Court Opinion

ID: 9634361
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:09:19.713269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:22.044645
License: Public Domain

PAIR, Associate Judge,
Retired, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
While I have no quarrel with the decision reached by my colleagues on the first two issues, I am unable to concur in their disposition of the third issue and would hold that the trial court did not err in its retroactive application of United States v. Nunzio, 430 A.2d 1372 (D.C.1981).
In Nunzio, decided in part upon the authority of United States v. Addonizio, 442 U.S. 178, 189, 99 S.Ct. 2235, 2242, 60 L.Ed.2d 805 (1979), this court declared in language crystal clear that the 120 day time prescribed by Super.Ct.Crim.R. 35(b) for filing and disposing of a motion to reduce a sentence is jurisdictional and may not be extended under any circumstances. See also United States v. Pollack, 655 F.2d 243, 246 (D.C.Cir.1980).
This court observed in Nunzio, supra, 430 A.2d at 1374 that:
We have long adhered to that view. Brown v. United States, 411 A.2d 631, 633 (D.C.1980); McDaniels v. United States, 385 A.2d 180, 182 (D.C.1978); Franklin v. United States, 293 A.2d 278 (D.C.1972).
Notwithstanding this imperative authority, my colleagues insist that Nunzio, supra, represents a break with legal precedent in this jurisdiction and that under the “old rule” it was standard practice to treat the 120-day time period as a filing deadline. Interestingly enough the only authority cited as support for this proposition is my colleague Ferren’s dissenting opinion in United States v. Hamid, 461 A.2d 1043, 1047-48 (D.C.1983). Dissenting opinions, of course, do not declare the law authoritatively. The doctrine of M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310 (D.C.1971), mandates that we follow the declaration of the law as set forth in the majority opinions in Nunzio and Hamid, supra.
Whatever may have been the practice prior to United States v. Nunzio, supra, this court in that case declared the law respecting the Super.Ct.Crim.R. 35(b) 120-day time period. What must follow then is that our decision in Nunzio did not, as my colleagues insist, establish a new rule or principle of law but rather declared what the law has been since the inception of the rule. Due process did not, therefore, forbid retroactive application of the Nunzio doctrine.
The conclusion is thus compelled that the so-called “old rule” upon which the majority bases its prospective application of United *312States v. Nunzio, supra, is a creature without legitimacy in our jurisprudence.
I respectfully dissent.
Before NEWMAN, Chief Judge, and KERN, NEBEKER, MACK, FERREN, PRYOR, BELSON, TERRY* and ROGERS, Associate Judges, and PAIR, Associate Judge, Retired.
ORDER
On consideration of appellee’s petition for rehearing en banc and of appellant’s reply thereto, and it appearing that the majority of the judges of this court has voted to grant the aforesaid petition, it is
ORDERED that appellee’s petition for rehearing en banc is granted; this court’s December 6, 1983, opinions and judgment are hereby vacated; the Clerk is directed to cause this case to be scheduled before the en banc court as promptly hereafter as business permits; and counsel are directed to provide ten additional copies of the briefs heretofore filed by Monday, April 16, 1984.