Court Opinion

ID: 9821246
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 07:55:43.688237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:49.450490
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Presiding Judge,
Specially Concurring.
T1 I agree with the majority that this Application is not properly before this Court. I write separately to emphasize that, under our Rules, we cannot accept Meyer's Application or rule on the merits of his claim that his original filing in this Court was not time-barred. This Court's Rules have the force of statute, and we are bound by them. 22 0,8.2011, § 1051(b). We dismissed Meyer's original petition for extraordinary relief. That ruling was a final order, and there is no rehearing from that order. Rule 10.6(D), Rules of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, Title 22, Ch.18, App. (2015). There was no request to this Court for an appeal out of time. No intervening order or action in the underlying eriminal case has occurred since our decision dismissing Meyers pet1— tion. Meyer asks this Court to withdraw that decision and reach the merits of his original petition. No provision in our Rules allows this Court to take that action, and we cannot assume original jurisdiction over this *42Application, Leftwich v. Alcorn, 2011 OK CR 27, ¶ 3, 262 P.3d 770, 771.
12 Meyer relies on language in the Oklahoma Supreme Court order stating that the time periods relating to disqualification of judges shall be computed based on business days in both civil and eriminal matters,. We cannot reach the merits of this claim. The Supreme Court declined. to issue a writ, merely granting general declaratory relief, without stating any specific relief in this case. Nothing in the Supreme Court's brief Order can be construed as a suggestion that this Court acted without authority in dismissing Meyer's petition. Nowhere in the Order is there any suggestion that this Court contravene its own rules in order to hear a request otherwise forbidden by those Rules, We are persuaded that the Supreme Court cannot and would not make such a suggestion, knowing that this Court must, like the parties before it, abide by our Rules, Leftwich, 2011 OK CR 27, ¶ 4, 262 P.3d at 771.
18 It is clear that Meyer's Application is not proper under our Rules. He claims this Court must alter its computation of the time within which his petition for writ of mandamus must have been filed. I concur with the majority's thorough and well-reasoned discussion explaining the history:and purpose of use of calendar days for computation of time in this Court, In every portion of the Oklahoma Code of Criminal Procedure, the Legislature mandated that appellate time periods should be computed using calendar days; the Legislature exempted this Court from the different time computation requirements of the Oklahoma Code of Civil Procedure. 'This emphasis, in criminal cases, on the actual days passing in any given erithinal proceeding ensures that the statutory and constitutional rights of criminal defendants, including the right to a speedy trial, are protected. Based solely on the limits of our authority under our Rule 10.6(D), I agree that we must decline to assume original jurisdiction and reject the Application. ~
T4 I am authorized to state that Judge Johnson joins in this specially concurring opinion.