Court Opinion

ID: 9791492
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:12:13.884544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:36.613047
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice,
concurring:
I concur in the opinion of Justice Russon.
I certainly understand the legislature’s expressed concern about what the public perceives as long-delayed habeas proceedings and the endless litigation they seem to produce. While I think this perception of habe-as corpus litigation is seriously flawed and does not represent a true picture of the uses to which the writ is usually put by prisoners, the fact remains that this perception is the apparent source of the repeated efforts at both state and national levels to enact strict limitations on post-conviction petitions. However, those who complain of seemingly tardy habeas petitions need to recognize that neither the state nor the national government has done anything of significance to make it possible for even the most conscientious prisoner to discover possibly valid legal claims of error and pursue them competently. In Utah, most minimal legal research materials are lacking at the prison, and the legal services provided to assist the prisoners are grossly inadequate. Under such circumstances, it is a cruel joke to presume as the legislature has that virtually all prisoners are abusing the system when they file habeas petitions more than a year after their conviction.
As I suggested in Parsons v. Barnes, 871 P.2d 516, 530-31 (Utah 1994) (Zimmerman, C.J., concurring), the remedy for the real problem that underlies this distorted public perception is not a statute of limitation, but the candid recognition that the initial post-conviction proceeding is really part of the criminal trial and review process and almost essential for proper review of ineffective assistance of counsel claims. As a consequence, the defendant should be provided with paid counsel and one state-financed automatic post-conviction proceeding. If such an approach were adopted, the need for prisoners to file subsequent habeas petitions would certainly decline sharply. And that decline would reduce public and legislative frustration with, and attempts to limit resort to, the Great Writ, one of the cornerstones of Anglo-American jurisprudence and an essential constitutional tool we give every citizen so that they can raise challenges to the lawfulness of their confinements.