Court Opinion

ID: 9704311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:30:23.49011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:23.721344
License: Public Domain

VAIDIK, Judge,
concurring in result.
While I concur in the result reached by the majority, I cannot agree that Blakely v. Washington should apply retroactively to Baysinger's case under Post-Conviction Rule 2(1). In his brief, Baysinger seizes on that portion of Rule 2(1) providing that "notice of appeal shall be treated for all purposes as if filed within the prescribed period." I believe that this language applies only to the procedural treatment of the notice of appeal and should not be manipulated as a vehicle to reach the substantive issues addressed in the appeal itself.
Our Supreme Court's ruling in Fosha v. State, 747 N.E.2d 549, 552 (Ind.2001), supports the assertion that the Rule's reference only to the "notice of appeal" limits the seope of its application to procedural matters. In Foshqa, the Court retroactively applied the new double jeopardy rule established in Richardson v. State, 717 N.E.2d 32 (Ind.1999), to a case pending on direct appeal, which case had come before the court pursuant to a notice of belated appeal under Rule 2. Fosha filed his permission to file notice of belated appeal on August 16, 1999; Richardson was decided on October 1, 1999. Finding that the direct appeal was, procedurally speaking, "imitiate[d]" with the filing of the permission to file notice of belated appeal, the Court held that Richardson, having been decided after Fosha's case was newly pending on direct appeal, applied retroactively to the case. Fosha, 747 N.E.2d at 552. It is worth noting, as well, that this application of Rule 2 comports with our Supreme Court's analysis in Smylie v. State, 828 N.E.2d 679, 690-91 (Ind.2005), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 126 S.Ct. 545, 163 L.Ed.2d 459 (2005), where it determined that "we will apply Blakely retroactively to all cases on direct review at the time Blakely was announced." (Emphasis added.)
Employing this analysis in the case at bar requires nothing more than a review of the procedural timeline of the case. Bay-singer was sentenced on March 19, 2001, and he did not pursue a direct appeal at that time. Blakely was decided on June 24, 2004, over three years after Baysinger had been sentenced and his opportunity to file a timely direct appeal had passed. See Ind. Appellate Rule 9(A)(1) (Notice of Appeal must be filed within thirty days after entry of a Final Judgment). On March 1, 2005-over eight months after Blakely was decided-Baysinger filed his notice for a belated appeal under Post-Conviction Rule 2; according to Foska, this initiated Bay-singer's direct appeal. Beginning on that date, then, Baysinger's case was newly pending on direct review.3 In other words, Baysinger's belated appeal was filed after the Blakely decision and thus was not pending at the time Blakely was decided. See Hull v. State, 889 N.E.2d 1250, 1256 (Ind.Ct.App.2005); Robbins v. State, 839 N.E.2d 1196, 1199 (Ind.Ct.App. 2005). Accordingly, Baysinger's claims under Blakely must fail.
I am aware of the opposing line of reasoning represented by other recent decisions of this Court and consistent with the Meadows decision relied upon by the majority. See Gutermuth v. State, 848 N.E.2d 716, trans. granted; Sullivan v. State, 886 N.E.2d 1031 (Ind.Ct.App.2005). These cases hold that Blakely should apply to cases that, although not on direct appeal at the time Blakely was handed down, are *1218later granted permission to file a belated appeal. These cases cite Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), for the proposition that retroactive application of new eriminal rules is required for any case that was not "final" when the rule was handed down, and they contend that a case that is later granted a belated appeal was not "final" even though a timely appeal was not filed because the availability of an appeal, albeit a belated one, was not exhausted.
Specifically, these cases cite the following language from Griffith, which our Supreme Court also cited in Smylie: "a new rule for the conduct of eriminal prosecutions is to be applied retroactively to all cases, state or federal, pending on direct review or not yet final, with no exception for cases in which the new rule constitutes a 'clear breal' with the past." Griffith, 479 U.S. at 328, 107 S.Ct. 708; Smylie, 823 N.E.2d at 687 (emphasis added). I cannot agree with my colleagues' reading of this language inasmuch as it provides that a case cannot be considered "final" if there is a possibility that a belated appeal not yet filed could, at some point in the future, potentially be filed. My reading of Griffith convinees me that it does not support the retroactive extension of a new rule of law to cases no longer eligible for direct appeal wherein a belated appeal may still be filed after the new rule of law comes into effect. Indeed, the language of Griffith suggests that the "final" disposition of a case is synonymous with the expiration of the ability to timely file a direct appeal. See Griffith 479 U.S. at 822-24, 326-27, 107 S.Ct. 708 (repeatedly referencing two types of cases that may exist when a new rule takes effect-those "on direct review" and those that had become "final"). Neither Griffith nor Smylie references belated appeals at all. I am not inclined, then, to read these cases in a manner that leaves any case that was never timely subjected to direct review perpetually "unfinal" for the purposes of retroactivity until such time as the defendant seeks a belated appeal.
I would hold, then, that Blakely does not apply retroactively to Baysinger's appeal. Reviewing the aggravators before the trial court, then, without subjecting any of them to a Blakely analysis, I would find that three of them-the nature and circumstances of the crime, past criminal history, and lack of remorse-are appropriate ag-gravators. Given the combination of these three aggravators, I can say with confidence that the trial court would have imposed the same sentence, therefore reversal is not necessary. I further agree with the majority's Rule 7(B) analysis, and I therefore concur in result.

. Although Baysinger's petition to file notice for a belated appeal was initially denied by the trial court, because that decision was reversed we regard the date of the original petition as the date on which the appeal was initiated.