Opinion ID: 4211918
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Late review as a remedy under Oregon law

Text: For his argument that this court can and should authorize a late petition for review when a prisoner’s counsel fails to file a timely petition for review, petitioner again relies primarily on Geist—specifically on the court’s conclusion that “[a]bsent an express legislative procedure for vindicating the statutory right to adequate counsel, this court may fashion an appropriate procedure.” 310 Or at 185. Petitioner argues that Geist requires the court to fashion an “appropriate procedure” to vindicate the assumed violation of his right to counsel under ORS 144.337(1). Petitioner contends that here, where counsel’s inadequacy deprives petitioner of any opportunity to obtain judicial review of the board’s final order, a delayed judicial review is an “appropriate remedy” because it is the sole remedy that can vindicate his right. We conclude that allowing an untimely petition for review is not an appropriate remedy for counsel’s failure to file a petition for judicial review within the time limit set by Cite as 362 Or 15 (2017) 23 the legislature. The judicial review process that petitioner seeks exists because the legislature conferred jurisdiction on the Court of Appeals to review the administrative decisions of the board. We have repeatedly held that when the legislature confers jurisdiction on the courts to review an agency’s final order, the courts’ jurisdiction depends upon the timely filing of a petition for review. See, e.g., Ososke v. DMV, 320 Or 657, 661, 891 P2d 633 (1995) (“[T]he untimely filing of a petition for judicial review of a final order of DMV is a jurisdictional defect.”); 1000 Friends of Oregon v. LCDC (Clatsop Co.), 301 Or 622, 632, 724 P2d 805 (1986) (“The Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction to review LCDC orders is purely statutory and depends for its existence on the timely filing of a request for review from a final order.”); cf. State v. Harding, 347 Or 368, 373, 223 P3d 1029 (2009) (“Because defendant’s notice of appeal was not timely filed, neither the Court of Appeals nor this court has jurisdiction over the trial court judgment challenged by defendant in this case.”). To be sure, the legislature can and does create exceptions to the timelines that it sets for obtaining judicial review. See, e.g., ORS 138.071(5) (permitting defendant in criminal case to file late direct appeal if he or she shows a colorable claim of error and “that the failure to file a timely notice of appeal is not attributable to the defendant personally”); ORS 138.650(2)(a) (same, for review of post-conviction claims). But there are no statutory exceptions to the jurisdictional time limit in ORS 144.335(4), which requires that, if a person “seeks judicial review of a final order of the board, the person shall file a petition for judicial review with the Court of Appeals within 60 days[.]” The statute does not provide, for example, that the person shall file the petition for review within 60 days “except for good cause” or “unless the person was denied the assistance of counsel,” and we decline to construe the separate grant of a right to counsel in ORS 144.337(1) as implicitly creating an exception to the jurisdictional time limits. Nevertheless, petitioner argues that Geist offers a path around that statutory jurisdictional obstacle. Although he recognizes that Geist did not authorize jurisdiction over an untimely appeal, petitioner urges us to understand Geist’s 24 Haynes v. Board of Parole holding—that the court “may fashion an appropriate procedure” to vindicate a statutory right to adequate counsel—as rooted in principles of equity that apply here as well. Petitioner observes that Geist, in a footnote following the quoted holding, cites to cases arising in equity. See Geist, 310 Or at 185 n 11 (citing Stan Wiley v. Berg, 282 Or 9, 21-23, 578 P2d 384 (1978), and Day v. Griffith, 283 Or 393, 403, 584 P2d 261 (1978)). According to petitioner, the balance of equities here clearly favors excusing his untimely filing, so this court should allow a late filing as a matter of equity. However, petitioner identifies no authority for his proposition that equitable principles make it appropriate for this court to override time limits on statutory appellate jurisdiction, and we are aware of none.7 Given the strict time limits that the legislature has imposed when creating jurisdiction for judicial review of board orders, allowing a late review is not an “appropriate procedure” to vindicate petitioner’s statutory right to counsel. Petitioner next argues that the murder-review process is similar enough to a criminal proceeding that we should provide the same remedy for his counsel’s failure to file a timely petition for review as we have approved for the failure of a criminal defendant’s counsel to file a timely direct appeal of the criminal conviction. He relies on Shipman v. Gladden, 253 Or 192, 453 P2d 921 (1969), in which the petitioner sought post-conviction relief after his criminal defense counsel failed to file a timely direct appeal from the petitioner’s criminal conviction, and this court approved the remedy of a delayed appeal. Petitioner is correct that 7 Petitioner recommends the doctrine of equitable tolling as roughly apropos, relying on the Supreme Court’s description of that doctrine in Lozano v. Montoya Alvarez, ___ US ___, 134 S Ct 1224, 1231-32, 188 L Ed 2d 200 (2014): “[E]quitable tolling pauses the running of, or ‘tolls,’ a statute of limitations when a litigant has pursued his rights diligently but some extraordinary circumstance prevents him from bringing a timely action.” The Supreme Court has emphasized, however, that the doctrine is not used to avoid time bars that are jurisdictional. See United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, ___ US ___, 135 S Ct 1625, 1631, 191 L Ed 2d 533 (2015) (explaining that doctrine of equitable tolling can pause the running of a statute of limitations in actions between private parties and suits against the United States under a statute waiving sovereign immunity, unless Congress “made the time bar at issue jurisdictional”); Bowles v. Russell, 551 US 205, 214, 127 S Ct 2360, 168 L Ed 2d 96 (2007) (explaining that “timely filing of a notice of appeal in a civil case is a jurisdictional requirement” and that “Court has no authority to create equitable exceptions to jurisdictional requirements”). Cite as 362 Or 15 (2017) 25 Shipman illustrates an exception to the rule that the court will not consider appeals filed outside of the timelines set by the legislature. However, the exception is entirely a product of the context in which Shipman arose. First, the Shipman court concluded that criminal defendants have a right under the Fourteenth Amendment to the effective assistance of counsel in an appeal as of right from a criminal conviction. 253 Or at 198-99 (citing Anders v. California, 386 US 738, 87 S Ct 1396, 18 L Ed 2d 493 (1967); Douglas v. California, 372 US 353, 83 S Ct 814, 9 L Ed 2d 811 (1963); Griffin v. Illinois, 351 US 12, 76 S Ct 585, 100 L Ed 891 (1956)); see also Evitts v. Lucey, 469 US 387, 396, 105 S Ct 830, 83 L Ed 2d 821 (1985) (confirming, 16 years after Shipman, that a criminal defendant’s appeal as of right from the conviction “is not adjudicated in accord with due process of law if the appellant does not have the effective assistance of an attorney”).8 Thus, as we held in Shipman, when the state denied the petitioner direct appellate review of his criminal conviction due to the “culpable neglect of counsel,” he was deprived of a right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and the state was required to “provide a remedy adequate to restore the impaired right.” 253 Or at 203. Second, the court in Shipman explained that the relief the petitioner sought was available as a matter of Oregon law under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act, which directs the court to grant relief for a denial of a criminal defendant’s constitutional rights in either the trial or the appellate courts. Id. (citing ORS 138.530). The court emphasized that the act specifically “provides that the relief which a court may grant includes ‘   such other relief as may be proper and just’ ” and concluded that the legislature intended “such other relief” to include the remedy of a delayed appeal. Id. at 204 (quoting ORS 138.520). 8 The earlier right-to-counsel cases, on which Shipman relied, tended to derive support from both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Evitts, 469 US at 403 (quoting Bearden v. Georgia, 461 US 660, 665, 103 S Ct 2064, 76 L Ed 2d 221 (1983), for the proposition: “Due process and equal protection principles converge in the Court’s analysis in these cases.”). Evitts, however, announced a right to effective assistance of counsel derived entirely from the Due Process Clause. 26 Haynes v. Board of Parole The relief afforded to the petitioner in Shipman thus was rooted in two sources of authority that do not exist here: the due process right to effective assistance of counsel in appeals as of right from a criminal conviction and an express statutory directive that the court provide relief to vindicate that constitutional right. Here, no statute provides, or directs the court to provide, relief from the jurisdictional requirement that petitioner file a timely petition for judicial review of a parole board order. Moreover, as we will explain below, petitioner has no constitutional right to judicial review of the board’s decision or to the assistance of counsel in challenging that decision. Thus, Shipman does not alter our conclusion that allowing review to proceed outside of the jurisdictional time limit is not an “appropriate procedure” to vindicate petitioner’s statutory right to counsel. 2. Late review as a remedy required by the Due Process Clause Petitioner also contends that this court must make an exception to the 60-day jurisdictional deadline in order to prevent a violation of petitioner’s right to due process. According to petitioner, because the Oregon legislature has granted a right to judicial review of the board’s order, petitioner has a due process right to that judicial review that cannot be denied on the basis of “a calendaring error on the part of his appellate counsel, a state actor.” We disagree. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amend- ment guarantees that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Thus, in evaluating a claimed due process violation, the threshold inquiry “is whether the state has deprived a person of a liberty or property interest within the meaning of the Due Process Clause.” Stogsdill v. Board of Parole, 342 Or 332, 336, 154 P3d 91 (2007) (citing Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 US 209, 224, 125 S Ct 2384, 162 L Ed 2d 174 (2005)); see also Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 US 1, 7, 99 S Ct 2100, 60 L Ed 2d 668 (1979) (looking to the nature of the claimed interest to determine if the Due Process Clause applies). If “there exists a liberty or property interest of which a person has been deprived,” the second inquiry is Cite as 362 Or 15 (2017) 27 “whether the procedures followed by the State were constitutionally sufficient.” Swarthout v. Cooke, 562 US 216, 219, 131 S Ct 859, 178 L Ed 2d 732 (2011).
At the threshold step of the analysis, we accept petitioner’s premise that ORS 163.105 (1985) confers a constitutionally significant “liberty interest” in having a sentence of life without the possibility of parole changed to permit the possibility of parole. Although “[t]here is no right under the Federal Constitution to be conditionally released before the expiration of a valid sentence,” state parole statutes can create a constitutionally protected liberty interest. Swarthout, 562 US at 220. It is not enough, however, that a state offers the mere “possibility” of parole; rather, a protected liberty interest is created only when the statute uses mandatory language that “creates a presumption that parole release will be granted” when certain necessary findings have been made. Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 US 369, 377-78, 107 S Ct 2415, 96 L Ed 2d 303 (1987) (quoting Greenholtz, 442 US at 12); see also Evitts, 469 US at 401 (“when a State opts to act in a field where its action has significant discretionary elements, it must nonetheless act in accord with the dictates of the Constitution—and, in particular, in accord with the Due Process Clause[.]”). Like the language of the statutes discussed in Allen and Greenholtz, ORS 163.105 (1985) uses mandatory language that creates a presumption that the board “shall” change the terms of the prisoner’s confinement to life with the possibility of parole when the board makes the designated finding. Moreover, this court has previously held that an Oregon parole release statute created a protected liberty interest in being released on a date that has been set for release. Stogsdill, 342 Or at 335-36. The board makes little effort to counter petitioner’s argument that he has a protected liberty interest in becoming eligible for early release, except to suggest that the interest is a step removed from being given a release date—and, thus, “more tenuous” than the liberty interest that we identified in Stogsdill. But that distinction appears to be immaterial 28 Haynes v. Board of Parole given our discussion of the applicable parole framework in Janowski/Fleming v. Board of Parole, 349 Or 432, 245 P3d 1270 (2010). In Janowski, we undertook an extensive analysis of the parole statutes and regulations that are applicable to prisoners who committed aggravated murder during the era in which petitioner here committed his crime. We concluded that, under that statutory and regulatory framework, once the board changes the terms of a prisoner’s confinement under ORS 163.105 (1985) to allow the possibility of parole, the board must set—or must already have set—a scheduled parole release date.9 Id. at 453. Janowski did not analyze whether ORS 163.105 (1985) creates a protected liberty interest in the change of an inmate’s confinement terms, but its conclusion undermines the board’s suggestion that a decision under ORS 163.105 (1985) to allow the possibility of release does not necessarily result in a release date, the only reason that the board offers for distinguishing Stogsdill. We, thus, accept petitioner’s premise that ORS 163.105 (1985) creates a liberty interest within the meaning of the Due Process Clause and, thus, that petitioner is entitled to some measure of due process when the board denies a request to change a prisoner’s terms of confinement.
The more challenging task for petitioner is to establish that a right to judicial review with the assistance of adequate counsel is among the procedural protections that the Due Process Clause demands when a liberty interest in parole is at stake. The nature of the procedural protections that due process requires to vindicate a liberty interest depends upon the nature of the liberty interest at issue. See Swarthout, 562 US at 220. The United State Supreme Court has already determined that, when the liberty interest at issue is a state-created opportunity for parole, the Due Process Clause guarantees no more than “minimal” process, which is limited to an opportunity to be heard and a statement of the reasons why parole was denied. Id. (citing Greenholtz, 442 US at 16). 9 The parole “release date” referred to in Janowski is not a date on which release is guaranteed, but it is a scheduled release date that may be postponed for only three statutorily prescribed reasons. 349 Or at 457 (citing ORS 144.125(2) (1985)). Cite as 362 Or 15 (2017) 29 As petitioner acknowledges, Swarthout means that a state satisfies the requirements of the Due Process Clause without providing either a right to the assistance of counsel in the murder-review process or a right to judicial review of the board’s decision. Yet petitioner views the “minimal” process that Swarthout prescribes for parole decisions as essentially only a floor. According to petitioner, by enacting statutes that grant the additional protection of judicial review with the assistance of counsel, Oregon has made a “meaningful opportunity” to pursue judicial review part of the process to which petitioner is entitled under the Due Process Clause. As support for his theory that a state statute can expand the “minimal” protections that the Due Process Clause otherwise requires when a state denies parole, petitioner cites only the well established principle that a statute can create the kind of interest in liberty (or property) to which due process protections will apply. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 US 539, 557, 94 S Ct 2963, 41 L Ed 2d 935 (1974) (explaining that statute granting prisoners a right to “good time” that could be forfeited only for serious misbehavior created an “interest” that “is sufficiently embraced within Fourteenth Amendment ‘liberty’ to entitle [prisoners] to those minimum procedures appropriate under the circumstances and required by the Due Process Clause”); see also Stogsdill, 342 Or at 336 (Oregon statutes directing parole board to set release date for prisoner “created a protected liberty interest, which required the board to provide him with some process.”). But whether a statute can create an interest in liberty or property that is protected by the Due Process Clause is a separate inquiry from whether a statutory process for protecting that interest becomes part of the procedures that the Due Process Clause requires in order to protect the interest. See Swarthout, 562 US at 219 (describing the two-stage inquiry under the Due Process Clause). Nevertheless, petitioner’s theory is reminiscent of the reasoning that led the United States Supreme Court to conclude in Evitts that, if a state grants a right to appeal criminal convictions, then the Due Process Clause precludes the state from denying that right on the basis of appointed counsel’s failure to meet a deadline. 469 US at 396. The 30 Haynes v. Board of Parole defendant in Evitts appealed his criminal conviction, but the appeal was dismissed when his retained lawyer failed to file a required “statement of appeal.” The defendant then sought federal habeas corpus relief, contending that the dismissal of his appeal for an omission that was entirely due to his lawyer’s ineffective representation violated his constitutional right to due process. The state argued that, because states are under no constitutional imperative to provide a right to appeal criminal convictions,10 “whatever a state does or does not do on appeal—whether or not to have an appeal and if so, how to operate it—is of no due process concern to the Constitution.” Id. at 400. The Court rejected the state’s argument, explaining that, although the defendant’s right to an appeal process was purely a statutory right, once a state creates a right to appeal that is “an integral part of the    system for finally adjudicating the guilt or innocence of a defendant,” it must decide those appeals using procedures that comport with the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 393 (quoting Griffin, 351 US at 18-20). The Court then held that those constitutionally required procedures included “the effective assistance of an attorney” to assist on direct appeal. Evitts, 469 US at 396. Applying that rule, the Court concluded that the state could not deny the defendant’s appeal based on what was, in effect, a violation of his due process right to the effective assistance of counsel on direct appeal. Id. at 400. At first glance, Evitts could be taken to support petitioner’s theory that, for any statutory grant of the right to appeal a decision affecting criminal defendants, there is a due process right to pursue that process with the assistance of counsel. Other decisions clarify, however, that the Evitts rule reaches no further than the circumstances of Evitts—a direct appeal process that is an integral part of the state’s system for adjudicating guilt or innocence. For example, although a state may also allow a discretionary appeal to the highest court, in addition to an appeal as of right to challenge a conviction, there is no due process right to pursue that 10 As the court explained in Evitts, it had long ago “held that the Constitution does not require States to grant appeals as of right to criminal defendants seeking to review alleged trial court errors.” 469 US at 393 (citing McKane v. Durston, 153 US 684, 14 S Ct 913, 38 L Ed 867 (1894)). Cite as 362 Or 15 (2017) 31 discretionary appeal with the assistance of counsel. Ross v. Moffitt, 417 US 600, 610, 94 S Ct 2437, 41 L Ed 2d 341 (1974). Applying that rule in a later case, Wainwright v. Torna, 455 US 586, 587-88, 102 S Ct 1300, 71 L Ed 2d 475 (1982), the Court held that a criminal defendant whose retained lawyer failed to file a timely petition for discretionary review in the state’s highest court had no due process right to pursue review with the assistance of counsel and, thus, no due process right to a delayed opportunity for review. Similarly, in Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 US 551, 555, 107 S Ct 1990, 95 L Ed 2d 539 (1987), the Court held that, although a state may allow a process for collateral challenges to a conviction (such as a post-conviction relief act), the defendant has no constitutional right to pursue that process with the assistance of counsel. As the Court explained in Finley, “[s]tates have no obligation to provide this avenue of relief, and when they do, the fundamental fairness mandated by the Due Process Clause does not require that the State supply a lawyer as well.” Id. at 557 (internal citation omitted). As already emphasized, states have no constitu- tional obligation to provide for judicial review of parole decisions. See Swarthout, 562 US at 220-21. Thus, when a state provides a statutory process for judicial review of a parole decision, inmates have no due process right to be assisted by adequate counsel before the petition for review is denied. See Finley, 481 US at 555; Wainright, 455 US at 587-88. That answer is not changed by Oregon’s adoption of a statutory right to counsel to assist with judicial review, in addition to a statutory process for judicial review. Finley provides the most pertinent guidance on this point. In Finley, a prisoner whose murder conviction had been affirmed on direct appeal sought relief under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Hearing Act, which afforded a statutory right to appointed counsel to assist with the process. Instead of pursuing the prisoner’s claim, his appointed counsel advised the court that he saw no merit to the claim, and the postconviction court dismissed the case. On review, the state appellate court held that the attorney’s performance failed to satisfy the standard that the Due Process Clause demands when counsel is appointed to assist with a direct criminal appeal and, therefore, that the dismissal of the prisoner’s 32 Haynes v. Board of Parole case violated his constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel.11 481 US at 553-54. In the Supreme Court, the prisoner relied on Evitts for the proposition that a statutory right to counsel must be equivalent to the due process right to counsel, but the Court disagreed. 481 US at 557-58. As the Court explained: “the fact that the defendant has been afforded assistance of counsel in some form does not end the inquiry for federal constitutional purposes. Rather, it is the source of that right to a lawyer’s assistance, combined with the nature of the proceedings, that controls the constitutional question.” Id. at 556. The Court emphasized that the nature of the proceeding—a collateral challenge to a criminal conviction— is “not part of the criminal proceeding itself,” that “[s]tates have no obligation to provide this avenue of relief, and [that] when they do, the fundamental fairness mandated by the Due Process Clause does not require that the State supply a lawyer as well.” Id. at 557 (internal citation omitted). Given the nature of the proceedings, the Court concluded that the only source of the right to counsel in Finley was state law and, accordingly, it rejected the state court’s conclusion that dismissing the prisoner’s case would violate his rights under the Due Process Clause. Id. at 559. Here, too, the proceeding—judicial review of a board decision regarding the possibility of parole—is not part of the criminal proceeding itself, is not an avenue of relief that the state has a constitutional obligation to provide, and is not a proceeding for which, when the state provides it, the Due Process Clause requires the state to provide a lawyer as well. Thus, the source of petitioner’s right to counsel is purely the state’s decision to supply petitioner with a lawyer. Given that source of the right to counsel, and the nature of the judicial review proceeding at issue, we conclude that petitioner has no due process right to be assisted by adequate counsel before his petition for review is denied. 11 The lawyer in Finley had failed to comply with procedures that the Supreme Court prescribed to assure that, when a criminal defendant’s appointed counsel concludes there is no merit to the direct appeal, the defendant’s constitutional right to counsel on direct appeal is, nevertheless, protected. See Anders v. California, 386 US 738, 87 S Ct 1396, 18 L Ed 2d 493 (1967). Cite as 362 Or 15 (2017) 33