State ex rel. Napolitano v. Brown

• Decision Date: 04 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. CV-98-0547-SA.,CV-98-0547-SA.
• Citation: 982 P.2d 815,194 Ariz. 340
• Parties: STATE of Arizona, ex rel. Janet A. NAPOLITANO, Attorney General, Petitioner. v. Hon. Michael BROWN, Presiding Judge of the Superior Court of the State of Arizona, in and for the County of Pima, Respondent, and Kevin Artice Miles, Real Party in Interest.
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

982 P.2d 815

194 Ariz. 340

STATE of Arizona, ex rel. Janet A. NAPOLITANO, Attorney General, Petitioner. v. Hon. Michael BROWN, Presiding Judge of the Superior Court of the State of Arizona, in and for the County of Pima, Respondent, and Kevin Artice Miles, Real Party in Interest.

No. CV-98-0547-SA.

Supreme Court of Arizona, En Banc.

June 4, 1999.

Janet A. Napolitano, The Attorney General By: Paul J. McMurdie, Chief Counsel Criminal Appeals Section, Phoenix, Attorney for Petitioner.

Bruner & Bowman, P.C. By: Sean H. Bruner Tucson Attorney for Real Party in Interest.

McGREGOR, Justice.

¶ 1 The issue raised in this special action is whether the legislature, by adopting a statute that, among other provisions, set time limits for filing petitions for post-conviction relief that conflict with time limits set in rules adopted by this court, violated the separation of powers doctrine. We accepted jurisdiction under article VI, section 5.1 of the Arizona Constitution. For the following reasons, we hold unconstitutional those portions of the statute that define the time limits.

I.

¶ 2 Kevin Artice Miles, a death row inmate seeking post-conviction relief, asked the Pima County Superior Court to declare unconstitutional certain 1998 legislative amendments to Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) § 13-4234.D. and .F (the amendments). Miles argued that the amendments, which define time limits for filing a petition for post-conviction relief, impermissibly conflict with the time limits established by this court in Rule 32.4.c, Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure (Rule 32.4.c), and therefore violate the separation of powers doctrine. The State countered that the amendments do not violate the Constitution because the legislature enacted them pursuant to the Victim's Bill of Rights (VBR), article II, section 2.1 of the Arizona Constitution, which authorizes the legislature to enact procedural rules "to ensure the protection of these [victims'] rights." ARIZ. CONST. art. II, § 2.1(A)11. Specifically, the State argued, the VBR permits the legislature to enact rules intended to assure the right of victims to a speedy trial and prompt and final resolution of criminal cases. Id. at § 2.1(A)10.

¶ 3 The trial court agreed with Miles, and held the amendments unconstitutional on several grounds. First, the amendments usurped this court's exclusive procedural rulemaking authority granted by article VI, section 5.5 of the Arizona Constitution. Second, the State offered no evidence to support its assertion that the legislature enacted the amendments pursuant to the VBR. In fact, the trial court found, the legislature enacted the amendments to fulfill the opt-in provisions of federal habeas laws. See 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 2261-2265 (West Supp.1999). Third, even if the legislature did pass the amendments pursuant to the VBR, the State did not show that the amendments would have any significant effect on the time it takes to bring a capital case to a prompt and final conclusion.

II.

¶ 4 The amendments grant a defendant less time to seek post-conviction review than do the rules of this court. Rule 32.4.c allows a defendant in a capital case 120 days after appointment of counsel to file a petition for post-conviction relief. The defendant can obtain one sixty-day extension upon a showing of good cause, and additional thirty-day extensions upon further showing of good cause.¹ The amendments, in contrast, allow a capital defendant sixty days to file a petition for post-conviction relief, and permit the court to grant only one thirty-day extension. That conflict raises the question whether the legislature, in passing the amendments, exceeded its authority. ¶ 5 In Arizona, the legislature is endowed with the legislative power of the State, and has plenary power to consider any subject within the scope of government unless the provisions of the Constitution restrain it. See Giss v. Jordan, 82 Ariz. 152, 159, 309 P.2d 779, 783-84 (1957)

. Put another way, the legislature "has all power not expressly prohibited or granted to another branch of the government." Adams v. Bolin, 74 Ariz. 269, 283, 247 P.2d 617, 626 (1952).

¶ 6 The Constitution, however, vests the power to make procedural rules exclusively in this court. See ARIZ. CONST. art. VI, § 5 ("The Supreme Court shall have: ... Power to make rules relative to all procedural matters in any court.") See also Slayton v. Shumway, 166 Ariz. 87, 91, 800 P.2d 590, 594 (1990)

; State v. Fowler, 156 Ariz. 408, 411, 752 P.2d 497, 500 (App.1987) (approved in State v. Bejarano, 158 Ariz. 253, 254, 762 P.2d 540, 541 (1988)). The Constitution also divides the powers of government into three separate departments and directs that "no one of such departments shall exercise the powers properly belonging to either of the others." ARIZ. CONST. art. III. Therefore, under the traditional separation of powers doctrine, the legislature lacks authority to enact a statute "if it conflicts with or `tends to engulf'" this court's constitutionally vested rulemaking authority. State v. Robinson, 153 Ariz. 191, 197, 735 P.2d 801, 807 (1987).

¶ 7 The amendments, by lowering the time limits for filing petitions for post-conviction relief in capital cases from 120 days, as Rule 32.4.c allows, to 60 days, directly conflict with a rule promulgated pursuant to this court's constitutionally vested, exclusive rulemaking authority. Under similar circumstances, our court of appeals has held comparable statutes unconstitutional. See Pompa v. Superior Court, 187 Ariz. 531, 931 P.2d 431 (App.1997)

(holding A.R.S. § 13-2314.M unconstitutional because it conflicted with existing rules this court promulgated); State v. Fowler, 156 Ariz. at 413, 752 P.2d at 502 (holding a statutory one-year time limitation applying to filing petitions for post-conviction relief unconstitutional because the law conflicted with Rule 32). Absent some unusual circumstance, our inquiry would end here, and we would hold the portions of the amendments shortening the time limits for filing petitions for post-conviction relief in capital cases violative of the separation of powers requirement.

¶ 8 The State maintains, however, that the constitutional grant of authority to the legislature to enact procedural rules pursuant to the VBR takes precedence over the Constitution's general grant of rulemaking authority to this court. According to the State, the amendments meet constitutional requirements because the legislature enacted them pursuant to paragraph ten of the VBR, which mandates that crime victims have the right "[t]o a speedy trial or disposition and prompt and final conclusion of the case after the conviction and sentence." ARIZ. CONST. art. II, § 2.1(A)10. We disagree with the State's assertion for three reasons.

¶ 9 First, no evidence supports the State's contention that the legislature enacted the amendments pursuant to the VBR. To the contrary, the history surrounding the amendments reveals that the legislature enacted the amendments to allow Arizona to utilize the opt-in provisions of recent federal habeas legislation commonly referred to as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). See 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 2261-2265 (West Supp.1999). The legislature passed the amendments as part of an emergency enactment, which also included provisions for the appointment and compensation of counsel in capital post-conviction cases, needed to permit Arizona to conform to the requirements of the AEDPA. See Minutes of Arizona State Senate Committee on Judiciary on H.B. 2210, 43d Leg., 2d Reg. Sess. (Ariz.1998) (hereinafter Minutes). Indeed, the legislative history surrounding the amendments contains no reference to the VBR. See Minutes. Thus, we find no support for the State's argument that the legislature passed the amendments pursuant to the VBR.

¶ 10 In addition, the State's assertion that the legislature enacted the amendments pursuant to the VBR is illogical on two fronts. First, the amendments halve the time to file a petition for post-conviction relief in a capital case, yet leave unchanged the time allotted to file a petition for post-conviction relief in a non-capital case. If the purpose of the amendments had been to ensure victims a prompt and final conclusion to all criminal cases, the legislature would have applied shortened time limits to all criminal cases, not only to capital cases. The State suggests no reason that the legislature would have intended to address the right to a speedy trial in only one category of criminal cases, given the fact that the rights guaranteed by the VBR extend to victims of all crimes. Second, the State conceded at oral argument that decreasing the time for filing a petition for post-conviction relief in a capital case from 120 to 60 days actually would have minimal impact on the time needed to bring a capital case to conclusion.²

¶ 11 Most importantly, even if evidence existed to support the State's contention, our decision in Slayton, supra, limits the legislature's rulemaking power under the VBR. In Slayton, a case interpreting paragraph eleven of the initiative that became the VBR, we held that "[t]he power to make rules is a substantive question involving the separation of powers," and noted that "[c]ourts have inherent power ... to formulate their own procedural rules." 166 Ariz. at 91, 800 P.2d at 594. We opined that voters who advocate victims' rights would also support the notion that "the traditional separation of powers in the state [should not] be changed to vest the legislature with the entire rulemaking power for all criminal cases." Id. Thus, we concluded that the rulemaking power of the legislature granted by the VBR extends only to those "procedural rules pertaining to victims and not with the substantive general subject of the rulemaking power." Id. at 92, 800 P.2d at 595. Subsequently, in Champlin v. Sargeant, 192 Ariz. 371, 373 n. 2, 965 P.2d 763, 765, n. 2 (1998), we further explained that...