Court Opinion

ID: 9823626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 10:04:09.905821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:24.058954
License: Public Domain

*98VANDE WALLE, Chief Justice,
concurring specially.
[¶ 16] I agree with and have signed the opinion written for the Court by Justice Crothers. I write separately to note that despite the delay in this case, involving some twenty years before Thompson sought post-conviction relief, our opinion contains no direct analysis of that delay. The petition for post-conviction relief was filed before the amendments to N.D.C.C. § 29-32.1-01 which, with certain exceptions, limited post-conviction relief to those petitions filed within two years of the date the conviction becomes final. But, because the petition was filed before the effective date of the amendments, those amendments are not applicable. However we have held that laches, the delay or lapse of time in commencing an action that works a disadvantage or prejudice to the adverse party because of a change in conditions during the delay, is an affirmative defense the State may raise in defending post-conviction relief applications. Peltier v. State, 2015 ND 35, ¶ 27, 859 N.W.2d 381 (quoting Johnson v. State, 2006 ND 122, ¶ 8, 714 N.W.2d 832). As an affirmative defense, laches must be raised by the State or the defense is waived. Lehman v. State, 2014 ND 103, ¶ 8, 847 N.W.2d 119. The State, for reasons not apparent on the face of the record before us, did not raise laches as an affirmative defense.
[¶ 17] GERALD W. VANDE WALLE, C.J.