Court Opinion

ID: 9664315
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:14:06.153553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:04.706475
License: Public Domain

Irwin, Judge,
dissenting.
The record presented on appeal fails to demonstrate that the operative information was ever properly filed before Muse’s trial was held, and such failure creates a jurisdictional defect which makes the trial court’s convictions and sentences void. Additionally, the majority’s holding creates potential speedy trial problems. For those reasons, I respectfully dissent and conclude that this court should reverse.
As the majority notes, the issue presented in this appeal is whether Muse’s convictions and sentences can be sustained based on the record presented. Muse argues that the second amended information, upon which trial proceeded, was never properly filed. The State argues that the second amended information was properly filed, notwithstanding the absence of any file stamp. The record presented fails to establish that the second amended information was properly filed, and accordingly, the district court was without jurisdiction to proceed with trial, conviction, and sentencing of Muse.
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-1602 (Cum. Supp. 2004) provides in part:
All informations shall be filed in the court having jurisdiction of the offense specified therein, by the prosecuting attorney of the proper county as informant. The prosecuting attorney shall subscribe his or her name thereto and endorse thereon the names of the witnesses known to him or her at the time of filing.
As long ago as 1925, the Nebraska Supreme Court held that failure to comply with the mandatory statutory language in the first sentence of the statute quoted above constitutes a jurisdictional defect. Langford v. State, 114 Neb. 207, 206 N.W. 756 (1925). In that case, the trial court ruled that the county attorney was not disqualified to file an information, but no information was actually filed in the district court. The defendant was convicted after a trial. On appeal, the Supreme Court held that the county attorney’s failure to file the information pursuant to statutory language identical to that quoted above constituted a *30jurisdictional defect and the court reversed the conviction and remanded the case.
In this case, Muse argues that the record does not indicate that the second amended information, upon which trial proceeded, was ever filed. As indicated above in the background section of the majority opinion, there is no file stamp on the second amended information, the blanks were not filled in concerning the journal or page at which the second amended information was allegedly filed, and the certificate indicating that the second amended information is a true and accurate copy of the document allegedly filed was never completed. It is apparent from the discussion in the trial court at the time the State sought leave to file a second amended information that the second amended information was being left with the court to “put a note on it to file it.” However, it is not clear from the record presented that the second amended information was, in fact, filed. It is this absence in the record which prompts me to disagree with the majority’s analysis.
The State argues that we can discern that the second amended information was properly filed because a “transcript certificate” completed by a deputy clerk of the district court states that the second amended information was filed on May 23, 2005, because the first page of the second amended information contains a typed indication that it was filed on May 23, and because the deputy clerk of the court attested to counsel for the State’s subscribing and swearing to the second amended information on May 23. Brief for appellee at 27. The majority concludes that the “presumption of regularity” suggests that the information was properly filed.
The question presented to this court is whether we can determine from the record presented that the second amended information was properly filed and, if so, when. In this regard, the lack of any proper file stamp, as well as the other “blanks” left on the second amended information and not filled in by the clerk or a deputy clerk of the district court, demonstrates that the record does not indicate that the second amended information was ever properly filed.
The case State v. Baker, 264 Neb. 867, 652 N.W.2d 612 (2002), is instructive. In that case, the record indicated that on *31April 30, 1999, before the clerk of the district court, the county attorney subscribed and swore to an information charging the defendant. The information, however, was not file stamped until October 5. The defendant had pled not guilty on October 4. On January 20, 2000, the defendant filed a motion to discharge on speedy trial grounds which was denied by the district court. The district court found that the speedy trial period begins to run when an information is filed and found that the information at issue was not filed until it was file stamped on October 5, 1999.
On appeal, this court affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion to discharge. Id. See, also, State v. Baker, No. A-00-177, 2001 WL 221557 (Neb. App. Feb. 6, 2001) (not designated for permanent publication). This court concluded that the speedy trial period did not begin to run until the information was file stamped on October 5, 1999. Id. The Nebraska Supreme Court dismissed a petition for further review as having been improvidently granted and, in a later appeal, held that this court’s holding concerning the filing of the information had become the law of the case. Id.
Although there was a subsequent file stamp in State v. Baker, there are meaningful similarities between State v. Baker and the present case. In both cases, the record indicates a specific date on which the relevant information was subscribed and sworn to by the county attorney or a deputy county attorney. In both cases, the record indicates that the relevant information was not file stamped on that date. In State v. Baker, this court had held that the relevant information should not be considered properly filed for purposes of speedy trial calculations until it was file stamped, despite the detrimental effect such a finding had on the defendant’s motion to discharge. According to the record in the present case, the second amended information has yet to be file stamped. As such, this court should conclude that the record presented on appeal does not indicate that the second amended information has yet been properly filed.
The record presented on appeal indicates that the second amended information, although subscribed and sworn to before a deputy clerk of the district court on May 23, 2005, was not file stamped on that date. When the parties appeared in court, the State was seeking leave to file the second amended information, *32indicating that such had obviously not been done yet at that time. At the conclusion of the proceedings, the court indicated that it would take the second amended information from counsel for the State and “put a note on it to file it.” Unfortunately, there is nothing to indicate that such was ever done. The majority’s “presumption of regularity” analysis presupposes that the information was actually presented to the deputy clerk of the court for filing on May 23, such that the deputy clerk’s signature can be said to constitute an endorsement on that date and such that the presumption that the deputy clerk properly filed the document on that date can attach.
The majority’s analysis potentially creates significant problems for future cases involving such matters as motions to discharge on speedy trial grounds. As the case State v. Baker, 264 Neb. 867, 652 N.W.2d 612 (2002), indicates, the presence of a file stamp to indicate definitively when an-information was filed is necessary for courts to properly calculate the running of the speedy trial clock. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2206 (Reissue 1995), relied upon by the majority in concluding that the deputy clerk of the district court’s signature on the front of the information indicates compliance with statutory mandates, requires “[t]he clerk of the court [to] endorse upon every paper filed with him, the day of filing it; and upon every order for a provisional remedy, and upon every undertaking given under the same, the day of its return to his officer (Emphasis supplied.) The plain language of this statute requires the clerk of the court to take some action to indicate the date of filing, such as by file stamping the filed document. Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, the signature of the deputy clerk of the district court on the front of the second amended information fails to satisfy this statutory requirement precisely because of the lack of a file stamp; the clerk failed to endorse any day because the clerk failed to provide a file stamp indicating the date of filing. The only reference to May 23, 2005, is the typing of the county attorney’s office, not provided by the clerk of the court, and the only additional date stamped on the information after it left the deputy county attorney’s possession in court is a stamp indicating, “MADE MAY 26 2005.”
To conclude that the “presumption of regularity” is enough to indicate that the second amended information in this case was *33filed on May 23,2005, despite the lack of any file stamp or other affirmative evidence to indicate that the document has ever been properly filed, leads to the absurd result of allowing convictions on the basis of an information which, as far as we can affirmatively determine, may never have been filed and was apparently not served on Muse until the final day of a 3-day trial. We should not suggest that the important jurisdictional requirement of proper filing of the information can be satisfied on the basis of a presumption which presupposes a fact not demonstrated in our record — that the trial judge actually delivered the second amended information to the clerk on the date pretyped on the information by the county attorney’s office.
The only stamps appearing on the second amended information indicate that it was “MADE MAY 26 2005” (a stamp that counsel at oral argument was unable to explain) and that a copy of the second amended information was served on Muse on May 26, 2005, which was actually the final day of a 3-day trial. There is nothing to affirmatively indicate that the information was actually presented to the clerk by the court or actually filed on May 23, prior to the commencement of trial. Because the filing of the operative information is a jurisdictional matter, see Langford v. State, 114 Neb. 207, 206 N.W. 756 (1925), the record presented to us fails to establish that the district court had jurisdiction to proceed with the trial or convict and sentence Muse on the charges. As such, we should reverse on the basis of the trial court’s lack of jurisdiction to proceed with trial, conviction, and sentencing.