Court Opinion

ID: 9713482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:16:09.547844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:18.961019
License: Public Domain

YOUNG, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result. The outcome of this case was foreclosed at the trial court level by the failure of the State to allege petitioner’s lack of due diligence. The State had the burden to cast this defense in issue. At the appellate level we are not at liberty to rectify the matter and to rewrite the State’s pleadings. The Supreme Court directed us to this result in Langley v. State, (1971) 256 Ind. 199, 267 N.E.2d 538, 542-43 & n. 2.
Nonetheless, the outcome of this case does not necessarily carry far-reaching consequences. The lesson to be learned by the State is an easy one. In future cases such as this the State no doubt will not be so remiss as to neglect to assert the appropriate defenses.
Finally, I am not comfortable with the majority’s resort to Sibron v. New York, (1968) 392 U.S. 40, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917, to introduce the role which mootness might play in this analysis. Sibron was decided upon a direct appeal of a conviction. The element of mootness would naturally play a lesser role where the conviction is under direct attack. The case at hand is one for post-conviction relief and thus is not a direct attack. The element of mootness is displaced by the presence or absence of petitioner’s due diligence. A second and a related distinction is that the Court in Si-bron was not called upon to pass on the question of laches or due diligence. I would read Sibron to leave open the possibility *204that in a case for post-conviction relief where the sentence has been served, the petitioner should be required to allege that he is. suffering a “collateral legal consequence” on account of the challenged conviction. “[A] criminal case is moot only if it is shown that there is no possibility that any collateral legal consequences will be imposed on the basis of the challenged conviction.” Id., 392 U.S. at 57, 88 S.Ct. at 1900.
With these observations I concur in the result.