McCants v. Clerk of Suffolk Superior Court for Criminal Bus.

• Decision Date: 14 May 2013
• Docket Number: SJC–11263.
• Citation: McCants v. Clerk of Suffolk Superior Court for Criminal Bus., 465 Mass. 1007, 987 N.E.2d 1230 (Mass. 2013)
• Parties: Owen McCANTS v. CLERK OF SUFFOLK SUPERIOR COURT FOR CRIMINAL BUSINESS
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

465 Mass. 1007

987 N.E.2d 1230

Owen McCANTS

v.CLERK OF SUFFOLK SUPERIOR COURT FOR CRIMINAL BUSINESS

SJC–11263.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

May 14, 2013.

Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts.Moot Question.Practice, Civil, Moot case.

The case was submitted on briefs.

Owen McCants, pro se.

Annette C. Benedetto, Assistant Attorney General, for the respondent.

RESCRIPT

Owen McCants appeals from a judgment of a single justice of this court dismissing as moot his petition for a writ of mandamus and for a declaratory judgment.We affirm.

A Superior Court jury convicted McCants of several crimes, and the Appeals Court affirmed the convictions.SeeCommonwealth v. McCants,65 Mass.App.Ct. 1121, 2006 WL 539419(2006).McCants thereafter filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied.He then filed a notice of appeal, the record was assembled, and the appeal was entered in the Appeals Court, where it remains pending.Then, in April, 2012, he filed a petition in the county court, asserting that the trial court clerk's office had failed to docket several pleadings that he had filed in that court in connection with the motion for a new trial.In response, the respondent submitted a letter to the county court indicating that the clerk's office had updated the docket to include the pleadings in question and that the entire record, including those pleadings, had been assembled and forwarded to the Appeals Court.On the basis that McCants had received the relief that he was seeking—the docketing of his pleadings in the trial court—the single justice dismissed the petition as moot.

In his appeal from the dismissal of his petition McCants argues that the matter is not moot because the respondent failed to file a timely response to his petition and that she therefore “waived” her right to respond.Regardless whether the respondent's letter was timely, it was within the court's...