Opinion ID: 1785608
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Form 40 Compliance

Text: Owsley next complains that the trial court improperly imposed the requirements of Criminal Procedure Form 40 to his amended Rule 29.15 motion. Rule 29.15 requires expressly that any relief sought pursuant to 29.15 shall substantially follow Criminal Procedure Form 40. Rule 29.15(b). The reason for requiring compliance with Form 40 when seeking relief under 29.15 is to provide not only the state but also the trial court, and the appellate court on review, with an orderly and concise statement of the grounds on which movant bases his request for post-conviction relief. State v. Katura, 837 S.W.2d 547, 553 (Mo.App.1992). Paragraph 8 of Form 40 directs the movant to state concisely all the grounds known to you for vacating, setting aside or correcting your conviction and sentence. Paragraph 9 then requires a concise statement of the facts which support each of the grounds set out in (8), and the names and addresses of the witnesses or other evidence upon which you intend to rely. Once counsel is appointed, [i]f the motion does not assert sufficient facts ... counsel shall file an amended motion that sufficiently alleges the additional facts and grounds. Rule 29.15(e); see White v. State, 939 S.W.2d 887, 893 (Mo. banc 1997). With respect to the amended motion, the trial court made the following Conclusions of Law: The court takes judicial notice of the fact that movant's amended motion is 96 pages long. Not only is this motion not concise, it is not even remotely in the form of Form 40. Sections III through X seem to contain movant's grounds for relief, however, the facts necessary to support these allegations appear to be contained in section II. Section II is entitled Chronological Narrative of Rights Violations Revealed in the Record and that is precisely what it contains. Movant has listed excerpts from both the trial and pre-trial transcripts in chronological order. These entries have little or no explanation as to what 29.15 allegations they are meant to support and[, to] add to the confusion those sections of the amended motion that purport to contain movant's grounds for relief, when any factual support is offered at all, refer generally to point 6. which is the list of chronological rights violations. It appears to the court that after examining movant's grounds in sections III through X it must go through this point 6 and find factual support for each allegation on its own. As already discussed, one of the purposes of the requirements of form 40 is to provide the trial court with a convenient format for reviewing movant's allegations and, as already discussed movant's amended motion does not come close to meeting the requirements of form 40 or Rule 29.15 Based on these conclusions, the trial court entered an order that movant's amended motion for relief is overruled in its entirety as it does not comply with the conciseness requirement of Supreme Court Rule 29.15. Having independently reviewed the amended motion, this Court agrees with the trial court's determination. The amended motion violates Paragraphs 8 and 9 of Criminal Procedure Form 40 and as such mandates dismissal. Nevertheless, Owsley argues that the requirements of Form 40 should not have been imposed on him because compliance is only required under Rule 29.15(b), pertaining to original, pro se motions, and thus compliance is not required for amended motions authorized under Rule 29.15(f). However, Rule 29.15, taken as a whole, clearly requires any and all requests for relief under the Rule to conform substantially to Form 40. Rule 29.15(b). Moreover, because of the special purpose of a Rule 29.15 motionto achieve finality in criminal proceedingsexceptions should be disfavored. See White, 939 S.W.2d at 893 (noting that 29.15 motions are collateral attacks and will be honored, but must be balanced with the goal of bringing finality to criminal process and conserving scarce public resources); Smith v. State, 798 S.W.2d 152, 153 (Mo. banc 1990) (stating [o]f sole significance is the fact that this Court's rules for postconviction relief make no allowance for excuse, when time limits were not followed). Indeed, Owsley's counsel had no reason to believe the Form 40 requirements would not be followed. In State v. Katura, 837 S.W.2d 547 (Mo.App.1992), decided three years before Owsley's amended motion was filed, the Court of Appeals dismissed a rambling, vague and prolix amended motion of a mere 40 pages (less than half of the size of Owsley's amended motion), because it did not comply with Paragraphs 8 and 9 of Form 40. Katura, 837 S.W.2d at 553. In a fall-back position, Owsley alleges that the motion court should have honored his request to hold a Rule 62.01 conference before dismissing the amended motion. Under Rule 62.01, the court, in its discretion, may convene a conference to address any confusion in the presentation of motions in civil cases. However, as the State aptly noted, a conference to facilitate the orderly consideration of Mr. Owsley's claimsas requested by Owsleyflies in the face of Rule 29.15 itself; the claims are supposed to be orderly in the first instance and should require no facilitation. The motion court did not abuse its discretion on this point. Owsley's related complaints that the motion court neither held an evidentiary hearing nor entered findings of fact and conclusions of law as required under Rule 29.15 must be denied as well. These requirements apply only when a Rule 29.15 motion has been perfected by compliance with Form 40.