Court Opinion

ID: 9566589
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:41:05.757353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:35.599611
License: Public Domain

HUNSTEIN, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The majority fails to acknowledge that if the pro se prisoner mailbox rule is applied to the filing of an appeal from the denial of a *662habeas petition as a matter of “appellate procedure,” Op. at 659, it is even more important that it be applied to the filing of the habeas petition itself, when the constitutional right to seek such relief is at stake. Accordingly, I must dissent.
Given the “unique obstacles faced by those who are both imprisoned and unrepresented,” (footnote omitted) Massaline v. Williams, 274 Ga. 552 (1) (554 SE2d 720) (2001), this Court has found persuasive the policy considerations supporting a mailbox rule that were set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Houston v. Lack, 487 U. S. 266 (108 SC 2379, 101 LE2d 245) (1988):
Such prisoners cannot take the steps other litigants can take to monitor the processing of their notices of appeal and to ensure that the court clerk receives and stamps their notices of appeal before the . . . deadline. Unlike other litigants, pro se prisoners cannot personally travel to the courthouse to see that the notice is stamped “filed” or to establish the date on which the court received the notice. Other litigants may choose to entrust their appeals to the vagaries of the mail and the clerk’s process for stamping incoming papers, but only the pro se prisoner is forced to do so by his situation. And if other litigants do choose to use the mail, they can at least place the notice directly into the hands of the United States Postal Service (or a private express carrier); and they can follow its progress by calling the court to determine whether the notice has been received and stamped, knowing that if the mail goes awry they can personally deliver notice at the last moment or that their monitoring will provide them with evidence to demonstrate either excusable neglect or that the notice was not stamped on the date the court received it. Pro se prisoners cannot take any of these precautions; nor, by definition, do they have lawyers who can take these precautions for them. Worse, the pro se prisoner has no choice but to entrust the forwarding of his notice of appeal to prison authorities whom he cannot control or supervise and who may have every incentive to delay. No matter how far in advance the pro se prisoner delivers his notice to the prison authorities, he can never be sure that it will ultimately get stamped “filed” on time. And if there is a delay the prisoner suspects is attributable to the prison authorities, he is unlikely to have any means of proving it, for his confinement prevents him from monitoring the process sufficiently to distinguish delay on the part of prison authorities from slow mail service or the court clerk’s failure to stamp the notice on the *663date received. Unskilled in law, unaided by counsel, and unable to leave the prison, his control over the processing of his notice necessarily ceases as soon as he hands it over to the only public officials to whom he has access — the prison authorities ....
Id. at 270-271 (II);5 see Massaline, supra at 552-553 (1).
Although these considerations exist for all types of pro se inmate filings, the majority correctly notes that we have to this point limited application of the pro se prisoner mailbox rule in Georgia to “the narrow context of habeas corpus appeals.” Riley v. State, 280 Ga. 267, 268 (626 SE2d 116) (2006). However, I would recognize that, beyond the dictates of fundamental fairness underlying our decision in Massaline, supra, 274 Ga. at 552, the constitutional right of access to the Great Writ of habeas corpus is at stake when a pro se prisoner attempts to file a habeas petition. See Ga. Const, of 1983, Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XV (writ of habeas corpus “shall not be suspended unless, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it”).6 OCGA § 9-14-42 (c) provides that a habeas action must be “filed” within certain time constraints, and we have held that a statutory requirement for a document to be “filed” may be satisfied by an event other than delivery into the hands of the clerk of the court. Massaline, supra, 274 Ga. at 554 (2). Given our historical solicitude for the constitutional right to seek habeas corpus relief,7 it follows that the mailbox rule should be applied to the filing of the habeas petition itself, rather than to merely an appeal therefrom.
This extended application of the mailbox rule would be consistent with our constitutional guarantee of equal access to the courts. Ga. Const, of 1983, Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XII; see also Howard v. Sharpe, 266 Ga. 771 (1) (470 SE2d 678) (1996) (regulations and restrictions barring adequate, effective and meaningful access to courts by prisoners are unconstitutional).
Meaningful access [to the courts] means that state authorities must ensure that inmates have “‘a reasonably ad*664equate opportunity to present claimed violations of fundamental constitutional rights to the courts.’” [Cits.] For example, a state may not interfere with an inmate’s attempt to prepare or file legal documents .... [Meaningful access] is simply the right of an inmate to raise his claims and be heard.
Gibson v. Turpin, 270 Ga. 855, 858 (1) (513 SE2d 186) (1999). Beyond the obvious inequity as to access between inmate and non-inmate petitioners, failure to apply the mailbox rule to the filing of a pro se prisoner’s habeas petition
would interject a level of arbitrariness [between inmate petitioners] that could undermine equal protection and equal access to the courts. For example, two pro se inmates who delivered a document to prison officials at the same time, seeking the same relief, and facing the same court deadline, [are] treated quite differently based entirely on happenstance. One inmate’s petition might make it to the courthouse on time, while the other’s might be delayed for unknown reasons. The first would obtain a full hearing, while the second would be denied relief. Such arbitrariness cannot fairly be characterized either as equal protection or equal access to the courts ....
Haag v. Florida, 591 S2d 614, 617 (Fla. 1992).
The majority opines that the difference between the 30-day deadline for filing a notice of appeal from a habeas ruling, see OCGA § 9-14-52 (b), and the four-year deadline for filing a habeas petition arising from a felony conviction, see OCGA § 9-14-42 (c), “appears ... to have import.” Op. at 661.1 disagree for several reasons. First, the relatively short time frame for filing an appeal was not a consideration in Massaline, supra, 274 Ga. at 552. Second, given the lack of control an inmate has over his habeas petition once it has been delivered to prison authorities, he “can never be sure that it will ultimately get stamped ‘filed’ on time,” Houston v. Lack, supra, 487 U. S. at 271, no matter how early in the four-year period it is submitted. Finally, one seeking to file a habeas petition has the right to utilize the full amount of time provided by statute, and “[t]he state cannot subtract from that . . . period through the failure to deliver a pro se inmate’s petition until after the period has expired, even if the delay is through honest oversight.” Haag, supra, 591 S2d at 617.
Because the majority fails to give proper consideration to the constitutional rights at issue in this case, I respectfully dissent.
*665Decided March 15, 2010.
Daniel M. King, Jr., Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.
Sarah L. Gerwig-Moore, Martin Snow, Stuart E. Walker, for appellee.
James C. Bonner, amicus curiae.
I am authorized to state that Justice Benham and Justice Thompson join in this dissent.

 Houston v. Lack dealt with a pro se prisoner’s late filing of a notice of appeal from the dismissal of his federal habeas corpus petition, but the mailbox rule now encompasses the filing of a pro se federal habeas petition as well as a notice of appeal. Taylor v. Williams, 528 F3d 847, 849, n. 3 (11th Cir. 2008).

 It is noteworthy that the dissent in Massaline recognized the constitutional right to habeas corpus, but based its rejection of the mailbox rule in the context of an appeal from the denial of a habeas corpus petition in part on the lack of a constitutional right to bring an appeal. Massaline, supra, 274 Ga. at 556.

 Georgia was the first jurisdiction to include a specific right to the Great Writ in its constitution. Fullwood v. Sivley, 271 Ga. 248, 255 (517 SE2d 511) (1999) (Benham, C. J., dissenting).