State v. Lara

• Decision Date: 04 November 2005
• Docket Number: No. 20030939.,20030939.
• Citation: 2005 UT 70,124 P.3d 243
• Parties: STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Petitioner, v. Miguel Angel LARA, Defendant and Respondent.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

124 P.3d 243

2005 UT 70

STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Petitioner, v. Miguel Angel LARA, Defendant and Respondent.

No. 20030939.

Supreme Court of Utah.

November 4, 2005.

Mark L. Shurtleff, Att'y Gen., Laura B. Dupaix, Asst. Att'y Gen., Salt Lake City, for plaintiff.

Joan C. Watt, John D. O'Connell, Jr., Salt Lake City, for defendant.

On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals.

NEHRING, Justice:

¶ 1 We granted certiorari in this matter to determine whether the court of appeals had the authority to reinstate Mr. Lara's appeal after it had dismissed his prior appeal and issued a remittitur. We hold that it did and affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 Mr. Lara, a sixteen-year-old, was charged with aggravated robbery under the Serious Youth Offender Act ("SYOA"). Utah Code Ann. § 78-3a-602 (1996). The SYOA allows a juvenile to be bound over and charged as an adult in the district court for serious charges unless the juvenile can satisfy certain conditions, commonly known as "retention factors," which would require the juvenile court to retain jurisdiction. The juvenile court found that these conditions were not met and thus bound over Mr. Lara.

¶ 3 Mr. Lara asked the district court to quash the bindover, challenging the juvenile court's ruling that he had not met the retention factors. The State argued that as a final and appealable order, the only proper venue to challenge the bindover was the court of appeals. However, the district court judge indicated that she had jurisdiction to address the motion to quash and suggested that she disagreed with the juvenile court's decision to bindover Mr. Lara. However, the judge felt she could not address the motion to quash so long as the appeal was pending in the court of appeals, and indicated that Mr. Lara should withdraw his appeal to the court of appeals if he wished for her to rule on his motion.

¶ 4 On February 14, 2001, Mr. Lara filed a motion with the court of appeals to voluntarily dismiss his appeal. As required by Utah Rule of Appellate Procedure 37(b), the motion to dismiss was accompanied by Mr. Lara's affidavit stating the following:

(1) I am the Defendant in the above case, (2) It is my desire to withdraw my appeal at this time, (3) I am aware that I have the right to appeal my conviction and sentence to the Utah Court of Appeals; however, I do not wish to pursue this appeal, (4) I understand that once this appeal is withdrawn, it cannot be reinstated, (5) It is my desire to waive any and all rights to the appeal docketed in this case, (6) I am doing this knowingly and voluntarily and have not been threatened or otherwise induced in any way to withdraw this appeal, and (7) I have consulted with my attorney with respect to this withdrawal and feel that it will not benefit me to pursue this appeal.

¶ 5 On March 6, 2001, the district court judge issued a memorandum decision in which she ruled that she did not have jurisdiction to review the bindover order and that Mr. Lara's only option was to seek appellate review of the order. Because Mr. Lara had withdrawn his appeal, the trial court's decision also stated that Mr. Lara's appeal was reinstated. Mr. Lara did not, however, file a motion with the court of appeals to reinstate his appeal nor did he seek to withdraw his motion to dismiss it. Eventually, Mr. Lara pled guilty in the district court to second degree felony theft on the condition that he be permitted to challenge the juvenile court's bindover order on appeal.

¶ 6 When Mr. Lara filed his appeal the State claimed that the court of appeals did not have jurisdiction to hear the case because once the juvenile court binds over a case to district court, an appellate court has no jurisdiction to hear the challenge unless that order is timely appealed. Additionally, the State claimed that remittitur issued after Mr. Lara's voluntary withdrawal of his appeal to the court of appeals, and that following remittitur the court of appeals lacked jurisdiction to reinstate the appeal. The court of appeals rejected these arguments. It concluded that Mr. Lara had not knowingly and voluntarily withdrawn his appeal due to the district court's misleading assurances of the retention of some right to appeal. After reinstating the appeal, the court reversed the juvenile court's bindover order, finding that Mr. Lara had met the required retention factors.

¶ 7 The State petitioned for writ of certiorari. We granted certiorari to determine whether the court of appeals had authority to reinstate Mr. Lara's appeal after it had dismissed his earlier appeal and issued a remittitur.

ANALYSIS

¶ 8 To invoke appellate jurisdiction after an appeal has been dismissed a party must establish the existence of two components: jurisdictional authority and a procedure to access it. Mr. Lara claims a constitutional basis for reclaiming appellate jurisdiction, based on his constitutionally protected right to appeal guaranteed to criminal defendants in Utah's Declaration of Rights. Utah Const. art. I, § 12. He asserts that this constitutional right would be infringed if he were denied the right to appeal that he believed he preserved when he entered his plea. To complement this claimed source of jurisdiction, Mr. Lara offered three procedural alternatives to open the door to the court of appeals: (1) reinstatement of his direct appeal from the juvenile court bindover order, (2) review of the district court's ruling that it had jurisdiction over Mr. Lara, or (3) consideration of Mr. Lara's request for extraordinary relief. The first two of these alternatives sought access to the court of appeals' appellate jurisdiction. In contrast, had the court of appeals exercised its writ power in aid of Mr. Lara it would have done so within the scope of its original jurisdiction. Gates v. Taylor, 2000 UT 33, ¶ 3, 997 P.2d 903. The court of appeals elected to accept Mr. Lara's first option and reinstated his appeal.

¶ 9 The State contends that when the court of appeals issued a remittitur following its dismissal of Mr. Lara's appeal, it surrendered its jurisdiction. Because it had no jurisdiction to reinstate Mr. Lara's appeal, the court of appeals had no authority to review the propriety of his bindover to district court under the SYOA. In our view, these assertions misapprehend the scope of appellate court jurisdiction and improperly inflate the significance of remittitur as a limitation on that jurisdiction.

¶ 10 At the outset we acknowledge the fundamental logical truth that forms the conceptual foundation for the assertion that remittitur strips the appellate court of jurisdiction. Appellate courts do not enjoy unlimited power to review the actions of trial courts and administrative agencies. The scope of appellate court authority is bounded by constitutional and statutory grants of jurisdiction and by court rules that give practical procedural effect to the jurisdiction conferred by our Constitution and legislative branch. Appellate courts cannot conjure jurisdiction. Thus, when the original or appellate jurisdiction of an appellate court is properly accessed and the court completes its exercise of authority over a matter brought before it, logic would suggest that the court relinquishes its hold on jurisdiction and cannot regain it without the aid of a satisfactory legal basis to do so.

¶ 11 Many of our cases reinforce our commitment to honoring the limitations of appellate jurisdiction. Under the holdings in these cases, we have characterized as "jurisdictional" in nature attempts to access appellate courts without an adequate constitutional or statutory justification and turned them away. For example, we have designated as "jurisdictional" failures to file notices of appeal within the allotted time, see, e.g., State v. Putnik, 2002 UT 122, 63 P.3d 91; Utah Dep't of Bus. Regulation, Div. of Pub. Utils. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 602 P.2d 696 (Utah 1979), and attempts to obtain appellate review of non-final orders. See, e.g., Loffredo v. Holt, 2001 UT 97, 37 P.3d 1070; Union Pac. R.R. Co. v. Utah State Tax Comm'n, 2000 UT 40, 999 P.2d 17.

¶ 12 In these cases the term "jurisdiction" is not intended in every instance to mean that the issue before the appellate court concerned a potential trespass into jurisdictional turf outside that allotted by our Constitution or statute. For example, when we turn away an untimely filed appeal on the grounds that we do not have jurisdiction to entertain it, we are granting "jurisdictional" effect to our own rules of procedure. Utah R.App. P. 4.

¶ 13 Similarly, remittitur is a procedure created pursuant to the rule making authority vested in this court. Utah Code Ann. § 78-2-4 (1986). Rule 36 of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure is the only location in rule or statute in which remittitur is taken up. The text of this rule does not explain the purposes for remittitur; rather it focuses exclusively on the timing and conditions of its issuance. While we have never had the occasion to set out a comprehensive explanation of the purpose and scope of remittitur, our more recent cases in which remittitur plays a role suggest that insofar as remittitur has jurisdictional implications, its primary effect is to provide a clear indication that the trial court has regained jurisdiction to take action consistent with the mandate. Chase Manhattan Bank v. Principal Funding Corp., 2004 UT 9, ¶ 9, 89 P.3d 109.

¶ 14 In contrast, the State emphasizes the effect of remittitur on appellate court jurisdiction, citing language from Miller v. Southern Pacific Co., 82 Utah 307, 24 P.2d 380 (1933), that remittitur may be withdrawn only upon a "showing that the remittitur was issued through fraud or inadvertence or was issued prematurely or otherwise improperly." Id. at 381.

¶ 15 Relying on the authority of Miller, the State contends that, regardless of the existence of a jurisdictional justification and a procedure to invoke it, the court of appeals lacks jurisdiction because it issued...