Ex parte Williams

• Decision Date: 17 July 1992
• Citation: 651 So.2d 569
• Parties: Ex parte James Michael WILLIAMS. 1901143.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 569

651 So.2d 569

Ex parte James Michael WILLIAMS.

1901143.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

July 17, 1992.

James Michael Williams, pro se.

James H. Evans, Atty. Gen., and Cecil G. Brendle, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

KENNEDY, Justice.

The petitioner, James Michael Williams, seeks review of a judgment of the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirming the dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief.

Williams was convicted of first degree rape and second degree kidnapping. He was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment for the rape and 8 years' imprisonment for the kidnapping, those sentences to run concurrently.

Williams appealed his convictions to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which affirmed them. Williams v. State, 535 So.2d 225 (Ala.Crim.App.1988). Thereafter, Williams filed a petition for post-conviction relief pursuant to Rule 20, Ala.R.Cr.P.Temp., which was applicable when he made his motion. The trial court dismissed the petition, and Williams appealed that dismissal to the Court of Criminal Appeals. That court affirmed, without opinion.

Williams applied for a rehearing, which was denied on April 11, 1991. Williams then prepared a petition for writ of certiorari, which was received by this Court on April 29, 1991, four days after the deadline for filing. This petition had been mailed with the United States Postal Service, but not by certified, express, or registered mail. Pursuant to Rule 25, A.R.App.P., "[p]apers required or permitted to be filed in an appellate court" must be received within the time period set by law even if mailed, except that where the papers are mailed by United States express, certified, or registered mail, they are deemed to have been filed on the day of mailing. Thus, papers so mailed are timely so long as they are mailed within the time prescribed for filing; papers not mailed by United States express, certified, or registered mail are deemed filed upon receipt. Ala.R.App.P. 25.

Williams states that he tendered his petition to prison officials to be mailed within the time prescribed by law for filing. Also, Williams has filed with this Court two statements from other persons to this effect.

Williams does not have access to a United States post office. Prison authorities will place items in the mail for him, but he has no guarantee as to when a paper will actually be mailed, and prison officials are not required to provide express, certified, or registered mail service for him. Finally, it is obvious that Williams could not hand deliver his petition.

Based on these considerations and the analysis to follow, we determined that Williams's petition for the writ of certiorari was timely filed and we granted the petition.

We are not persuaded that Rule 25 is to be rigidly interpreted in the situation of a pro se prisoner who, by the circumstances of his incarceration, has a particular lack of control over papers to be mailed to the clerk of this Court. The Committee Comments to Ala.R.App.P. 1, which defines the scope of our appellate rules, state that "it is the policy of these rules to disregard technicality and form in order that a just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every appellate proceeding on its merits may be obtained." To rigidly interpret Rule 25 in this instance would be unjust and, therefore, would not foster this policy.

Confronted with a similar situation, the United States Supreme Court in Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 108 S.Ct. 2379, 101 L.Ed.2d 245 (1988), determined that a notice of appeal from a pro se prisoner must be deemed "filed" under the federal appellate rules when the notice is properly placed in the hands of prison authorities. The Court reasoned:

"The situation of prisoners seeking to appeal without the aid of counsel is unique. 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 ... 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 date 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--and the only information he will likely have is the date he delivered the notice to those prison authorities and the date ultimately stamped on his notice."

487 U.S. at 270-72, 108 S.Ct. at 2382-83.

We agree with the reasoning in Houston v. Lack and hold that under Rule 25 a pro se prisoner's filings shall be deemed filed upon the prisoner's tendering them to prison officials. Rule 25, taken in context of the goals of the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure and given the compelling grounds discussed above, is flexible enough to allow a paper to be deemed filed upon its proper receipt by a prison official.

We now turn to Williams's substantive arguments.

Williams argues that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in affirming the dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief pursuant to Rule 20, Ala.R.Cr.P.Temp. Williams states that he was wrongfully denied an evidentiary hearing on his Rule 20 petition, and that, because he was entitled to a hearing, the trial court erred in dismissing the petition. See, Ex parte Boatwright, 471 So.2d 1257, 1258 (Ala.1985).

Rule 20 provides, in pertinent part, that one can obtain post-conviction relief where:

"(e) Newly discovered material facts exist which require that the conviction or sentence be vacated by the court, because:

"(1) the facts relied upon were not known by petitioner or his counsel at the time of trial or sentencing or in time to file a post-trial motion ..., or in time to be included in any previous collateral...