Thus, appellant's petition was untimely filed and procedurally barred 

absent a demonstration of good cause—cause for the delay and undue 

prejudice. See NRS 34.726(1). 

First, appellant argues that he does not have a legal 

education. This fails to demonstrate good cause for filing an untimely 

post-conviction petition. See Phelps v. Dir., Nev. Dep't of Prisons, 104 Nev. 

656, 660, 764 P.2d 1303, 1306 (1988) (holding that petitioner's claim of 

organic brain damage, borderline mental retardation and reliance on the 

assistance of an inmate law clerk unschooled in the law did not constitute 

good cause for the filing of a successive post-conviction petition). 

Second, appellant appears to assert that ineffective assistance 

of trial counsel should excuse the delay. Appellant's claim lacks merit 

because a procedurally barred claim of ineffective assistance of counsel 

cannot constitute cause for additional claims of ineffective assistance of 

counsel. See Hathaway v. State, 119 Nev. 248, 252, 71 P.3d 503, 506 

(2003). Moreover, appellant fails to explain why he could not have raised 

claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in a timely petition. See id. at 

253, 71 P.3d at 506. Therefore, the district court did not err in dismissing 

the petition as procedurally barred. 

Third, appellant argues he had good cause to excuse the delay 

because he did not receive his case file from counsel in a timely manner. 

At the evidentiary hearing, counsel testified that the prison refused to 

accept the mailed case file, but counsel stated that he eventually sent the 

file in a manner which was acceptable to the prison officials. Interference 

by Nevada Department of Corrections officials can constitute good cause to 

excuse the delay in filing a post-conviction petition if such interference 

made compliance with the procedural bars impracticable. See Hathaway, 

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119 Nev. at 252, 71 P.3d at 506. However, appellant provides no facts 

which would demonstrate that official interference prevented him from 

filing a timely petition. See id.; see also Hargrove v. State, 100 Nev. 498, 

502-03, 686 P.2d 222, 225 (1984). Appellant provided no explanation 

regarding the reason prison officials initially rejected the case file and 

appellant fails to demonstrate that he needed the case file to raise the 

substantive claims contained in his petition as those claims involved offthe-record discussions he had with counsel. The district court concluded 

that appellant did not demonstrate that any delay in receiving the entire 

case file prevented appellant from filing a timely petition, and appellant 

fails to demonstrate that the district court erred. 3 

Docket No. 61312 

Appellant filed a second petition on March 3, 2012, more than 

four years after entry of the judgment of conviction on September 6, 2007. 4 

Thus, appellant's petition was untimely filed. See NRS 34.726(1). 

Moreover, appellant's petition constituted an abuse of the writ as he 

raised claims new and different from those in his August 14, 2009, 

petition. See NRS 34.810(2). Appellant's petition was procedurally barred 

absent a demonstration of good cause and actual prejudice. See NRS 

34.726(1); NRS 34.810(3). 

3Appellant also argues that federal equitable tolling standards 

should excuse the procedural bars. Appellant did not raise this good cause 

claim before the district court, and therefore, we decline to consider this 

claim in the first instance on appeal. See Davis v. State, 107 Nev. 600, 

606, 817 P.2d 1169, 1173 (1991), overruled on other grounds by Means v. 

State, 120 Nev. 1001, 1012-13, 103 P.2d 25, 33 (2004). 

4No direct appeal was taken: 

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Appellant claimed he had good cause to overcome the 

procedural bars because he-learned new information related to the grand 

jury proceedings at an evidentiary hearing in September 2011. 

Appellant's claim is belied by the record as appellant raised similar claims 

regarding the grand jury proceedings in a pretrial petition for a writ of 

habeas corpus filed in 2007. Further, the grand jury proceedings were not 

discussed at the 2011 evidentiary hearing. In addition, appellant claimed 

his counsel possessed the information related to the grand jury 

proceedings, and therefore, appellant failed to demonstrate an impediment 

external to the defense prevented him from raising his claims in a timely 

petition. See Hathaway, 119 Nev. at 252, 71 P.3d at 506. Therefore, the 

district court did not err in denying the petition as procedurally barred. 

For the foregoing reasons, we 

ORDER the judgments of the district court AFFIRMED. 5 

,J. 

Hardesty 

Cherry 

5We have reviewed all documents that appellant has submitted in 

proper person to the clerk of this court in Docket No. 61312, and we 

conclude that no relief based upon those submissions is warranted. To the 

extent that appellant has attempted to present claims or facts in those 

submissions which were not previously presented in the proceedings 

below, we have declined to consider them in the first instance. 

4 

Parraguirre 
cc: Hon. Carolyn Ellsworth, District Judge 

The Law Office of Dan M. Winder, P.C. 

Gilberto Carillo, Jr. 

Attorney General/Carson City 

Clark County District Attorney 

Eighth District Court Clerk 

5