Court Opinion

ID: 9782653
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:02:04.255394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:06.872801
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Judge:
concur in part/dissent in part.
T1 While I agree this Petition for Certio-rari should be denied, I cannot join in the majority's disregard for the Court's Rules and case law precedent.
{2 The Petitioner's arguments are not properly before the Court and should be denied summarily. See Walker v. State, 1998 OK CR 14, ¶ 3, 953 P.2d 354, 355. Instead the majority takes up the petition on its merits because an interesting question is raised. As the State points out in its Response, Rule 4.3 requires that all petitions for certiorari contain "[the errors of law urged as having been committed during the proceedings in the trial court which were raised in the application to withdraw plea." Rule 4.3(C)(5), Rules of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, 22 O.8., ch.18, App. (2009). The State points to several unpublished opinions where this Court has consistently and repeatedly refused to consider issues that were not raised in the Petition for Writ of Certiorari or in the Motion to Withdraw Plea filed in the District Court.
13 The majority acknowledges the Petitioner has not complied with the Rules of this Court and has thus waived review by the Court. However, the majority then decides to review the waived issues because it is an interesting question. This lack of discipline in following the Rules promulgated by the Court, together with prior decisions interpreting those Rules, throws into question the very validity of the Rules themselves. Statutes, Rules and case law give the notice that is required to provide the process that is due *1145to citizens. These items also form the basis for discipline that courts must impose on themselves to ensure all are treated consistently and validate the proposition that all will be treated equally under the law. Disregarding those rules and precedent reveals not only a lack of discipline but causes other courts to question the authority of this Court's decisions.
T4 In effect, the majority is seeking to issue an advisory opinion which, through this Court's history, it has refused to do. See, Murphy v. State, 2006 OK CR 3, ¶ 1, 127 P.3d 1158; Canady v. Reynolds, 1994 OK CR 54, ¶ 9, 880 P.2d 391, 394; Matter of L. N., 1980 OK CR 72, ¶ 4, 617 P.2d 239, 240.
T5 I concur in the denial of the Petition for Writ of Certiorari based on an application of our Court Rules and case law, but object to the advisory dicto that flows from it. Therefore, I must dissent to the advisory opinion of the Court as the issue is not properly before the Court.