Court Opinion

ID: 9945849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-28 17:11:04.604932+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:22:15.887818
License: Public Domain

No. 117            February 22, 2024                 119

          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                  STATE OF OREGON

                   RANDY E. WEST,
                  Petitioner-Appellant,
                            v.
                    Corey FHUERE,
                    Superintendent,
               Oregon State Penitentiary,
                Defendant-Respondent.
              Marion County Circuit Court
                 21CV16229; A178313

   Thomas M. Hart, Judge.
   Submitted January 30, 2024.
   Jedediah Peterson and O’Connor Weber, LLC, filed the
brief for appellant.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Jordan R. Silk, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
   Before Lagesen, Chief Judge, Hellman, Judge, and
DeVore, Senior Judge.
   DeVORE, S. J.
   Affirmed.
120                                                         West v. Fhuere

           DeVORE, S. J.
         Petitioner appeals a judgment dismissing his peti-
tion for post-conviction relief as untimely. Specifically, the
post-conviction court dismissed on the ground that the peti-
tion was time-barred by ORS 138.510(4). That provision,
“without exception, requires all post-conviction petitions
challenging convictions that became final before August 5,
1989, to have been filed no later than November 4, 1994.”
Baker v. State of Oregon, 325 Or App 634, 635, 529 P3d 1015,
vac’d and rem’d on other grounds, 371 Or 333 (2023).1 In this
case, petitioner’s conviction became final on May 26, 1989.
State v. West, 95 Or App 133, 769 P2d 807, rev den, 307 Or 611
(1989) (affirming from the bench the trial court’s judgment
of conviction and incarceration).2 Petitioner initially pur-
sued timely post-conviction relief; the post-conviction court
denied relief, and we affirmed. West v. Zenon, 106 Or App
181, 807 P2d 348, rev den, 311 Or 427 (1991). Petitioner is
now out of prison and is on parole. He filed the pertinent
petition for relief in April 2021, nearly thirty years after his
conviction became final. Thus, as the post-conviction court
concluded, the petition is untimely because it was not filed
before November 4, 1994, as required by ORS 138.510(4).
         Seeking a different result, petitioner argues that
the application of ORS 138.510(4) to his petition violates
Article I, sections 23 and 10, of the Oregon Constitution
because it would deprive him of habeas corpus relief and
denies a remedy for an unconstitutional conviction, respec-
tively, and violates due process. To that end, we reaffirm our
prior holding in Baker that “the common law writ of habeas
corpus has not been a remedy available to a person who is
no longer in custody.” Baker, 325 Or App at 639. Accordingly,

    1
      As we explained in Harlukowicz v. State, 328 Or App 468, 469 n 1, 537 P3d
988 (2023), rev den, 371 Or 825 (2024), “[t]he Supreme Court vacated our deci-
sion in Baker and remanded on the petitioner’s unopposed motion under SB 321
(2023), Oregon Laws 2023, chapter 368, section 1(5), which created a mechanism
for people to pursue otherwise time-barred challenges to convictions based on
nonunanimous verdicts.” Because the Supreme Court’s action of vacating and
remanding our decision in Baker under SB 321 does not call into question our
analysis in that decision, we reaffirm it here.
    2
      Petitioner asserts that his conviction did not become final until September
1990. However, the record contains an appellate judgment entered in this court
on Mary 26, 2989.
Cite as 331 Or App 119 (2024)                             121

because petitioner is no longer in custody, he does not have a
claim for habeas corpus, and thus the post-conviction court
did not err in applying the statute of ultimate repose to peti-
tioner’s untimely petition.
         Finally, we reject petitioner’s argument that the
escape clause of ORS 138.510(3) saves his petition. As we
have explained, ORS 138.510(4) applies to bar the petition,
and that provision does “not contain an escape clause per-
mitting a delayed petition.” Mastne v. Schiedler, 180 Or App
552, 555, 44 P3d 621 (2002); see also Baker, 325 Or App at
639 (so noting). For those reasons, we affirm the judgment
of the post-conviction court.
        Affirmed.