# ILli'tH /47T/Y I67W(

CASE NOS. PD-1976-14, PD-1677-14 & PD-1678-14

IN RE § IN THE RORYJONES, § COURT OF TDCJ-CID#01914710 § CRIMINAL APPEALS PETITIONER JONES MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF DISMISSAL OF PDR'S AS BEING UNTIMELY 

# ORIGINAL

COUFTTOF CRIMINALAPPEALS MAR 18 2015 Abel Acosta, Clerk TO THE HONORABLE JUDGES OF T6HE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS: 

### Comes now, yourPetitioner, Rory Jones, proceeding in pro se in the above-styled and numbered causes and files this, his Motion for Reconsideration of his PDR's being Dismissed as being untimely 

### FILED IN 

### filed and in supportthereof, would show the Court as follows: COURTOF CRIMINALAPPEALS 

# L MAR 20 2015
Abel Acosta, Clerk Procedural History 

### Petitioner was convicted of the felony offenses of aggravated robbery, aggravated assault and 

### aggravated kidnapping in the 211th Judicial District Court ofDenton County in the State ofTexas v. Rory Jones in case numbers: F-2014-0079-C, F-2014-0080-C and F-2014-0081-C on February 07, 2014. A 

### direct appeal was taken byPetitioner tothe Second Court ofAppeals in Jones v. State, Case Nos. 02-14- 00068-CR, 02-14-00069-CR & 02-14-00070-CR, who affirmed the judgment and sentences in an 

### unpublished opinion dated November 20, 2014. On December 31, 2014, the Court granted Petitioner's Motion for Extension of Time to file his pro se PDR, giving him up to and including February 20, 2015, 

### in which to file his pro se PDR in all three cases. Petitioner placed allthree of his PDR's in theprison mail box for the authorities to forward to the Court on February 19, 2015, as demonstrated by the 

### associated dates written above his signature and certificates of service ofhis PDR. On March 04, the Clerk of the Court issued a notice to Petitionerthat his three PDR's had been dismissed as being untimely filed. This proceeding followed. See Appendix A.H.

Motion for Reconsideration Petitioner relies upon twoprocedural rulesof lawadopted by the Texas Supreme Courtto remedy the alleged deficient filing. First, Petitioner would direct the attention of the Courtto the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, Rule 4, infra:

A. Rule 4. Time and Notice Provisions
4.1. Computing Time (a) InGeneral. The day of an act, event, or defaultafterwhich a designated period beginsto run is not included whencomputing a periodprescribed or allowedby these rules, by court order,or by statute. 

### The last day of theperiod isincluded, butifthatday isa Saturday, Sunday, orlegal holiday, theperiod
extends to the end ofthe next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday.
9.2. Filing (b) Filing by Mail. 

### (1)Timely Filing. Adocument received within tendays afterthefiling deadline isconsidered timely filed if: (A) it was sent to the properclerk by UnitedStatesPostal Service or a commercial delivery service; 

### (B) itwas placed in anenvelope orwrapper properly addressed andstamped; and(C) it was deposited in the mail or delivered to a commercialdelivery service on or before the last day for filing. Petitioner submits that he signed his three PDR's on February 19, 2015 and placed them in the prison mail for them to forward to the Courts Clerk for filing. For reasons unknown to Petitioner the package mailed was not post-marked before the last day of filing, which would have been February 20, 2015. Thereafter, the clerk ofthe Court dismissed all three PDR's as being untimely on March 04, 2015. Once an inmate places his pleading(s) in the prison mail box for forwarding to the clerk of a court for filing he has nocontrol on howhispleadings areactually handled and/orforwarded forfiling.
B. Federal Mail box Rule Extended to State Filings
In Campbell v. State, PD-1081-09, this Court held in relevant part: We granted appellant's sole ground forreview, which he filed pro se: "The court ofappeals erred in holdingthat the mailboxrule filing and received by clerk after deposited within ten 

### days applied to indigent criminal defendants acting prose." Anamended briefhasbeen filed by "Counsel forAppellant." In thatbrief, appellant asserts that the court ofappeals "erred in holding that the ten-day late-filing requirement, incorporated into TEX.R. CIV. P. 5 and 

### TEX.R.APP. P. 9.2, applies to an indigent, incarcerated litigant acting pro se." He asks, 

### "Should pro se, incarcerated litigants be exempted from enforcement of the ten-day filing provisoembedded withinTEX.R. CIV. P. 5 andTEX.R.APP. P. 9.2(b)(1)?" In Texas, the mailbox rule is encompassed by TEX.R.APP. P. 9.2(b) and TEX.R. CIV. P. 5. 

### Rule 9.2(b) provides that, if filed by mail, a document received within ten days after the 

### filing deadline is considered timely filed if: 1) it was sent to the proper clerk by United States Postal Servicefirst-class, express, registered, or certified mail; 2) it was placed in an envelope orwrapper properly addressed and stamped; and 3) it was deposited in the mail on 

### orbefore the lastday forfiling. Rule 5 alsoprovides thatadditional time to file is permitted, including specific provisions that if any properly addressed and stamped document in an envelope orwrapper sentto the proper clerk by first-class United States mail anddeposited in the mail on or before the last day for filing, and received by the clerk not more than ten 

### days afterthe lastdayforfiling, shall befiled bytheclerk and bedeemed filed intime. 

### The Supreme Court also pointed outthat, "[u]nlike other litigants, pro se prisoners cannot 

### personally travel tothe courthouse to see that the notice is stamped Tiled' or toestablish the date on which the court received the notice." Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. at 271, 108 S.Ct. 

### 2379. The Court also noted thatpro se prisoners are forced to entrust their appeals to the 

### vagaries ofthe mail, while other litigants who use that method can "place the notice directly into the hands of the United States Postal Service (or a private express carrier); and they canfollow its progress by calling the court to determine whether the notice has been received and stamped, knowing that if the mail goes awry they can personally deliver notice at the last moment or that their monitoring will provide them with evidence to demonstrate either excusable neglect or that the notice was not stamped on the day the court received it." Id. It also notesthat "[p]rose prisoners cannottake any of theseprecautions; nor, by definition, do they have lawyers who can take these precautions for them." The SupremeCourt recognizesthat "[w]orse,the pro se prisoner has no choice but to entrust the forwarding of his notice of appeal to prison authorities whom he cannot control or supervise and who may have every incentive to delay." Id. "No matter how far in advance the pro se prisoner delivers his notice to the prison authorities, he can never be sure that it will ultimately get stamped Tiled' on time." Id. (Emphasis in original.) "And if there is a delay the prisoner suspects is attributable to the prisonauthorities, he is unlikelyto have any means of proving it, for his confinement prevents him from monitoring the process sufficiently to distinguish delay on the part of prison authorities from slow mail service or the court clerk's failure to stamp the notice on the date received." Id. It also recognizes that "[ujnskilled in law,unaided bycounsel, andunable to leave theprison, [thepro seprisoner's] control over theprocessing of his notice necessarily ceases as soonas hehands it over to the 

### only public officials to whom he has access — the prison authorities

— and the only information he will likely have is the date he delivered the notice to thoseprison authorities and the date ultimatelystampedon his notice." Id. at 271-72, 108 S.Ct. 2379.
Like our sister courts, we declineto penalize a pro se inmate who timelydeliversa document 

### to theprison mailbox. We find the analysis of the United States Supreme Court in Houston v. Lack to be compelling. We see no reason for this Court to hold contrarily to both the United States and Texas Supreme Courts. Therefore, we shall apply thoseconsiderations to an analogous situation, such as the present case.


### We hold that the pleadings of pro se inmates shall be deemed filed at the time they are delivered to prison authorities forforwarding to the courtclerk. Accordingly, wereverse the 

### judgment of thecourt ofappeals and remand this cause to thatcourt for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Id. Campbellv. State, 320 SW3d 338. 

### Like the litigant in Campbell, Petitioner has had to rely on prison authorities receiving his 

### pleadings afterthey are placed into the prison mailbox toforward in atimely manner his pleadings to this Court for its consideration.CONCLUSION Accordingly, Petitioner would respectfullyrequest that this Honorable Court extend the mail box rule to his previous filing of his three PDR's, which, as demonstrated in the certificate of service of those pleadings, show he signed and placed his three PDR petitions in the prison mail box on February 19, 2015, the day before the deadline for same to be filed;

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 

### I, Rory K. Jones, TDCJ-CID#01914710, Petitioner, pro se, hereincertifies that a true and 

### correct copy of the above and foregoing Petition for Discretionary Review was sent to the Denton County District Attorney, and The State Prosecuting Attorney, by placing same, in the prison mail box, first-class, postagepaid, on this the 19 day ofFebruary, 2015.


### SIGNED onthis the 13th day ofMarch 2015.
Respectfully submitted,

Huntsville, Texas 77349CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I, Rory K. Jones, TDCJ-CID#01914710, Petitioner, pro se, herein certifies that a true and 

### correct copy of the above and foregoing Motion for Reconsideration was sent to the Denton County District Attorney, and The State Prosecuting Attorney, by placing same, in the prison 

### mail box, first-class, postage paid, onthis the 13th day ofMarch, 2015..APPENDIX AFIT F COPY OFFICIAL NOTICEFROMCOURTOFCRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS rll"E' P.O. BOX 12308, CAPITOL STATION, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711

3/4/2015 COA No. 02-14-00068-CR JONES, RORY Tr. Ct. No! F-2014-0079-C PD-1676-14 On this day, the Appellant's Pro Se petition for discretionary review has been 

### dismissed as untimely filed. ~_fi- .};': Abel Acosta, Clerk
RORY JONES TDC# 1914710 WYNNE UNIT 810 FM 2821 HUNTSVILLE, TX 77349FII F COPY OFFICIAL NOTICEFROMCOURTOF CRIMINALAPPEALSOF TEXAS rUjE wv^x P.O. BOX 12308, CAPITOL STATION, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711

3/4/2015 COA No. 02-14-00069-CR JONES, RORY Tr. Ct. No. F-2014-0080-C PD-1677-14 On this day, the Appellant's Pro Se petition for discretionary review has been dismissed as untimely filed. Abel Acosta, Clerk
RORY JONES TDC# 1914710 WYNNE UNIT 810 FM 2821 HUNTSVILLE, TX 77349Fir p copy OFFICIAL NOTICE FROMCOURTOF CRIMINALAPPEALS OF TEXAS rlLvC WAJI P.O. BOX 12308, CAPITOL STATION, AUSTIN, TEXAS 787II

3/4/2015 COA No. 02-14-00070-CR JONES, RORY Tr. Gt. No! F-2014-0081 -C PD-1678-14 On this day, the Appellant's Pro Se petition for discretionary review has been 

### dismissed as untimely filed. ..f:^ ~x;::" 's Abel Acosta, Clerk
RORY JONES TDC# 1914710 WYNNE UNIT 810 FM 2821 HUNTSVILLE, TX 77349