In 2003, prisoner Artis Whitehead tried to rob BB King's Blues Club
on Beale Street in downtown Memphis. He was convicted of a variety of
offenses surrounding the incident. The TN appellate courts affirmed his
convictions, and the US Supreme Court declined to hear his case. Up to
that point, he had an attorney.
Afterwards and without a lawyer, Mr. Whitehead filed a petition for post-conviction
relief in the trial court. That court dismissed the petition because it
was filed late. The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case for a
hearing, but the trial court again declined to excuse Mr. Whitehead's
late filing. This time on appeal, the TN Supreme Court issued a divided opinion.
Both the majority and dissent analyzed this case under
Holland v. Florida, 130 S. Ct. 2549 (2010) and
Maples v. Thomas, 132 S. Ct. 912 (2012), two US Supreme Court cases holding, essentially,
that a prisoner's late filing should be excused if 1) he was diligently
pursing his rights and some extraordinary circumstance prevented him from
filing his petition on time and 2) the prisoner’s attorney abandoned
the prisoner or acted against the prisoner’s interests.
J. Koch, writing for the majority, held that Mr. Whitehead's attorney
effectively abandoned him, which created an exceptional circumstance that
prevented him from filing his petition on time. Specifically, Mr. Whitehead's
lawyer delayed in informing him that the US Supreme Court had declined
to hear his case and in forwarding his case files and also gave Mr. Whitehead
an incorrect filing deadline.
J. Holder authored a dissent in which she distinguished these facts from
Holland and
Maples:
"The petitioners in
Holland and
Maples were not only the victims of attorney mistakes and communication failures,
but each petitioner also erroneously believed his attorney was pursuing
his legal matter on his behalf." In J. Holder's view, the evidence
did not preponderate against the trial court's finding that "Mr.
Whitehead never operated under the misconception that the pursuit of post-conviction
relief was not his responsibility or that his former appellate attorney
was pursuing his post-conviction claim."
Read J. Koch's
majority opinion and J. Holder's
dissent.