Case Name: STATE of Louisiana v. Troy GORDON
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 2006-03-30
Citations: 928 So. 2d 689
Docket Number: No. 06-KA-8
Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Troy GORDON.
Judges: Panel composed of Judges JAMES L. CANNELLA, MARION F. EDWARDS, and WALTER J. ROTHSCHILD.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 928
Pages: 689–695

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana v. Troy GORDON.
No. 06-KA-8.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fifth Circuit.
March 30, 2006.
Opinion Granting Rehearing May 15, 2006.
Harry J. Morel, Jr., District Attorney, Howat A. Peters, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, Twenty-Ninth Judicial District, Parish of St. Charles, State of Louisiana, Hahnville, Louisiana, for Plaintiff/Appel-lee.
Holli Herrle-Castillo, Attorney at Law, Louisiana Appellate Project, Marrero, Louisiana, for Defendant/Appellant.
Panel composed of Judges JAMES L. CANNELLA, MARION F. EDWARDS, and WALTER J. ROTHSCHILD.

Opinion:
MARION F. EDWARDS, Judge.
i2Pefendant, Troy Gordon, appeals his conviction for distribution of cocaine. For the following reasons, we dismiss defendant's appeal as untimely.
On July 21, 1999, the St. Charles Parish District Attorney filed a bill of information charging defendant, Troy Gordon, with distribution of cocaine. Gordon was arraigned on August 10, 1999 and pled not guilty. The State amended the bill of information on June 26, 2000 to change the year when the offense was alleged to have been committed from 1998 to 1999.
Gordon was tried by a twelve-person jury on June 26, 2000. The jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty as charged.
On August 23, 2000, the State filed a habitual offender bill of information, alleging Gordon to be a third felony offender. On that day, Gordon was apprised of the State's allegations and entered a denial. The trial court held a habitual | .^offender hearing on September 20, 2000, and found Gordon to be a third felony offender.
On October 25, 2000, the trial court found that the mandatory life sentence to which Gordon was exposed as a third felony offender was excessive and imposed a habitual offender sentence of twenty-eight years at hard labor. The judge further ordered that the sentence be served concurrently with the five-year sentence imposed in case number 98-0685.
Gordon did not file a timely written motion for appeal in accordance with LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 914, so we must first consider whether defendant preserved his appeal rights by other means.
On December 13, 2000, Gordon filed a motion for out-of-time appeal in proper person. The trial court denied that motion, noting that the proper procedural vehicle for seeking reinstatement of appeal rights is an application for post-conviction relief. On October 31, 2002, Gordon filed an untimely application for post-conviction relief in the district court, seeking rein statement of his appeal rights. On August 2, 2005, the trial court issued an order granting Gordon an out-of-time appeal. The court denied Gordon's remaining post-conviction claims of insufficiency of the evidence and excessive sentence.
LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 930.8 A provides that, unless one of the exceptions enumerated in the article is applicable, "[n]o application for post-conviction relief, including applications which seek an out-of-time appeal, shall be considered if it is filed more than two years after the judgment of conviction and sentence has become final.... " Sub-part A(l) of the article creates an exception where "[t]he applicant alleges, and the petitioner proves or the state admits, that the facts upon which the claim is predicated were not known to the petitioner or his attorney." | ¿Defendant's post-conviction application was clearly untimely under Article 930.8. Moreover, the exception in subpart A(l) does not apply to defendant's application, because he failed to allege that his untimeliness was due to recently discovered facts. Accordingly, we dismiss defendant's appeal as untimely.
APPEAL DISMISSED.
. Defendant's name is spelled "Gorden" in some places in the record.
. LSA-C.Cr.P. arts. 924-930.8; State v. Counterman, 475 So.2d 336, 339 (La.1985).
. See, State v. Mickel, 03-795, p. 3 (La.App. 5 Cir. 12/9/03), 864 So.2d 661, 663, writ denied, 04-2515 (La.6/17/05), 904 So.2d 692.