Stahlman v. Mills

243 P.3d 786, 238 Or. App. 606, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 1432
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedNovember 17, 2010
DocketCV081229; A140450
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 243 P.3d 786 (Stahlman v. Mills) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stahlman v. Mills, 243 P.3d 786, 238 Or. App. 606, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 1432 (Or. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

*608 BREWER, C. J.

Petitioner appeals from a judgment dismissing his post-conviction action as untimely under ORS 138.510(3). Petitioner agues that his criminal appellate counsel provided constitutionally inadequate assistance to him by failing to object to the use of an unqualifying conviction to support the imposition of a determinate sentence on his conviction for first-degree kidnapping. Petitioner also argues that, even though he did not file this action within the two-year statutory limitation period after his kidnapping conviction became final, he is entitled to the benefit of the escape clause of ORS 138.510(3) on the ground that he could not reasonably have asserted his claim within the two-year period. We affirm.

In October 1995, petitioner was convicted of first-degree robbery. In December 1995, petitioner was convicted of the first-degree kidnapping charge that is at issue in this post-conviction relief proceeding. In sentencing petitioner on the kidnapping charge, the court relied on the robbery conviction to support the imposition of a sentence of 116 months’ imprisonment under ORS 137.635. 1 Petitioner timely appealed his conviction, and in October 1996, this court affirmed petitioner’s conviction without opinion. State v. *609 Stahlman, 144 Or App 194, 924 P2d 878 (1996). The appellate judgment was entered on December 18,1996.

On August 11, 2008, petitioner filed this action for post-conviction relief. In his petition, petitioner alleged that his criminal appellate counsel provided inadequate assistance by failing to assign error to the sentencing court’s reliance on the robbery conviction on the ground that, under this court’s decision in State v. Allison, 143 Or App 241, 923 P2d 1224, rev den, 324 Or 487 (1996), the robbery conviction was not a qualifying prior conviction because petitioner committed the kidnapping offense before he was convicted of the robbery. 2 After petitioner filed his petition, the post-conviction court issued an order requiring petitioner to show cause why the action should not be dismissed as untimely because it was filed more than two years after petitioner’s underlying convictions became final. Petitioner argued that, from his sentencing in December 1995 until December 3, 2007, he was incarcerated in federal correctional institutions outside Oregon and had no access to Oregon statutes or case law in those facilities; it follows, petitioner asserted, that he could not reasonably have brought his claims in this case until after December 3, 2007. The post-conviction court rejected petitioner’s argument and dismissed the action. This appeal followed.

ORS 138.510 provides, in part:

“(3) A petition pursuant to ORS 138.510 to 138.680 must be filed within two years of the following, unless the court on hearing a subsequent petition finds grounds for relief asserted which could not reasonably have been raised in the original or amended petition:
*
“(b) If an appeal is taken, the date the appeal is final in the Oregon appellate courts.”

According to petitioner, the post-conviction court erred in dismissing the action because, under the statutory escape clause, he could not reasonably have raised his claims under *610 Allison until after his discharge from federal custody. As petitioner sees things, because he allegedly lacked access to pertinent legal research materials relating to Oregon law while he was in federal custody outside Oregon, he was unable to ascertain that his determinate sentence was unlawful during that period.

Judicial construction of ORS 138.510(3) has emphasized that the availability of information forming the grounds for post-conviction relief is the statute’s focus. The seminal decision is Bartz v. State of Oregon, 314 Or 353, 359, 839 P2d 217 (1992). In that case, the petitioner filed a late petition for post-conviction relief, but claimed the benefit of the escape clause of ORS 138.510(3) because his lawyer had previously failed to tell him about a possible statutory defense to the charge. The Supreme Court reviewed the text and legislative history of the escape clause in some detail and from that analysis concluded that the escape clause “is meant to be construed narrowly” to apply only to “information that did not exist or was not reasonably available” to a post-conviction petitioner. Bartz, 314 Or at 359. The information about the statutory defenses to the petitioner’s charges, the court held, had always been available to him, regardless of whether the petitioner actually was aware of the information. Id. at 360. Accordingly, the court concluded, the escape clause did not apply. Id.

In contrast, in Keerins v. Schiedler, 132 Or App 560, 562-64, 889 P2d 385 (1995), we held that the escape clause did apply. In that case, the post-conviction petitioner failed to timely file a petition because his lawyer told him that it was not yet time to file the petition because the case was still pending before this court, and judgment had not yet been entered. We held that the status of an appeal was not the sort of information that was reasonably available to the petitioner. Id. at 564.

With that background, we turn to the circumstances here. In order to assert a claim under Allison, petitioner needed (1) to know that the sentencing court imposed a sentence under ORS 137.635 and (2) a copy of the statute and this court’s decision in Allison, which was issued in August 1996. With respect to the first issue, petitioner has not *611 alleged that he did not timely receive a copy of the judgment of conviction in the underlying case. That judgment stated, as required by ORS 137.635(3), that petitioner’s determinate sentence “[w]as imposed under ORS 137.635.”

With respect to the pertinent legal materials, petitioner alleged in his petition that

“[he] personally entered the law libraries at all of the facilities [he] was located at.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
243 P.3d 786, 238 Or. App. 606, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 1432, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stahlman-v-mills-orctapp-2010.