Court Opinion

ID: 9763232
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:39:14.827894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:56:31.418596
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Chief Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the holding that the judgment of conviction should be affirmed. I also agree that the proceedings under the pro se 29.15 motion show no basis for relief, given the trial court’s findings and conclusions. But I cannot agree that the Court lacked jurisdiction to consider the amended 29.15 motion. I would hold, rather, that when the state provides counsel for a postconviction movant, and that counsel fails to procure the movant’s verification on an amended motion which is otherwise timely, the Court may allow the verification to be supplied at a later time.
Proceedings under Rule 29.15 are civil. It is uncommon in civil proceedings to hold that the filing of defective papers deprives the Court of jurisdiction. The usual remedy is to permit defects to be corrected by amendment. The law has been particularly intolerant of those who make no mention of a pleading defect until the trial court has ruled and then seek to disadvantage their opponents by claims of procedural defect. Rule 55.33(b). Nothing in the text of Rule 29.15 indicates that proceedings under that rule are to be treated in a way different from what is usual in civil actions. Such phrases as “a nullity,” or “failed to invoke the circuit court’s jurisdiction” are simply bootstrapping. The Court could perfectly well allow the verification to be supplied when the defect is pointed out. This would allow the state to enjoy all of the real or imagined benefits of verification.
Judge Covington's opinion is fine so far as it goes but I have trouble seeing the delict the movant was guilty of. The state was willing to proceed with the hearing on the basis of the unverified, amended motion. Rather than holding that the proceedings on the amended motion were a nullity, I would offer the movant the opportunity to supply the missing verification.
Some of the opinions on this subject suggest that the verification requirement serves an expediting purpose. I cannot see *451that it expedites the proceedings in any way. There rather will be procedural hassles and a ping-pong match between state and federal courts, if this movant is obliged to pursue other postconvietion remedies. I believe that any diligent judge who comes upon this record will be offended when the state seeks to default a litigant because of a manifest procedural omission by counsel required to be furnished him by the state, to the point of holding that there was cause for the defendant’s procedural default.
I would affirm the judgment of conviction. If the Court were willing to reach the merits of the 29.15 action, I might very probably vote to affirm the judgment in its entirety. But I have not examined the merits of the points based on the amended motion 29.15, and at this point can only dissent from this Court's failure to review the matters raised in the amended motion.
I again express the hope that I have expressed in other cases, that any other judge who has the occasion to deal with this record will resort to the evidentiary hearing, at which the movant, in the amended motion, had the opportunity to present all points which occurred to him or his counsel. I hope that future judges will defer to the supported findings of Judge Romines, so that duplicating hearings are not necessary.