Court Opinion

ID: 9672937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:03:03.215034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:19.382689
License: Public Domain

CHARLES B. BLACKMAR, Senior Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the principal opinion because the result is compelled by controlling authority. I write separately simply to encourage the Supreme Court to adopt a “mailbox rule” with regard to 29.15 motions filed by persons who are in custody.
The movant-appellant asserts in the appeal papers that he signed the verification on his pro se 29.15 motion on August 6, 1997 and placed the motion in the hands of prison authorities for mailing. The principal opinion faults him because he did not formally present these facts to the trial court by motion to set aside the judgment of dismissal. Thus, he has to explore uncharted waters in search of a remedy. I am confident that if he can prove the facts he now asserts then some federal or state court will allow him a hearing. We can anticipate that his efforts simply to get a hearing will be vigorously opposed by the attorney general’s office, in the line of duty. The net effect will be the consuming of time and money in resisting an effort to obtain a hearing, which will probably be granted at some stage.
*366The rule puts the burden on the defendant to initiate the post-conviction process. He must proceed without counsel, because his trial counsel is necessarily the target of his claims. As has been pointed out elsewhere, a prisoner is completely dependent on the prison authorities to mail his letters. See Nichols v. Bowersox, Nos. 97-3639, 97-3640, 1998 WL 151380, at *3, — F.3d-,-(8th Cir. Apr.3, 1998)(citing Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 270-72, 108 S.Ct. 2379, 101 L.Ed.2d 245 (1988)). If the rule provided that a 29.15 motion transmitted by certified mail will be taken as filed on the date shown on the prisoner’s receipt, then a complicated problem will be made simple, with only a few days of possible delay. The rule might also provide that the state would advance the cost of mailing if the prisoner had insufficient funds to pay the postage. With such a rule the court should be able to appoint counsel, receive an amended motion if such is filed, and rulé the case on the merits, without protracted procedural arguments.
With these observations, I concur.