Court Opinion

ID: 9756587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:39:02.573124+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:26.360954
License: Public Domain

LEVY, J.,
concurring.
[¶ 8] I join in the Court’s opinion and write separately to address the view expressed by the dissent that today’s decision and our prior decision in State v. Trott, 2004 ME 15, 841 A.2d 789, conclusively determine that Ngo is ineligible for post-conviction review.
[¶ 9] This case and Trott bear some similarity, but they are far from identical and present different questions of law. In Trott we concluded that when a criminal judgment sentenced an offender “to time previously served, imposed without any additional term of probation or other restriction on the individual, [it] is the functional equivalent of an unconditional discharge as that term is addressed by the post-convic*1227tion review statute.” Id. ¶ 13, 841 A.2d at 793. Trott did not consider whether the same is true when, as here, the offender has been released from incarceration and has successfully completed probation. In addition, in Trott we did not address the claim that if the statute is applied so as to deprive a person in Ngo’s circumstances of the opportunity for post-conviction review, the statute violates the constitutionally guaranteed right to due process of law.5 Finally, Ngo is not automatically barred from post-conviction review by the statute’s limitations period. As we explained in Diep v. State, 2000 ME 53, ¶ 6, 748 A.2d 974, 976, a case also involving a claim that a defense attorney failed to advise an alien defendant that a guilty plea would subject the defendant to deportation, the limitations period runs from “[t]he date on which the factual predicate of the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.” 15 M.R.S. § 2128(5)(C) (2005).
[¶ 10] Whether principles of statutory construction or constitutional law require that the post-conviction review statute be construed so as to permit individuals in Ngo’s circumstances to challenge their convictions is a question that is not answered by Trott or our decision today.

. Ngo contends that the post-conviction review statute is both irrational and arbitrary because it treats a criminal judgment for which a fine remains unpaid as a "present restraint or impediment” subject to post-conviction review, 15 M.R.S. § 2124(1)(E) (2005), but is silent with respect to a criminal judgment that has, at least indirectly, resulted in an offender's incarceration for a violation of federal immigration laws. Although Ngo challenges the statute's constitutionality in his brief to us, the issue was not presented to the District Court and is unpreserved.