Court Opinion

ID: 9764118
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:11:06.809297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:57:47.640213
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
with whom TAYLOR, V.C.J., KAUGER and WINCHESTER, JJ., join, dissenting
11 The court holds today that because an appeal does not lie from a writ of habeas corpus, the State's quest for review of a certified interlocutory order in a habeas corpus proceeding must be dismissed. I recede from the court's pronouncement. Wisener v. Burrell, 1911 OK 128, 28 Okla. 546, 118 P. 999,1 the case relied on by the court, may no longer be treated as entitled to precedential force. It is in plain discord with today's statutory regime of appealable district court decisions.
THE COURTS REVIVAL OF ITS 1911 EXCLUSION OF HABEAS CORPUS WRIT FROM APPELLATE REVIEW IS UNSUPPORTED BY ANY VIABLE NORM OF PRESENT-DAY LEGISLATION
[ 2 The petition for the command of a writ of habeas corpus now initiates a civil case that does not differ in its legal characteristics under the current pleading code2 from any other civil action.3 The command, whether issued or denied by the court, is but a functional equivalent of any other civil judgment that disposes of a claim.4 Whether the same *783was true in 1911 need not be here inquired into. It is enough to observe that there is no dissimilarity today. What might have been true in 1911 is utterly immaterial,. What matters now is that a suit for a writ is no different in its basic complexion from any other civil cease.5 Asecribing to it a categorical difference is patently incorrect. I hence conclude the writ's command is an appealable civil judgment. This court's pronouncement in Wisener v. Burrell does not need to be any longer accorded precedential value and continue to be treated as having stare decisis force. A claim's adjudication by judgment in a civil case that takes the form of a judicial command effected by the court's writ is no less appealable than a judgment by declaration of rights, although a civil judgment must continue to be distinguished from a judgment in a criminal prosecution.
T3 Continued segregation of habeas corpus for inclusion in some separate category by judicial fiat that is contrary to post-1984 pleading code classification of actions would be tantamount to recalling from its 1984 grave the now repealed class of nonexistent special proceedings. t
II
TODAY'S EXCLUSION OF HABEAS CORPUS WRITS FROM - THE BROAD CATEGORY OF CIVIL JUDGMENTS AS A BASIS FOR DE-
NIAL OF THE BENEFIT OF AN APPEAL OFFENDS THE PROCEDURAL SYMMETRY MANDATED BY ART. 5, § 46, OKL. CONST.6
T4 The right of a litigant to appeal is purely statutory. Courts cannot fabricate exceptions in the absence of statutory language clearly excluding a category of litigation from the benefit of appeal. If the judi-clary were allowed so to do it would enjoy the privilege of arbitrarily excluding from statutory categories those appeals which it would deem to be undesirable. There is no longer any constitutional or legislative warrant for singling out habeas corpus writs from (a) other writs as well as from (b) the broad category of civil judgments to make them unappealable.
15 Assuming that in Wisener v. Burrell the court intended to bar all corrective relief of habeas corpus writs (by appeals as well as by certiorari and by review through the exercise of this court's original jurisdiction), its pronouncement is unsupported by any presently effective norm of law. The habeas corpus writ's exclusion from the broad category of judgments, which are appealable, would clearly violate the procedural uniformity mandate of Art. 5, § 46, Okl. Const.7 Our *784own jurisprudence, no less than the Legislature's enactments, must faithfully conform to the fundamental law's prohibition against nonuniform (asymmetrical) laws on prohibited subjects.8
T6 In sum, there is neither statutory nor jurisprudential authority for the post-1984 bar of habeas corpus writs from any form of appellate review. This court's pronouncement is pure and simple ipse dixit. It cannot stand. Like other writs, the habeas corpus writ is a judgment that must be deemed included within the category of appealable dispositions by the district court. No forensic decision may, by mere judicial fiat, become immune to corrective relief of an appellate tribunal.
T7 I would grant certiorari to review the certified interlocutory order.

. Wisener v. Burrell, 1911 OK 128, 28 Okla. 546, 118 P. 999, teaches that no appeal lies from the issuance or denial of a writ of habeas corpus. For early pre-1984 cases relying on Wisener, see, e.g., Ex parte Logan, 1912 OK 29, 33 Okla. 659, 126 P. 800 (denial of an appeal from an order in habeas corpus by one held pending extradition for a criminal prosecution); Ex parte Kincade, 1944 OK 245, 151 P.2d 796, 194 Okl. 356 (denial of an application for a writ of habeas corpus to secure release from a state hospital for the insane).

. The Code of Civil Procedure (based on the Field Code's fact-pleading regime) governed Oklahoma civil pleading before its repeal in 1984. The present Oklahoma Pleading Code, 12 ©.$.2001 § 2001 et seq., enacted in 1984, is patterned on the notice-pleading regime of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. "The Oklahoma Pleading Code governs the procedure in the district courts of Oklahoma in all suits of a civil nature whether cognizable as cases at law or in equity except where a statute specifies a different procedure...." 12 0.$.2001 § 2001.

. All forms of actions at common law stand abolished since statehood. St. 1893 § 3882; RL. 1910 § 4650; 12 0.$.1981 § 10 (Code of Civil Procedure); 12 0.$.2001 § 2002 (1984 Pleading Code). "The provision for only one form of action ... has been characterized as the most fundamental rule of notice pleading." Committee comment to 12 0.$.2001 § 2002.
The pre-1984 Code of Civil Procedure, 12 O.S. 1981 § 3, recognized special proceedings as a class separate from actions. The provisions of 12 0.$.1981 § 4 defined an "action." A "special proceeding" was defined as "every other remedy." Two kinds of actions were recognized by the pre-1984 Code-civil and criminal. 12 O.S. 1981 § 6. See, e.g., State v. Scarth, 1931 OK. 561, ¶ 10, 3 P.2d 446, 151 Okla. 178; El Reno Wholesale Grocery Co. v. Taylor, County Treasurer, 1922 OK 107, 209 P. 749, 753, 87 Okla. 140 (overruled on other grounds). Habeas corpus was a special proceeding when Wisener v. Burrell, supra note 1, was pronounced.
The 1984 statutory conversion from fact to notice pleadings necessitated a fundamental change in the pattern of constituent ingredients for a more simplified procedural regime of civil litigation. Elimination of "special proceedings" was part and parcel of that comprehensive legislative reform of the law that now governs pleadings in civil cases.
The 1984 Pleading Code abolished the dichotomy of civil actions and special proceedings in the previous Code of Civil Procedure, 12 0.$.1981 §§ 3-6. The law of Oklahoma now recognizes but two forensic causes (court cases): a civil (12 0.S.2001 § 2002) and a criminal (22 0.$.2001 § 10) action. The Legislature states in 12 O.S. 2001 § 2002 [there shall be one form of action to be known as a 'civil action.'" See committee comment to § 2002.

. By statutory definition a "judgment is the final determination of the rights of the parties in an action'" 12 0.$.2001 § 681. When the Legislature changed the system in the 1984 Code from fact to notice pleading, it did not alter the preexisting legal definition of a judgment.
A petition for a writ initiates suits in the same manner that a petition commences a lawsuit which ends in a judgment. A writ is a judgment because it resolves all issues in the case and puts *783an end to litigation. In Chandler U.S.A., Inc. v. Tyree, 2004 OK 16, ¶ 31, 87 P.3d 598, the court declared that "issues in a mandamus proceeding are tried as in a civil action." Even before the enactment of the current pleading code, a writ of mandamus was deemed to stand on equal footing with a judgment in an ordinary action at law, subject to review in the appellate court under similar terms. In re Epley, 1901 OK 15, 64 P. 18, syl. 6, 10 Okla. 631. An appeal may be brought from the issuance or denial of a writ of prohibition. - Umholtz v. City of Tulsa, 1977 OK 98, 565 P.2d 15. Habeas corpus is deemed to be a civil claim. Dancy v. Owens, 1927 OK 203, 126 Okla. 37, 258 P. 879, 884. It tests the legality of a person's confinement. Brooks v. Baltz, 2000 OK. 73, 12, 12 P.3d 467 (confinement in jail); Application of Caldwell, 1974 OK 93, ¶ 11, 525 P.2d 641, 642-643 (detention of minor child by custodial parent); Ex parte Kincade, 1944 OK 245, 194 Okla. 356, 151 P.2d 796, 194 Okla. 356 (confinement in a state hospital for the insane). Much like other available writs, that for habeas corpus is a judgment which must be included within the category of appealable dispositions of the district court. 12 O0.$.2001 § 952.

. It suffices to say that Wisener v. Burrell, supra note 1, was handed down when the statutory regime of district court procedure for civil matters was vastly different.

. The pertinent terms of Art. 5, § 46, OKI. Const., are: '
''The legislature shall not, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, pass any local or special law authorizing: Hook ok
Regulating the practice or jurisdiction of ... in judicial proceedings or inquiry before the courts ... or other tribunals...."

. Reynolds v. Porter, 1988 OK 88, 760 P.2d 816, 822; Maule v. Independent School Dist. No. 9, 1985 OK 110, ¶ 12, 714 P.2d 198, 203 n. 30; Great Plains Federal S & L Assn. v. Dabney, 1993 OK 4, 12, 846 P.2d 1088, 1095-96 (Opala, J., concurring).

. Johnson v. Tony's Town Mister Quik, 1996 OK 138, ¶ 5, n. 10, 915 P.2d 355, 357-58; Haynes v. Tulsa Public Schools Transit, 1994 OK 86, ¶ 5, 879 P.2d 128, 131 (Opala, J., concurring).