Court Opinion

ID: 9496335
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:23:37.449203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:30.248443
License: Public Domain

BOGGS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Michigan has adopted a 56-day rule for application to its Supreme Court for leave to appeal from a decision of the court of appeals. As far as any precedent in any federal court holds, Michigan would be free to set this limit as 46 days or 66 days or 36 days.
Given this leeway, and given the court’s holding that Michigan is not obliged to adopt the federal “prison mail box rule”, I do not see how the failure by Maples to file on time is from a cause “external to the petitioner.” Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 753, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991).
There is no indication that Maples was prevented from submitting his petition to prison authorities in sufficient time that the normal course of the mails (with some leeway for safety) would have delivered it to the Michigan Supreme Court on time. The fact that Maples says he delayed because he did not know the postage amount is unpersuasive. He could have ascertained that amount at a much earlier time. Indeed, there is no indication that knowledge of the exact amount was a prerequisite for submitting his document to the prison authorities for mailing; for all that appears, the proper amount, whatever it was, would have been deducted from his prison account.
Under these circumstances, to hold that petitioner’s failure is from a reason “external” to him is no more persuasive then saying that the 56-day limit was too stringent.
I therefore respectfully dissent from the court’s holding that petitioner’s claim was not procedurally defaulted. To the extent that the court surmounts this hurdle, I agree with the remainder of its decision.