Opinion ID: 874802
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Stuart's Claims Are Barred Under The UPCPA

Text: [Idaho Code] § 19-2719 does not eliminate the applicability of the UPCPA to capital cases, but it supersedes the UPCPA to the extent that their provisions conflict. McKinney v. State, 133 Idaho 695, 700, 992 P.2d 144, 149 (1999). Therefore, even if I.C. § 19-2719 is unconstitutional, the underlying applicability of the UPCPA is unchanged and would apply to Stuart's case. Stuart's appeal was finalized in 1985. State v. Stuart (Stuart I), 110 Idaho 163, 165, 715 P.2d 833, 835 (1985). As the statute of limitations in 1985 was five years, Stuart's ability to raise collateral attacks on his sentence would have run in 1990. 1979 Idaho Sess. Laws, ch. 133, § 1, p. 428 (amending the UPCPA to a five-year statute of limitations). Recently, in Rhoades v. State, this Court suggested that claims of ineffective assistance of counsel would not qualify for equitable tolling under the UPCPA. 148 Idaho 247, 220 P.3d 1066; see also Charboneau v. State, 144 Idaho 900, 174 P.3d 870 (2007) (applying a two-step process for identifying equitable tolling under the UPCPA). Because, as discussed below, there are serious due process issues with regard to instances where the same counsel represented petitioners during trial, appeal and in post-conviction proceedings, I would apply I.C. § 19-2719's reasonably known criterion to claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. The question under this analysis is both if and when Stuart's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel might have reasonably been known. As the Court notes, Stuart was appointed substitute counsel in 1995. While failure to provide substitute counsel on direct appeal or during initial post-conviction proceedings rendered those claims not reasonably known such that they might have initially been equitably tolled, they would have become reasonably known upon appointment of substitute counsel. Because substitute counsel was appointed in 1995, and Stuart's ineffective assistance claims were only raised in this fourth petition for post-conviction relief in December 2002, those claims were not raised within a reasonable time after becoming reasonably known and are now barred. [6] Stuart's prosecutorial misconduct and disclosure claims would not qualify under the equitable tolling scheme described in Charboneau v. State, 144 Idaho 900, 174 P.3d 870 (2007), for all of the reasons cited by the Court. Stuart's argument that the district court judge dismissed the case without holding an evidentiary hearing has no more application under the UPCPA than it does under the Court's I.C. § 19-2719 analysis. It is still the burden of the party asserting equitable tolling to show that such tolling is warranted and to submit evidence tending to show that his claim was valid. I.C. § 19-4906; Charboneau, 144 Idaho at 905, 174 P.3d at 875 (describing the petitioner's burden to show timeliness as equivalent to I.C. § 19-2719). Therefore I would concur.