Fredrick L. Wade v. State of Florida

Supreme Court of Florida
____________
No. SC21-1094
____________
FREDRICK L. WADE,
Petitioner,
vs.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Respondent.
February 24, 2022
PER CURIAM.
Fredrick L. Wade, an inmate in state custody, petitions the
Court for a writ of mandamus compelling the First District Court of
Appeal to reinstate his appeal of a circuit court order denying him
postconviction relief. 1 The First District dismissed Wade’s appeal as
untimely, finding that the prison legal mail logs produced by Wade
were insufficient to establish he timely delivered his notice of appeal
to prison officials for mailing under the inmate filing rule in Florida
1. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(8), Fla. Const.
Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.420(a)(2). We disagree, and for the
reasons set out below, we grant Wade’s petition and direct the First
District to reinstate his appeal.
I.
Wade was convicted of second-degree murder and is currently
serving a forty-five-year prison sentence. At some point after his
conviction and sentence became final, Wade filed a pro se motion
for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure
3.850 in the circuit court. The circuit court denied Wade’s motion
on November 4, 2020, but did not file its order with the circuit court
clerk until the next day, November 5, 2020, giving Wade until
December 7, 2020, in which to appeal the circuit court’s order. 2
2. All the parties agree that Wade had until December 7,
2020, in which to file a notice of appeal. A stamp on the first page
of the order denying Wade’s postconviction motion indicates that it
was filed with the circuit court clerk on Thursday, November 5,
2020. The 30-day period for Wade to file a timely notice of appeal
thus ran from Friday, November 6, 2020, to Saturday, December 5,
2020. Fla. R. App. P. 9.141(b)(1) (appeals from postconviction
proceedings shall proceed the same as civil cases, except as
modified by rule 9.141(b)); 9.110(b) (“Jurisdiction of the court under
this rule shall be invoked by filing a notice . . . with the clerk of the
lower tribunal within 30 days of rendition of the order to be
reviewed . . . .”); 9.020(h) (“An order is rendered when a signed,
written order is filed with the clerk of the lower tribunal.”). As the
last day of the 30-day period fell on a Saturday, Wade had until
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Wade indicates that he delivered his notice of appeal to prison
officials for mailing on December 7, 2020, and the notice was
stamped and docketed by the circuit court clerk as received
December 11, 2020.
After reviewing the notice, the First District ordered Wade to
show cause why his appeal should not be dismissed as untimely,
given that his notice of appeal was presumptively filed under rule
9.420(a)(2) on December 11, 2020, the date it was stamped and
docketed as received by the circuit court clerk. Wade filed a
response to the show cause order, and later filed an amended
response with a copy of the prison’s legal mail log indicating that he
timely delivered his notice of appeal to prison officials for mailing
under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A) on December 7, 2020. The First District
dismissed Wade’s appeal as untimely on April 12, 2021, and denied
his subsequent request for rehearing.
Monday, December 7, 2020, in which to file a notice of appeal. Fla.
R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.514(a)(1)(C) (“[I]f the last day is a
Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday . . . the period continues to run
until the end of the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or
legal holiday . . . .”).
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Wade then filed for relief in this Court, requesting that we
issue a writ of mandamus compelling the First District to reinstate
his appeal. He argues the prison’s legal mail logs clearly establish
he timely filed his notice of appeal under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A) on
December 7, 2020, when he delivered it to prison officials for
mailing. We ordered the First District and the State to respond to
Wade’s petition. Both filed responses maintaining that the First
District’s dismissal of the appeal was entirely proper, and that rule
9.420(a)(2) does not contemplate the use of prison mail logs to
establish the timely filing of a document under the rule.
II.
A petition for writ of mandamus is the proper vehicle to correct
a district court’s determination that it lacks jurisdiction. See Griffin
v. Sistuenck, 816 So. 2d 600, 601 (Fla. 2002); Sky Lake Gardens
Rec., Inc. v. Dist. Ct. of Appeal, Third Dist., 511 So. 2d 293, 294 (Fla.
1987) (“The district court’s dismissal of petitioner’s appeal as
untimely filed was a determination of lack of jurisdiction.”). Our
issuance of the writ is conditioned on a petitioner establishing a
clear legal right to the requested relief, the existence of an
indisputable legal duty to perform the requested act, and the
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absence of another adequate remedy. Huffman v. State, 813 So. 2d
10, 11 (Fla. 2000).
The Inmate Filing Rule
We begin our analysis of this case with the text of the inmate
filing rule itself, which is contained in rule 9.420(a)(2). The rule
provides the following:
(2) Inmate Filing. The filing date of a document filed
by a pro se inmate confined in an institution shall be
presumed to be the date it is stamped for filing by the
clerk of the court, except as follows:
(A) the document shall be presumed to be filed on
the date the inmate places it in the hands of an
institutional official for mailing if the institution has a
system designed for legal mail, the inmate uses that
system, and the institution’s system records that date;
or
(B) the document shall be presumed to be filed on
the date reflected on a certificate of service contained
in the document if the certificate is in substantially the
form prescribed by subdivision (d)(1) of this rule and
either:
(i) the institution does not have a system
designed for legal mail; or
(ii) the inmate used the institution’s system
designed for legal mail, if any, but the institution’s
system does not provide for a way to record the date
the inmate places the document in the hands of an
institutional official for mailing.
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Fla. R. App. P. 9.420(a)(2).
From our review of the notice of appeal Wade filed with the
circuit court clerk, it is clear the notice lacks any indicia of when it
was turned over to prison officials for mailing. The notice does not
contain a prison date stamp indicating when it was placed in the
hands of prison officials for mailing, and no dates are set out in the
notice’s certificate of service. The First District thus correctly
presumed at the outset under rule 9.420(a)(2) that Wade’s notice of
appeal was filed on December 11, 2020, the date it was stamped by
the circuit court clerk, and it properly directed Wade to show cause
why his appeal should not be dismissed as untimely.
However, from our review of the prison mail log Wade provided
to the First District in response to the show cause order, we are
convinced that Wade sufficiently established that his notice of
appeal was timely filed under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A). The prison mail
log is dated December 7, 2020, and is labeled “Outgoing Legal
Mail.” The log indicates that Wade turned over to prison officials a
piece of mail addressed to the circuit court clerk and Attorney
General’s Office. The log does not specifically identify what was
mailed, but given the circuit court clerk’s receipt of Wade’s notice of
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appeal a few days later, and the fact that it was stamped and
docketed as received on December 11, 2020, we believe it is
reasonable to conclude that the piece of mail identified in the prison
mail log is Wade’s notice of appeal.
The First District and the State argue in their respective
responses that prison mail logs are insufficient to establish
timeliness under rule 9.420(a)(2) and suggest that only a prison
date stamp in conformity with Florida Department of Corrections’
rule 33-210.102(8), Fla. Admin. Code—which sets out the
procedures for the processing of inmate legal mail—will suffice.
Neither response cites any case law in support of this assertion,
and the text of the rule itself takes no position on what form an
institutional mail system must take. 3 Indeed, under the plain
language of rule 9.420(a)(2)(A), an inmate is entitled to the benefit of
the rule if he or she uses an institution’s system for legal mail, and
the system records the date the inmate placed his or her filing into
3. The only reference to a specific institutional mail system in
rule 9.420 is contained in the Committee Notes, which reference
rule 33-210.102(8) as an example of one type of institutional mail
system. But, just like the rule itself, the Committee Notes take no
position on what form an institutional mail system must take.
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the hands of prison officials for mailing. As evidenced by the prison
mail log, Wade did exactly what the rule requires. He utilized the
institution’s system for legal mail to send his notice of appeal, and
that system recorded the date he delivered the notice to prison
officials for mailing.
The Shifting of Burdens
This case is similar to Thompson v. State, 761 So. 2d 324 (Fla.
2000). There, an inmate housed at a correctional institution that
did not maintain mail logs was unable to establish when he turned
his notice to invoke over to prison officials for mailing. In light of
the inconsistent legal mail practices maintained by many
correctional institutions at the time, we held that a document would
be deemed filed by an inmate on the date in the certificate of service
indicating when it was delivered to prison officials for mailing, and
that the burden would then shift to the State to prove the document
was not timely placed in the hands of prison officials for mailing.
Id. at 326.
Here, as in Thompson, the institution’s apparent use of legal
mail logs rather than prison date stamps as required by rule 33-
210.102(8), along with the First District’s refusal to accept such
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logs, has left Wade without any way to establish the timeliness of
his notice of appeal. Wade has no control over what legal mail
system the correctional institution at which he is housed uses, nor
does he have the ability to require prison officials to comply with
rule 33-210.102(8). Thus, as in Thompson, when Wade produced
the prison mail log in response to the First District’s show cause
order indicating he timely submitted his notice of appeal to prison
officials for mailing under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A), the burden shifted to
the State to demonstrate that the notice was either not timely
delivered to prison officials for mailing, or that Wade is otherwise
not entitled to the benefit of rule 9.420(a)(2)(A).
The First District and the State make the latter argument in
their respective responses in this case. They point to the prison
date stamp on Wade’s postconviction motion as evidence that a
system for legal mail employing date stamps existed at the
institution where Wade is housed, and that Wade failed to use that
system to send his notice of appeal. But the fact that Wade’s
postconviction motion contains a prison date stamp is irrelevant, as
such is only indicative of what the institution’s system for legal mail
was on April 2, 2020, not what that system was months later on the
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date Wade delivered his notice of appeal to prison officials for
mailing. The institution, for any number of reasons—e.g., a
damaged or misplaced date stamp, change in security or COVID-19
protocols, or change in staffing—may not have employed the same
system on the date Wade mailed his notice of appeal that was in
place months earlier when he mailed his postconviction motion.
The same is true with respect to rule 33-210.102(8). The rule,
while resulting in greater consistency in handling of legal mail
across correctional institutions, is by no means dispositive of what
legal mail system was in place at the institution where Wade is
housed on the date he mailed his notice of appeal. See Waters v.
Dep’t. of Corr., 144 So. 3d 613, 617 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) (“[I]t is not
the existence of the rule or mechanism that rebuts the presumption
that the document was placed in the mail on the date the inmate
asserts, but the institutional stamp itself which the Department has
taken steps to ensure is always in place.”).
Ultimately, neither the State nor the First District directs our
attention to any facts or evidence in the record that would even
suggest a legal mail system other than that utilized by Wade was in
place at the institution at which he is housed on the date he mailed
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his notice of appeal. Also, and perhaps more significantly, neither
response questions the accuracy or disputes the validity of the
prison mail logs produced by Wade. Thus, based on the record
before us, we must conclude that Wade timely filed his notice of
appeal under rule 9.420(a)(2)(A) on December 7, 2020, and that he
possesses a clear legal right to the reinstatement of his appeal.
A Belated Appeal as an Adequate Alternate Remedy
The First District also suggests that Wade has an adequate
alternate remedy in the form of a petition for belated appeal under
rule 9.141(c). But that rule, by definition, governs untimely
appeals. Given our conclusion that Wade timely filed his notice of
appeal, rule 9.141(c) has no application here.
III.
We adopted the inmate filing rule in an effort to promote
simplicity and fairness in how pro se inmates access the courts, as
such persons are “unable to do anything but trust the prison
officials and court clerks to process [their filings] in a timely
manner.” Haag v. State, 591 So. 2d 614, 617 (Fla. 1992). We also
sought to avoid the “arbitrariness that could undermine equal
protection and equal access to the courts.” Id. These principles
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remain at the root of the inmate filing rule, and we ask that all
courts apply the rule with these principles in mind.
In this case, the First District erred in not accepting Wade’s
notice of appeal as timely filed without a prison date stamp because
the prison mail log produced by Wade indicated the notice was
timely turned over to prison officials for mailing under rule
9.420(a)(2)(A). Wade did all that the text of the inmate filing rule
requires.
We therefore grant Wade’s petition and direct the First District
Court of Appeal to reinstate Wade’s appeal in Frederick L. Wade v.
State of Florida, Case No. 1D21-598. Because we are confident the
district court will act in a manner consistent with this opinion, we
withhold issuance of the writ.
It is so ordered.
CANADY, C.J., and POLSTON, LABARGA, LAWSON, MUÑIZ,
COURIEL, and GROSSHANS, JJ., concur.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION
AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED.
Original Proceeding – Mandamus
Susanne K. Sichta and Rick A. Sichta of Sichta Law, LLC,
Jacksonville, Florida,
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for Petitioner
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Julian Markham, Assistant
Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida,
for Respondent
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