Court Opinion

ID: 9742715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:18:52.210565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:35.334060
License: Public Domain

PIVARNIK, Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent from the majority wherein it finds the state did not sufficiently show prejudice due to the lach-es of the defendant in bringing his petition for post-conviction relief.
The fact that there was laches here is not disputed by anyone. As the majority points out, Lacy admits he was informed of his right against self-incrimination and his right to confront witnesses at his guilty plea hearing in 1978. He had entered his guilty pleas more than ten years prior to the present hearing. For the State to prevail in its defense of laches in showing prejudice it certainly does not seem reasonable to require the State to completely rein-vestigate the case as it did in the first instance. We know as a matter of course that in a period of ten years personnel in police departments change, new prosecutors and staffs replace outgoing ones, and witnesses drift away not only in their memories but in their persons. There would be no reason for any of these departments to keep an active file on a robbery case which had been disposed of over ten years ago and in which the time has already been served by the defendant. The State demonstrated this by showing that case files which are more then ten years old are destroyed and no record is kept. The Deputy Prosecutor further demonstrated that witnesses names from the court files were no longer listed in the phone directory. These showings gave credence to what one might logically expect in a situation such as this and that is to resurrect the evidence necessary to come forward with the prosecution of this case was highly improbable or even impossible. This, of course, is the very reason for the laches rule. We must bear in mind that generally the burden is on the petitioner in a post-conviction relief situation. While it is true the State has the burden of showing the action is barred by laches and the State has been prejudiced by the delay, it is not realistic to require the State to conclusively prove negatives, that is, that it is now impossible to find any evidence to support the re-prosecution of the defendant. I would find here that the Court of Appeals properly determined that the trial court's judgment should be affirmed. I would deny transfer.