Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times has, "Justices, 5-4, Accept No Excuses From Inmate in Mistaken Late Filing of Appeal."
A narrow Supreme Court majority on Thursday agreed that a lower court properly dismissed the appeal of a man who missed a federal filing deadline by three days because of a federal district judge’s erroneous instructions.
The defendant, Keith Bowles, who is serving a sentence of 15 years to life for murder, had argued that given the judge’s erroneous instruction — that he had 18 days to file an appeal instead of the 14 that federal law allows — his case should come within the “unique circumstances” doctrine that the Supreme Court created to recognize unusual instances when jurisdictional rules need not be strictly enforced.
The court, however, used the case to announce it was overruling the two precedents the Supreme Court had used when it established the “unique circumstances” doctrine in the 1960s. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said the court now regarded the doctrine as illegitimate. “If rigorous rules like the one applied today are thought to be inequitable,” Justice Thomas added, the remedy should come from Congress.
Justice David H. Souter, writing for the four dissenters in the case, Bowles v. Russell, No. 06-5306, objected that “it is intolerable for the judicial system to treat people this way.” He added, “There is not even a technical justification for condoning this bait and switch.”
One of today's three rulings issued by the Court dealt with the issue of deadlines in habeas petitions, though it is not a death penalty case. The syllabus in Bowles v. Russell (06-5306) is here, via SCOTUS Blog. The opinion will be posted here. Lyle Denniston has this report:
In a second decision authored by Justice Thomas, the Court split 5-4 in deciding that federal appeals courts do not have the authority to consider an appeal that was filed after the time for filing a notice of appeal had expired, even if a District Court has allowed the appeal to be filed outside those limits. Time limits for filing a notice of appeal, the Court said, have long been held to be jurisdictional in nature, so the Court cannot create an equitable exception. The ruling came in Bowles v. Russell (06-5306). In the course of its opinion, the Court overruled two of its precedents that had embraced an exception to avoid hardship in relying upon orders of a judge -- Harris Truck Lines v. Cherry Meat Packers (1962) and Thompson v. INS (1964). In Thursday's decision, the dissenters protested vigorously that the Court had simply ignored a recent trend in the Court's rulings away from treating time limits for filing as jurisdictional in nature.
AP has this filing.
The Supreme Court dismissed a convicted murderer's appeal Thursday because he filed it two days late, even though he met a separate deadline set by a judge.
The judge mistakenly told the prisoner, Keith Bowles, that he could file court papers by February 27, 2004. Under federal rules, however, the deadline was February 24. Bowles filed on February 26.
The high court typically adheres strictly to deadlines and this case was no exception.
The 5-4 decision, the 16th this term, fell along conservative-liberal lines and also provoked a strong dissent from Justice David Souter.
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