Opinion ID: 1449917
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: People v. Casillas: The conflict with Dailey

Text: Respondent contends that because prisoners no longer are subject to the potentially onerous requirement of filing a notice of appeal within the first 10 days after the rendition of judgment, a prisoner is entitled to relief from an untimely notice of appeal only where the prisoner demonstrates due diligence. Respondent urges that due diligence is established by a showing that the county clerk's untimely receipt of the notice of appeal was not the fault of the prisoner. Specifically, respondent urges that we adopt the standard set forth in People v. Casillas, supra, 218 Cal. App.3d 1365, and deny relief in this case because petitioner allegedly has failed to establish that the county clerk's untimely receipt of his notice is attributable to negligence or inaction on the part of custodial officials, a dereliction of duty by counsel, or some other cause not the fault of the party seeking to appeal.... ( Id. at p. 1366; accord People v. Grey, supra, 225 Cal. App.3d at p. 1340.) Respondent's argument directs us to the crux of the issue before us  the conflict between Dailey, which held that a prisoner acts with requisite diligence by delivering a notice of appeal to prison authorities at any time within the filing period, and Casillas, which requires a prisoner, in order to establish that due diligence was exercised, to deliver a notice of appeal to prison authorities sufficiently in advance of the filing deadline to ensure timely receipt by the county clerk. In addressing this issue, we compare the analyses set forth by the Courts of Appeal in Casillas and Dailey. In Casillas, the prisoner waited until the 59th day after the rendition of judgment before placing his notice of appeal in the prison mailbox. The notice was received by the county clerk four days beyond the sixty-day period. In rejecting the prisoner's request for relief premised on a constructive filing theory, the appellate court distinguished People v. Dailey, supra, 175 Cal. App.2d 101, observing that Dailey had been decided during the era when the time for filing was only 10 days. ( People v. Casillas, supra, 218 Cal. App.3d at p. 1369.) Tersely noting that [t]he distinction between 10 days and 60 days speaks for itself, Casillas declared: The conditions which created the need for the `prison filing' doctrine created in People v. Dailey have been eliminated and with them the reasons to continue indulging that particular legal fiction. ( Id. at p. 1370.) The Casillas court also expressly disagreed with People v. Wychocki, supra, 188 Cal. App.3d 1065, insofar as Wychocki may be read as holding that the `prison delivery' rule of People v. Dailey survived the 1972 amendment to Rule 31[a].... (218 Cal. App.3d at p. 1369.) [6] Casillas identified the prison-delivery rule as a judicial response to the perception that the 10-day time limit was unreasonably short and imposed an unfair burden on prisoners. It was this very problem which the 1972 amendment sought to remedy.... [¶] As Benoit held, [the 1972 amendment and other rule changes] did not eliminate the constructive filing exception to the 60-day rule in cases where an appeal is untimely because of negligence or misfeasance by prison officials or counsel. However, we conclude that [these rule changes] did abrogate the Dailey doctrine. ( People v. Casillas, supra, 218 Cal. App.3d at pp. 1369-1370.) In reaching its conclusion, Casillas relied upon the following statement from our opinion in Benoit: `[T]he purpose of extending the time to appeal from 10 days to 60 days was to eliminate what was believed to have been an unduly short period especially for the defendant in custody and under a procedure no longer permitting an oral notice of appeal in open court. We believe that the 60-day period is now sufficient for defendants, including those in prison or other custody, who desire to take the appeal personally and without counsel, particularly in view of the notification of appeal rights....' ( People v. Casillas, supra, 218 Cal. App.3d at p. 1370, citing In re Benoit, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 88.) Casillas thus interpreted Benoit as standing for the proposition that a prisoner  like the nonprisoner  has the responsibility of ensuring that his or her notice of appeal is received by the county clerk prior to expiration of the 60-day filing period. (218 Cal. App.3d at p. 1370.) Although the language of Benoit relied upon by Casillas is ambiguous, we believe that the Casillas court, in concluding that Benoit had abrogated the prison-delivery rule, read too much into this passage. As noted above, Benoit specifically cited the prison-delivery rule (as described in Dailey ) as representing an integral component of California's constructive filing doctrine (see In re Benoit, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 82), and nothing in Benoit suggests an intent to abolish this rule. Although in stating that [w]e believe that the 60-day period is now sufficient for defendants, including those in prison or other custody, who desire to take the appeal personally and without counsel (10 Cal.3d at p. 88), we indicated our belief that a prisoner should be able to file a notice of appeal within 60 days, we did not suggest that a notice of appeal delivered to prison authorities within that period might be untimely. In view of the circumstances underlying our decision in Benoit, and the disposition reached in that case, our comment regarding the sufficiency of the 60-day period was not essential to our decision, and clearly our holding did not rely upon it. (4) We cannot agree with Casillas 's conclusion that the extension of the filing period from 10 days to 60 days eliminated the basis for the prison-delivery rule. ( People v. Casillas, supra, 218 Cal. App.3d 1365.) As we have seen, the Dailey decision, in adopting that rule, explained that its principal purpose was to ensure that prisoners unrepresented by counsel would have an opportunity to file a notice of appeal equal to the opportunity afforded prisoners with counsel and to that afforded unincarcerated defendants. In this regard, the Dailey court observed that, were it to require that a notice of appeal actually be received by the clerk prior to expiration of the filing period, the actual time within which a person who is confined in prison may act [would be] reduced beyond the time in which a person who is not so confined may act. ( People v. Dailey, supra, 175 Cal. App.2d at p. 104, original italics.) The Dailey court discerned no principled basis for tolerating such disparity. ( Id. at pp. 104-105.) Nor do we. The United States Supreme Court, applying the prison-delivery rule to appeals taken from the federal courts, emphasized the same point in Houston v. Lack, supra, 487 U.S. 266. The high court stated: Such prisoners cannot take the steps other litigants can take to monitor the processing of their notices of appeal and to ensure that the court clerk receives and stamps their notices of appeal before the ... deadline. Unlike other litigants, pro se prisoners cannot personally travel to the courthouse to see that the notice is stamped `filed' or to establish the date on which the court received the notice. Other litigants may choose to entrust their appeals to the vagaries of the mail and the clerk's process for stamping incoming papers, but only the pro se prisoner is forced to do so by his situation. And if other litigants do choose to use the mail, they can at least place the notice directly into the hands of the United States Postal Service (or a private express carrier); and they can follow 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 date the court received it. Pro se prisoners cannot take any of these precautions; nor, by definition, do they have lawyers who can take these precautions for them. ( Id. at pp. 270-271 [101 L.Ed.2d at pp. 250-251].) Thus, the conclusion reached by the Casillas court ( People v. Casillas, supra, 218 Cal. App.3d 1365), that the prison-delivery rule has lost its vitality because that rule was adopted when the filing period comprised only 10 days, overlooks the critical point that the rule rests in large measure on the proposition that prisoners and nonprisoners are entitled to have available an equal period of time in which to pursue their appellate rights. At present, a nonprisoner who waits until the 60th day after rendition of judgment to deliver personally a notice of appeal to the appropriate county clerk is entitled to have his or her appeal heard on the merits. Although we do not condone delay of this type, such action by a defendant is deemed to be sufficient. The prison-delivery rule simply ensures that a prisoner who exercises the same degree of diligence, by personally delivering to prison authorities a notice of appeal on the 60th day, is accorded similar treatment. Adherence to the prison-delivery rule also furthers the efficient use of judicial resources. In rejecting the rule, the Casillas court indicated that if a notice of appeal is received by the county clerk after the 60-day deadline, a prisoner, in order to obtain relief under the constructive filing doctrine, must establish that the notice of appeal was placed in the prison mail ... sufficiently in advance of the filing deadline that in the normal course of prison mailing and United States Postal procedures the county clerk would have received the notice by the 60th day after the rendition of judgment. ( People v. Casillas, supra, 218 Cal. App.3d at p. 1370, italics added.) It is obvious, however, that application of such an amorphous standard, on a case-by-case basis, would impose an extreme burden upon the courts. In light of the uncertainty involved in mail delivery, the length of time normally needed to ensure timely delivery is subject to abridgment by numerous variables beyond the prisoner's control. For example, a prisoner who delivers to prison authorities a notice of appeal several days prior to a year-end filing deadline might discover that the notice failed to arrive in the county clerk's office in a timely manner due to a seasonal deluge of mailings. Similarly, a prisoner incarcerated in a remote area of the state, or several hundred miles from the appropriate county clerk, might not have the same number of days for mailing a notice of appeal as a prisoner more fortuitously located. In view of the increased demands upon our appellate courts, it is not the best use of judicial resources to require those courts in such situations to make determinations as to whether notices of appeal transmitted by individual prisoners were processed in the normal course of events. The prison-delivery rule eliminates the foregoing uncertainties. As the United States Supreme Court observed in Houston v. Lack, supra , [M]aking filing turn on the date the pro se prisoner delivers the notice to prison authorities for mailing is a bright-line rule, not an uncertain one. (487 U.S. at p. 275 [101 L.Ed.2d at p. 255].) Similarly, we agree with the Court of Appeal in Dailey that affirming equality of access to our courts is necessary and right and will greatly simplify the processing of criminal appeals when the notice of appeal is not received by the county clerk within the filing period prescribed by rule 31(a). ( People v. Dailey, supra, 175 Cal. App.2d at pp. 104, 107.) In view of the high volume of criminal appeals pursued in the California courts, [7] and the burdensome task involved in attempting to assess the diligence of prisoners on a case-by-case basis, we believe the administrative benefits of adhering to such a bright-line rule will be considerable. (2c) We therefore hold that a prisoner's notice of appeal is deemed to have been filed in the office of the appropriate county clerk on the date, within the filing period prescribed by rule 31(a), on which it was delivered to the prison authorities. If the notice of appeal is received by the county clerk following expiration of the 60-day filing period, the prisoner who seeks to pursue his or her appellate rights has the burden of establishing that the notice of appeal was delivered to prison authorities within the 60-day period. [8]