision that "[t]imely filing may be shown by a notarized statement that sets forth the date the filing was deposited in the institution's mail system" (emphasis added), this rule does not mandate such a notarized statement as the only way to establish the timeliness of a filing. Such a mandate would create still further issues about the availability and expense of a notary public that the rule is not drawn to resolve. The nonmandatory nature of the provision for the notarized statement is connoted by the use of the word may in contradistinction to the use of the word must elsewhere in the very same rule to connote a measure that is mandatorythe inmate's use of the "legal" mail system, if one is available in the institution, instead of the general mail system there.
The issue before us is not the timeliness of Wright's Rule 32 petition. The issue is, rather, the timeliness of his appeal from the denial of his Rule 32 petition. Because the filing of his notice of appeal in the trial court required no judicial action, as distinguished from ministerial action, by the trial court, the State did not interpose or waive any objection to the timeliness there, and the parties did not make any record of any contest of the timeliness there.
Rather, the first consideration of, and ruling on, the timeliness of Wright's appeal necessarily occurred in the Court of Criminal Appeals. No evidence before the Court of Criminal Appeals contradicted Wright's "Declaration of Mailing," which, if true, establishes that his notice of appeal was "filed" within the 42 days allowed by law. We can deduce that his notice of appeal must have been mailed on February 19, 2001 (the 42nd day), or February 20, 2001 (the 43rd day), for the notice of appeal to have been received and datestamped by the trial court clerk's office on February 21, 2001 (the 44th day). Wright's case is like those of the appellants in Hatfield and Thigpen, supra, and he is due like relief.
Therefore, this cause must be remanded for the trial court to determine whether Wright, in fact, deposited his notice of appeal in the appropriate internal mail system of the prison institution or handed the notice to an appropriate officer of that institution for such deposit on or before February 19, 2001. On remand, the trial court may conduct such proceedings and take such evidence as it deems necessary to make its fact-findings and shall return its fact-findings in writing to the Court of Criminal Appeals.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals dismissing Wright's appeal. We remand this cause to that court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.
MOORE, C.J., and SEE, LYONS, HARWOOD, and WOODALL, JJ., concur.
HOUSTON, BROWN, and STUART, JJ., concur in the result.