Pressley v. Wainwright
| Decision Date | 25 January 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 42684,42684 |
| Citation | 367 So.2d 222 |
| Parties | Nathaniel PRESSLEY, Petitioner, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Paul Morris, Asst. Public Defender, Miami, for petitioner.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Joel D. Rosenblatt, Asst. Atty. Gen., Florida Regional Service Center, Miami, for respondent.
The motion for leave to apply belatedly for certiorari review is granted, and jurisdictional briefs shall be filed as follows: petitioner's brief shall be served on or before ten days from the date of this order; respondent's brief shall be served twenty days from the date petitioner's brief is served; and petitioner's reply brief shall be served ten days from the date respondent's brief is served.
I dissent from the majority's decision to entertain Pressley's late-filed petition for certiorari, and I deem it essential to explain why.
The contentions in Pressley's petition are, in essence, that because he expressed a desire for review in this Court, state-provided counsel (either the court-appointed attorney who represented him on his direct appeal or the office of the public defender which agreed to seek certiorari review in this Court) had a duty to file a petition within the thirty-day time limit prescribed by our 1962 Florida Appellate Rule 4.5(c)(6); 1 that the failure to file the petition in a timely fashion resulted in a deprivation of his absolute right to seek such review; that this deprivation constitutes state action denying Pressley the effective assistance of counsel; and that this wrongdoing can only be remedied by our granting him a new trial or considering his late-filed petition for certiorari review.
A federal district court 2 and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals 3 accepted Pressley's syllogism and have resolved to release Pressley from custody unless we either allow him to file his late petition or summarily grant him a new trial. In their written opinions, both courts stressed the fact that Pressley had expressed to counsel his desire to seek certiorari review of the state district court's decision which affirmed his conviction, 4 and that he had been assured that a petition would be filed on his behalf within the thirty-day period. Finding that Pressley's failure to file the petition on his own was attributable to his reliance on that representation by his state-provided lawyer and to his own ignorance of the requisite filing period, 5 the federal courts surmised that state action had deprived Pressley of the effective assistance of counsel and denied him due process and equal protection of the law. 6 The United States Supreme Court has denied certiorari review of the Fifth Circuit's decision, putting to rest any possibility of inquiring further into the basis for the determination that Pressley's rights have been violated. 7
The fact that we are now powerless to unravel the legal predicate on which Pressley's rights hinge does not mean to me that our independent evaluation of those legal principles is now foreclosed. Nor does the fact necessarily compel the remedy which my colleagues have elected. Admittedly, the federal court has posed for conscientious jurists a difficult choice either we give Pressley a new trial or permission to file a belated petition for certiorari, or the federal court will set him free. Nonetheless, this Court is the state's highest judicial policymaker, and I believe we are obliged to evaluate the compelled alternatives in this case not only for their effect on Pressley, but as well for their precedential significance. My fundamental disagreement with the majority's decision is its implicit concession that the resolution of Pressley's peculiar problem is more important than the jurisprudence which his unique situation has engendered.
The issue of an indigent's right to certiorari review here after a Florida district court of appeal has affirmed a conviction on direct, plenary appeal is neither novel nor complex. We have previously addressed that issue, and in doing so we unflinchingly concluded that unrepresented criminal defendants enjoy the same right as every other party desiring certiorari review of a district court decision that is, quite simply, the right to petition this Court within the period prescribed by our appellate rules. 8 Moreover, I submit that the Fifth Circuit's decision with regard to Pressley does not put us in the position of having to accord certiorari review or grant a new trial to one who has been duly convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and had his conviction affirmed by the only appellate court in which he has a right of direct review. 9 We can decline both alternatives and allow the federal court to assume the responsibility for the consequence it has threatened that is, Pressley's release from custody.
I am troubled by the fact that my colleagues, by acceding to the federal court's ultimatum and granting the relief requested, have simply fashioned a convenient result to prevent Pressley's freedom, wholly ignoring in the process the significance of our precedents, the sanctity of our rulemaking authority under the constitution, and the practical consequences of abandoning both. 10 My dissatisfaction with the majority's position is best explained by reference to some well-heeled legal principles.
Under existing Florida law, litigants are only entitled to one appeal as a matter of right. 11 Under existing Florida law, both the state and an indigent defendant have an absolute and equal right to petition this Court for certiorari review if done in compliance with the rules. 12 Under existing Florida law, the thirty-day period of our appellate rules is for either party a "jurisdictional" requisite for certiorari review here. 13 Under existing Florida law, clients are bound by the acts of counsel, even when those acts waive a constitutional right. 14 Under both federal and Florida law, ignorance of the law does not excuse a failure to comply with it. 15
As legal justification for disregarding these principles, the federal courts have referenced Costello v. State, 246 So.2d 752 (Fla.1971); Baggett v. Wainwright, 229 So.2d 239 (Fla.1969); and Hollingshead v. Wainwright, 194 So.2d 577 (Fla.1967). None of those decisions, I submit, is relevant. Costello merely relies on Baggett. Baggett and Hollingshead were expressly predicated on the United States Supreme Court's decision in Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811 (1963), holding that an indigent defendant is entitled to appointed counsel for the purpose of a direct appeal which is available as a matter of right. Those cases, therefore, stand only for the proposition that the thirty-day filing requirement may be waived where state action has prevented the timely filing of An appeal as of right. Pressley, of course, was accorded both counsel and a timely appeal as of right. 16 Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U.S. 600, 94 S.Ct. 2437, 41 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974), stands squarely for the proposition that there is no constitutional right to counsel for purposes of seeking discretionary certiorari review either in a court like ours or in the United States Supreme Court. If the right to counsel is not guaranteed, I fail to comprehend how a procedural omission of counsel has become a constitutional right.
Not only is there an absence of legal support for the majority's decision, but there appear to be no policy reasons to sustain it. Surely the prevention of Pressley's freedom is no justification for a new policy as potentially sweeping as the one now adopted. The majority has not defined the limit of its new "late-petition right," and I can only hope that their intent is to confine that new right to fact patterns such as that which the Fifth Circuit thought this record supports that is, where a promise to petition for review within the thirty days allowed by our rule is communicated to an indigent by state-provided counsel. Otherwise, the majority will have created a behemoth which, like the proverbial whale when it met Jonah, 17 will swallow the thirty-day rule. 18
This is not merely an instance of a hard case making bad law. This hard case has resulted in the Court's casting aside a substantial body of good law. I had thought this Court would not change existing law to meet the hardships of individual cases. 19 I had thought this Court had the exclusive authority to promulgate rules of practice and procedure for the courts of this state. And I had thought we were bound by the governmental scheme in article V of our constitution, which established the district courts as courts of final appellate jurisdiction. Apparently, all of these notions were inaccurate. Gone too, I fear, is the wisdom of Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Mack, 64 So.2d 304, 307 (Fla.1952), where the Court said:
The reason for the (time limitation) rule is sound and has a definite purpose. . . . Litigation must end sometime. It was never contemplated that the power, right, authority, or jurisdiction to consider a petition for . . . certiorari, or to issue the writ, could exist for an indefinite period, or in perpetuity, and thereby leave uncertain and undecided vital and important litigation until some of the parties got ready to move. Such a situation would lead to endless delay, uncertainty and confusion. 20
1 This time limitation for discretionary certiorari petitions to this Court has been carried forward into our present appellate rules. Fla.R.App.P. 9.120(b).
3 Pressley v. Wainwright, 540 F.2d 818 (5th Cir. 1976), Cert. denied, 430 U.S. 987, 97 S.Ct. 1688, 52 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977).
5 The Fifth Circuit's statement that Pressley was "unaware of this filing time," 540...
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