Ex parte Jenkins
- Reporters:
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- Before:
- Lyons
Jenkins timely filed a postconviction petition pursuant to
The Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinion states the following facts concerning the murder of Tammy Hogeland:
“At trial, the State‘s evidence tended to show that on April 21, 1989, a truck driver discovered Tammy Hogeland‘s nude body on the side of a highway near Birmingham, Alabama. Forensic tests showed that Hogeland died as a result of manual strangulation. Hogeland was last seen on April 18, 1989, at the Tenth Avenue Omelet Shoppe restaurant in Birmingham were she was working as a waitress. Some of the jewelry Hogeland had been wearing when she was last seen was missing when her body was discovered. “At about 2:00 a.m. on April 18, 1989, a witness saw a red sports car, driven by Jenkins, enter the parking lot of the Omelet Shoppe. Sara Harris, an employee of the Omelet Shoppe, testified that she saw the victim drive off with Jenkins. Later that morning two witnesses saw Jenkins at a gasoline service station off 1-59. They said that a female was also in the car and that she appeared to be `passed out.’ These two witnesses left the service station and Jenkins also left the station and followed them on 1-59. They saw Jenkins pull off of 1-59 in an area near where Hogeland‘s body was later discovered.” Jenkins v. State, 972 So.2d at 119-20 (footnote omitted).
Jenkins‘s initial Rule 32 petition was timely filed. It raised claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and violations of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), as well as other claims that were determined to be procedurally barred. Jenkins‘s amended Rule 32 petition added a claim of juror misconduct: Jenkins alleged that a juror in his trial failed to disclose during voir dire that two of her close relatives had been brutally murdered. The juror testified at the Rule 32 hearing that her only nephew had been murdered before she qualified as a juror in Jenkins‘s trial. Jenkins states that press accounts of that crime show that both the juror‘s nephew and his wife were murdered execution-style. The trial court denied relief on the juror-misconduct claim on the ground that it could have been, but was not, raised on appeal.
The Court of Criminal Appeals noted that Jenkins‘s juror-misconduct claim was raised for the first time in the amended petition, which was filed beyond the then two-year limitations period for filing a Rule 32 petition. Relying on Charest v. State, 854 So.2d 1102 (Ala.Crim.App. 2002), the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the juror-misconduct claim presented in the amended petition would be considered timely only if it related back to a claim raised in the timely original petition; it concluded that Jenkins‘s original petition had included “no claim even remotely related to the venire members’ failure to truthfully answer questions during voir dire examination.” 972 So.2d at 121. Because the limitations period in
In Charest v. State, the Court of Criminal Appeals employed an analysis of the relation-back doctrine drawn from
“[T]he circuit court should have addressed only those claims raised in the first petition, which was timely filed on February 6, 1998, and any subsequently filed legitimate amendments to that [petition] that relate back to the original petition. See Rodopoulos v. Sam Piki Enters., Inc., 570 So.2d 661, 664 (Ala. 1990) (‘“`[W]here the amendment is
merely a more definite statement, or refinement, of a cause of action set out in the original complaint, the amendment relates back to the original complaint in accordance with [Ala.] R. Civ. P. 15(c).‘“`‘) (quoting McCollough v. Warfield, 523 So.2d 374 (Ala. 1988), and quoted with approval in Garrett v. State, 644 So.2d 977, 980 (Ala.Crim.App. 1994)).”
854 So.2d at 1104. In Garrett v. State, 644 So.2d 977 (Ala.Crim.App. 1994), the only case we have found in which the Court of Criminal Appeals applied the relation-back doctrine before it did so in Charest, the court held that a petitioner who had filed a Rule 32 petition that was not in the proper form should be allowed to amend his petition to comply with the requirements of Rule 32, and that his amended petition would relate back to the filing of the original petition and thus would not be barred by the limitations period of
Jenkins argues that
The State argues in its brief to this Court that the Court of Criminal Appeals, in analyzing Jenkins‘s juror-misconduct claim under the relation-back doctrine, “followed a long line of state and federal precedent that has analogized to the relation-back principles of Rule [15, Ala. R. Civ. P.,] in determining whether amendments to Rule 32 petitions are appropriate.” The only Alabama criminal cases the State cites, however, are Charest and Garrett. The State is correct that most federal courts apply the relation-back principles of
“[W]hile a Rule 32 proceeding for postconviction relief is considered to be civil in nature, such a proceeding is distinct from a typical civil case. Rule 32, Ala. R.Crim. P., provides a defendant a method by which to seek postconviction relief; therefore, the rights to be accorded a defendant during a Rule 32 proceeding and the procedures pursuant to which such a proceeding is conducted are based upon the rule and caselaw.”
847 So.2d at 389-90 (citation omitted).
This Court recently examined the principles applicable to the amendment of Rule 32 petitions in Ex parte Rhone, 900 So.2d 455 (Ala. 2004). In Rhone, the petitioner moved to amend his Rule 32 petition 16 days after the trial court had received the original petition. In denying the petition, the trial court addressed only the claims in the original petition. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the denial, holding that the trial court had not exceeded its discretion in failing to address the claims in the amendment to Rhone‘s petition because “Rhone failed to meet his initial burden of showing diligence in filing the amendment or that the facts underlying the amendment were unknown to him before filing his original petition.” Rhone v. State, 900 So.2d 443, 448 (Ala.Crim.App. 2004). This Court granted certiorari review to consider Rhone‘s contention that the Court of Criminal Appeals’ decision conflicted with the well-established principle stated by this Court in Ex parte Allen, 825 So.2d 271, 273 (Ala. 2002), that although “[l]eave to amend a Rule 32 petition is within the discretion of the trial court, . . . it should be freely granted.”
In considering the nature of the factors that would provide a proper basis upon which a trial court could exercise the discretion to disallow an amendment to a Rule 32 petition, this Court stated in Ex parte Rhone that “it is clear that only grounds such as actual prejudice or undue delay will support a trial court‘s refusal to allow, or to consider, an amendment to a Rule 32 petition.” 900 So.2d at 458. We concluded in Rhone that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in imposing upon a Rule 32 petitioner an “initial burden” to show diligence in filing the amendment or that the facts underlying that amendment were unknown when the original petition was filed. We stated: “Such a burden is clearly inconsistent with the mandate of this Court, as expressed in both its decisions and in Rule 32, that leave to amend should be freely granted.” 900 So.2d at 458-59.
This Court also responded in Ex parte Rhone to the Court of Criminal Appeals’ statement that the only alternative to its holding in Rhone v. State would be “`to allow a petitioner the unfettered right to amend his Rule 32 petition.‘” 900 So.2d at 459. We responded:
“That statement, however, is not correct. The right to amend is limited by the trial court‘s discretion to refuse an amendment based upon factors such as undue delay or undue prejudice to the opposing party. That limitation is, in this Court‘s opinion, sufficient to protect the rights of the parties, while allowing the trial court sufficient control over the management of its docket.”
900 So.2d at 459. The State makes a similar argument in its brief in this case. If we do not apply the doctrine of relation back to Rule 32 proceedings, the State argues, “the result would be piecemeal, unpredictable litigation and effective obliteration of the limitation period in Rule 32.2(c).” The State further argues:
“A convict could file a simple, one-claim Rule 32 petition, days after his conviction
has become final, and then repeatedly amend the petition to add entirely new claims for as long as it takes the trial court to reach final judgment.”
As we held in Ex parte Rhone, however, a petitioner does not have the unfettered right to file endless amendments to a Rule 32 petition. The right to amend is limited by the trial court‘s discretion to refuse to allow an amendment if the trial court finds that the petitioner has unduly delayed filing the amendment or that an amendment unduly prejudices the State. Such an exercise of the trial court‘s discretion would certainly be appropriate, for example, if, on the eve of an evidentiary hearing, a Rule 32 petitioner filed an amendment that included new claims of which the State had no prior notice and as to which it was not prepared to defend.
We emphasize that the concepts of “undue delay” and “undue prejudice” as discussed in this opinion and in Ex parte Rhone apply to the trial court‘s management of its docket and to the petitioner‘s attention to his or her case. Those concepts cannot be applied to restrict the petitioner‘s right to file an amendment clearly provided for in Rule 32.7 simply because it states a new claim that was not included in the original petition.
The United States Supreme Court has made it clear that neither the
The Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure permit a trial court to appoint counsel to represent an indigent petitioner in a postconviction proceeding if it “appears that counsel is necessary to assert or protect the rights of the petitioner.”
Given the direction in the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure that amendments to Rule 32 petitions are to be allowed at any time before the trial court enters a judgment,
To the extent that the following cases applied the relation-back doctrine to proceedings governed by
We reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals insofar as it held that Jenkins‘s claim of juror misconduct, presented for the first time in his amended petition, could not be considered because it did not relate back to his original petition, and we remand the cause for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals insofar as it affirmed the trial court‘s denial of the other claims presented in Jenkins‘s Rule 32 petition.
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; AND REMANDED.
NABERS, C.J., and SEE, HARWOOD, WOODALL, STUART, SMITH, BOLIN, and PARKER, JJ., concur.