Court Opinion

ID: 9482512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:52:31.046217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:02.489915
License: Public Domain

BOGGS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in all that the court’s opinion has to say with regard to defendant Tommy Goods. With regard to defendant Wrice, however, I would hold that we do not have jurisdiction over his appeal. With regard to the jurisdictional point, the court’s opinion amply sets out the relevant texts and the ambiguity contained in Rule 4(b), Fed.R.App.P., an ambiguity that does not now exist in Fed.R.App.P. 4(a), governing civil appeals. The issue before us, which has not been faced squarely in any reported case, is whether the ambiguity in 4(b) should be resolved by determining that that rule was meant to be the opposite in the rule of 4(a), or whether it should be determined on its own merits, and then resolved in the more sensible fashion.
The fundamental problem created by the court’s decision is stated quite plainly in the court’s concluding sentence on this subject (page 410):
As long as a notice of appeal, or a document containing information required for appeal, is filed with the district court within forty days of judgment, this court has jurisdiction.
In other words, although this court will not normally take up such a case (and indeed, may well not be empowered to do so), such a document can remain in a kind of jurisdictional limbo until life is breathed into it at some later time. That spirit would be imparted by a motion, urging the court to extend, nunc pro tunc, the time for filing a notice of appeal. Under this court’s decision today, such a motion may be made not only nearly a year late, as was done here, but apparently at any time. This creates a situation that is unsound in principle and is not required by the language of Rule 4(b). Indeed, the natural sense of the language “after the time has expired” is that “the time” means the original, 10-day time for appealing, the same “time” that is referred to less than 10 words later as being extended from its original 10-day period.
I
The Case Law
Neither Christoph nor Hoye is on all fours with this case. In Christoph, the motion for extension of time was made within the 40-day period. 904 F.2d at 1037. Only the district court’s decision occurred outside the 40-day period. Id. at 1040. In Hoye, the motion for extension was made the very next day after judgment, and the court had simply never ruled on it. 548 F.2d at 1273. The court held that the motion for extension of time was itself a proper notice of appeal, and thus timely. Neither of the cases involved a notice filed outside the original 10-day period and a motion for extension filed outside the extended 40-day period.
II
The Textual History of the Appeal Rules
As noted by the court, Rule 4(a)(5), governing civil appeals, clearly would bar jurisdiction over Wrice’s appeal. However, the difference in language between Rules 4(a)(5) and 4(b) does not appear to have been inserted for the purpose of denying jurisdiction over civil appeals in a situation where criminal appeals should be permitted. Instead, the two rules have generally proceeded on a parallel track for quite some time. In 1967, the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure were introduced, with Rule 4(a) being derived from Fed.R.Civ.P. 73(a) “without any change of substance,” according to the Advisory Committee’s notes. Rule 4(b), according to the same notes, was derived from Fed.R.Crim.P. 37(a)(2) “without change of substance.” Thus, these rules actually pre-date the current appellate rules.
A glance at the 1967 Appellate Rules shows that the two rules were remarkably similar both in language and substance. The third paragraph of Rule 4(a) read as follows:
*414Upon a showing of excusable neglect, the district court may extend the time for filing the notice of appeal by any party for a a period not to exceed 30 days from the expiration of the time otherwise prescribed by this subdivision. Such an extension may be granted before or after the time otherwise prescribed by this subdivision has expired; but if a request for an extension is made after such time has expired, it shall be made by motion with such notice as the court shall deem appropriate.
Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, 88 S.Ct. 2336 (1968). Compare this with the following similar provision, taken from Rule 4(b):
Upon a showing of excusable neglect the district court may, before or after the time has expired, with or without motion and notice, extend the time for filing a notice of appeal for a period not to exceed 30 days from the expiration of the time otherwise prescribed by this subdivision.
Ibid. Except for the provisions requiring some requests involving civil appeals to be made by motion, these rules are practically identical.
The part of Rule 4(b) quoted above has not changed since 1967. A 1979 amendment created the current version of Rule 4(a)(5), but as the Advisory Committee’s notes make clear, this amendment was not intended to make any substantive change in the rule.
A literal reading of [the 1967 rule] would require that the extension be ordered and the notice of appeal filed within the 30 day period, but despite the surface clarity of the rule, it has produced considerable confusion. See the discussion by Judge Friendly in In re Orbitec, 520 F.2d 358 (2d Cir.1975). The proposed amendment would make it clear that a motion to extend the time must be filed no later than 30 days after the expiration of the original appeal time, and that if the motion is timely filed the district court may act upon the motion at a later date, and may extend the time not in excess of 10 days measured from the date on which the order granting the motion is entered.
Fed.R.App.P. 4, 1979 amendment notes. This note demonstrates that the amendment was meant to clarify the rules, not change them. The new language was added to insure that an appellant could file a motion within the “total appeal period,” rather than being an effort to change a previous rule that allowed an unlimited period to file the motion. In light of this history, using the 1979 amendment to draw a previously unknown distinction between civil and criminal appellate procedure violates the spirit and the letter of the rules.
Furthermore, the purpose of having a time limit on appeals, criminal or civil, is to create a condition of repose for litigation. The court’s decision today introduces ongoing uncertainty into any such repose.