Casey Carter v. State of Mississippi, 203 So. 3d 730

Casey Carter was indicted for forcible rape (habitual offender) in 2003, pled guilty on Feb. 2, 2006, and was sentenced to 49 years on Feb. 7, 2006.
Carter filed a petition to vacate his conviction on July 1, 2015, which the circuit court treated as a postconviction-relief (PCR) petition and dismissed on Sept. 4, 2015.
The circuit court noted this was Carter’s sixth PCR petition; prior petitions had been denied or dismissed and not appealed.
Carter did not assert any statutory exceptions to the PCR timeliness bar, nor claim any of the recognized fundamental-rights exceptions.
The State defended dismissal under Mississippi’s PCR time bar and the successive-writ bar.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Carter's PCR is timely under Miss. Code §99-39-5(2)	Carter sought relief in 2015; implied argument that petition should be considered	State: conviction entered 2006; petition filed 2015 — beyond 3-year limit with no statutory exception	Denied — petition is time-barred (filed nine years after judgment)
Whether the petition is barred as a successive writ under §99-39-23(6)	Carter did not dispute prior dismissals/denials or appeal them	State: prior PCR denial is final and bars successive petitions absent exception	Denied — successive-writ bar applies; this is the sixth petition and prior denials were final
Whether any exception (statutory or fundamental-rights) permits relief	Carter did not allege intervening law, newly discovered evidence, DNA issues, illegal sentence, double jeopardy, ex post facto, or due-process sentencing error	State: no allegation or proof of any exception that would overcome procedural bars	Denied — no applicable statutory or fundamental-rights exception shown

Crosby v. State, 16 So. 3d 74 (Miss. Ct. App. 2009) (standard of review for PCR dismissals)
Salter v. State, 184 So. 3d 944 (Miss. Ct. App. 2015) (identifies limited fundamental-rights exceptions that survive procedural bars)