-: SJC 12980
R H. Mandeville v. Erin Gaffney.
-: Hi, good morning.
-: Good morning,
-: Mr. Curhan.
-: Yes May I please the Court,
Dana Curhan for RH Mandeville.
We contend that the
that this court should apply the 30 day time limit reference
in Maine Mains to all pending cases
but we contend that this court should do so
after a sunset provision, after 30 days.
So in other words, 30 days
after this court decision comes out
any pending gatekeeper petition should be filed.
-: That's what Justice that's what Justice Spina said
in Nassau a few years ago though.
Right?
-: Well, I think, I think Nassau was sort of
a different situation.
Nassau was a case where it was sort of Mains was
referenced indirectly, but he had filed a motion
for new trial.
He'd filed a gatekeeper petition.
He then sat on it for 25 years after it was dismissed
for lack of prosecution and tried to resurrect it.
-: But I, I think w when, when you read
Elise as a single justice what Justice Spina
wrote was as he interpreted Mains
was that once Mains came out
there was this 30 day period to call in all markets.
So to speak of all standard motions.
And then after that, there was a procedural default
but you're asking us to do that now.
In this case too.
-: I don't, I don't think that's a fair interpretation
of what Maine said.
Maine said here and after now we have two federal judges.
Who've looked at this and said, you know
we think we have a problem.
We think there's no timeline.
There may be no time limit as to these pending cases.
And it is, it is crucial
in a habeas case where you have a statute of limitations.
-: No, I, I understand your argument.
I'm, I'm, I'm trying to get at Mr.
Curhan, which is the second part of
what you asked us to do was
that you want us to announce that what we really need
at this time it's 30 days after this case.
-: Well, yeah, I I th I think probably
when Justice Abrams wrote Mains
she probably assumed, and this court assumed
that there weren't many pending cases where
there've been a decision on a motion for new trial.
And, but, but she didn't address it.
What, what the, what the decision said is here
and after you have 30 days.
So if you file a motion for new trial
after Mains was decided
then you have 30 days to do a gatekeeper.
It does not speak to
whether that applies to motions that were
that were already pending, and that were still open.
You know, if you take a look at the
the closest analogy is that the habeas statute
originally there was no statute of limitations.
When the court enacted the statute of limitations
they said, ah, but for cases that are already pending
there's a one-year sense, sunset provision.
So you have a year to bring
in all these other cases, you don't have that here.
And that, and that I think is the problem.
And when you have a lot of these habeas petitions had done
by pro se litigants, when you
when they take a look at Mains and they say here
and after
that seems to mean
anything filed after.
So for example,
Mr. Mandeville filed
10 motions for new trial about half of them before
Mains and about half of them after,
of course, anything filed
after Mains would be subject to that 30 day provision.
But the earlier ones, you know, a litigant
a pro se litigant in this case
a couple of federal judges looked at it and said
we think they're still open.
-: So there's no limitation.
It could be 25 years later.
Yeah, I assume, I guess it depends
on one's a vitality, but
Curhan: right.
-: So there is no limitation pre-made
-: So there there's no limitation pre Mains.
Th the, the statute itself, the gatekeeper statute
has no time limits.
Main said, you know what?
From, from now on here, and after it will be 30 days.
So, but it doesn't say anything about anything before that.
And that
-: The court Nassau said that Mains was prospective
The one perspective,
-: and that's what Main said.
So that's, that's really our, our position and it's, and
you know, I have no objection to saying, okay
let's kill all of these prior habea
these prior motions for new trial and require gatekeepers
but within 30 days, within 30 days
but starting from the date of the, of this decision.
So that's really, that's really my position.
There's no, there is no analogous case law in Massachusetts.
There's nothing that really answers the question.
I think this is just an open question
that this court needs to answer.
-: If it's an open question, if it's an
option question and we're looking
at the reasoning of Mains, why wouldn't we
answer the question?
No?
-: Well, I think, I think we answered question.
We can answer that question.
Yes. The 30 day limit applies, but we've never
said that it applies to anything before, before
Mains.
So these pre Mains
-: But then we could go on couldn't we then go on to say
here's why it actually does apply
to cases that were open before Mains here's why it does.
We're going to look at the reasoning of Mains and
and say that it doesn't make sense to
to have left those other cases open.
-: Well, you could, but, but the thing is it
that the decision itself, if you read the decision itself
the plain language of the case says that post 2000
post Mains any motions for new trial have 30 days
but it doesn't say anything about those pre Mains cases.
So there's no notice provided.
And that's really the problem.
And w you know, when you have, again, in this case
you have a pro se litigant, but even if you don't
have a pro se litigant, if I, if I were, if I were
handling this case and Mains came down, I would probably say
to most clients, I, I don't see that it applies
but just to be safe, let's get rid of all
of these pending gatekeepers.
But for a pro se looking
at this, he doesn't really, he may not understand that.
And, you know, again, you had some very, very
sharp federal judges who said, yeah
this, this doesn't seem to apply pre Mains
-: Well did Judge O'Toole say that?
I thought he just certified a question.
-: He certified a question, but he didn't know the answer.
-: And that's what we're here to do, answer it
-: Right. Right. And, and, you know,
-: Is this an all or,
Council is this an all or nothing proposition?
Like, let's just say, we agree with you
that Maine's was unclear at the least
wasn't there a pre Mains reasonableness
standard,
or is your position that there was just an unlimited
time limit unlimited time?
-: I think there was an unlimited time, time limit.
You know, there are, there are a couple
of things where this court one or two things
the only thing I can think of is a motion to revise
and revoke where this court said, well
it's gotta be within brought within a reasonable time
but there's sort of a, that's sort of a unique
situation where revise and revoke applies
where to, you know, you have to look at whether
there were factors at the time of sentencing.
So obviously, you know
if you wait 20 years for, to bring a revise and
revoke the sentencing charges is not likely to be around
nobody's likely to know what the factors are
that might have been missed at the time of sentencing.
But in this, any single justice can look at this and say
is this a new and substantial issue?
Now,
it's not clear.
There were 10 motions for new trial filed
between 1982 and 2017.
Depending on how you look at it
anywhere from five to 10 of them, possibly all 10
of them were addressing gatekeeper petitions.
Justice Cypher handled the 2017 gatekeeper.
And there's no reference to exactly what was know there was
there's no new one substantial issue, but when you look
at the gatekeeper petition itself, there are references
to some of the earlier motions for new trial.
So I think I, I'm not sure
but I think the Commonwealth's position might be
that all 10 of them have been,
have already been decided, you know
were decided in 2017, that's not critical
for this analysis because if the 30 day limit applies
then the 2017,
you know,
a gatekeeper that would
a lot of those wouldn't have been timely.
But, and, and if it's
if it's only five of them that were addressed, then Mr.
Mandeville should have 30 days to go back
and file a gatekeeper as
to the ones that haven't been filed.
Unless there are any further questions
I will submit
-: What do you make of the last sentence
of Nassau in the footnote two?
What, what do you understand the last sentence
of footnote two to say
-: I, I don't have it.
-: I can read it to you
"Manifestly master did not file the instant gatekeeper
petition within a reasonable time".
So I guess, w what, w what does that mean to you?
-: I think what,
-: if it goes back
to Justice Wendlant's question, was there another
is there another standard in play or not?
-: Well, I don't think that was absolutely clear
because again Nassau had sorta unique circumstances
where it was filed and it was dismissed
for lack of a lack of prosecution.
And then 25 years later, the defendant filed
another gatekeeper referencing the earlier one.
So I think the fact
that the earlier gatekeeper had been filed and not pursued
I think that may have been at play in Nassau.
That's, that's how I would distinguish Nassau.
-: Any other questions?
Okay. Thank you so much
Mr. Curhan, thank you,
Mr. Ravitz
-: Thank you. Randall Ravitz for the respondent.
This court should inform the federal district court
that gatekeeper petitions challenging pre Mains decisions
denying new trial motions were in fact required to be filed
within 30 days of Maine's issuance.
The Mains court must have intended to impose such
a requirement.
It's not reasonable to conclude that the court instead
meant to afford an unlimited time for challenging prior
denials at the same time that a prescribed a strict 30
day rule now running gate keeper petitions generally
and this is clear for several reasons.
First, the Main's court emphasized finality and consistency
in its announcement of the rule, and it discussed
the importance of finality elsewhere in its opinion.
It also sighted,
-: Well, as you well know, rule 30 has no time limit
and 33E has no time limit, correct?
-: True, but when it,
but there is the 33 East system builds
in a restriction on the ability to obtain gatekeeper review
by to obtain review by the full court of the denial of
of a rule 30 motion.
And, and of course the main court clearly adopted a 30
day rule at the, at the very least for petitions
generally. And so
-: That's post Mains.
So, I mean, the position you take is the position
that Justice Spina took in
in his single justice decision in Nassau, correct.
-: That's right.
-: Basically, basically
we're going to call it hallmark, as you got 30 days
but then the Nassau decision doesn't do that.
It essentially, it kind of hedges to be
to be blunt about it, but it says it was prospective.
So we have the court using language
of hear and after and its prospective.
And then we have the court kind of doing both things
at the same time in Nassau.
So what do you make of the language
of the prospective and the hearing half the language?
-: Well, we would say what the court meant there
is that someone who had a pre Maine's denial
would not be told at the moment, that means is issued.
You're already foreclosed.
That's what it meant by here and after and prospective.
But it meant that the period would not be found to
have commenced before Mains.
So it's as though the period had been told up
until that point.
And if, if in fact what the court meant was that someone
in Mr Mandeville's position would have an unlimited amount
of time, then you should be able to plug that
into the sentence
in Mains where it announced its decision and have it work.
But instead, what you would see is
that then the court would be saying in the interest
of consistency and finality, we are going to, to
give a 30 day period of time for people after the decision.
But we're going to give an unlimited amount of time
to another group of people.
How could that be in the interest of right.
-: That's what I was going to ask you.
So we have them saying that in the it's the finality
we discussed that, but the consistency factor
the court relied on and Mains is treating each defendant
the same, correct?
That's the consistency?
-: Right?
-: Not giving some defendants, a 30 day limit
and other defendants, no limits.
-: Right. That's right.
And so if, if one were to try and plug
in this unlimited time rule, or the, these two
separate rules into Mains, it's simply wouldn't work.
And of course right after the Mains court
announced its rule
-: Council, will you concede that Mains is at
the least unclear.
-: We, we would say that it's, that it's not
it's not unclear when, when viewing everything in context.
So that in other words, the, the, the
the term here and after meant that people would not be told
that they're foreclosed on the day, that Mains is issued
but that the period won't be found to have commenced
before Mains, and it's
-: And so I guess maybe,
but then in Nassau, in 2009
the court is saying, albeit prospectively in reference
-: Right? And, and that that's, we view that the same way
we view here and after in that,
what the court was saying was
that people were not foreclosed on the day of Mains
but that doesn't mean
that they would be given an unlimited amount of
time.
-: Do you I think that is
Clear from both of those opinions, then
-: It is, it is looking at everything in context.
So for example, where the, where the Mains court said
in the interest of consistency, finality, and then
they cited a case where it says "there must be
a reasonable moment for a judgment to become final
and a time beyond which further challenges must be barred."
And it discussed finality elsewhere in its opinion.
And it took a particularly hard line approach
and rejected proposals offered by both Mains
and the Commonwealth that would have been a more
lenient looking at everything together
and combined with the, the general principle of diligence
that is found in various areas of the criminal
-: Council, if your position is correct that
it's crystal clear from Mains
that it meant to apply in, in the way you're suggesting.
Why would the court
and Nassau then referenced the 25 year delay
in filing the motion, the gatekeeper
on the motion for the new trial?
I mean, why wouldn't the court have just said
"this is you get, you had 30 days
after Mains and you're out of time."
Instead of, instead, the court seems to say
in that footnote, you're 25 years late.
It's not reasonable.
And we know it's not reasonable
because in Mains we said 30 days.
So you've known for a while
that 30 days is our benchmark for reasonableness.
And here you're 25 years late, late manifestly.
It's unreasonable.
Why wouldn't the court have just said
if in fact your position was correct
why wouldn't the court just say, "Hey
you had 30 days after Mains?"
-: Well, as we read the footnote
the court was giving several reasons for its conclusion
in the first thing it said is that Nassau is
in no position to argue that the single justice air here
and the single justice there had issued a decision.
That read Mains just the way that we do.
So that was the first thing it said.
And then it added all of these other reasons that it had
it had been so long after the denial
of the motion for new trial solely long after
Mains
-: But court in Nassau could have said
"Justice Spina was right
as a procedural default it's over."
-: That's right.
But it also looked like the court was hesitant to
to rule on whether a procedural decision
by a single justice could be reviewed by the full court.
It left open that possibility, but it, it, the
the court made clear that it did not want to
expressly issue a holding about the procedural ruling.
So that would be another reason why the court was, did not
did not approach the issue exactly the way that
that you just said.
But what, but if, if there was in fact
an unlimited time rule then,
much of what's stated in that footnote
wouldn't make much sense.
There would be no basis for saying
that he didn't file the gatekeeper petition
within a reasonable time.
If there, if, if he had an unlimited amount of time
then it couldn't be unreasonable.
-: I bring you back to the question I asked your brother,
is is this an all or nothing proposition?
That is pre Mains was there a reasonableness
glossed to the time for which you could
bring the gatekeeper
-: There?
We, we don't know of any such rule.
There was the,
the rule
of appellate procedure saying that a notice
of appeal should be filed within 30 days, but of course
a gatekeeper petition isn't the same as a notice of appeal.
And the court in Mains recognized
that section 33 itself
does not include
a deadline
for filing a gatekeeper petition, however
-: Can I pile up on Justice Wendlant's point
post post Mains. Is there a reasonableness role
and does Nassau incorporate that reasonableness rule?
I mean, Mains could have been a lot clearer, but
if you're bringing something 25 years after Mains, you're
out of luck because it's because the logic of Maine's myth
you know, get your filings in, I guess, is taking justice.
Wendlant's sort of rule.
Meaning there, there was a reasonable risk rule
after Mains and that's reflected in what Nassau decided.
Does that make sense?
-: I think it
-: has a very quality to it
but I'm just trying to make some sense out of it.
-: Well, I think that what the Nassau court was saying was
that at the very least, there's a reasonableness rule
because it, it wouldn't make sense for it to make reference
to that concept if, if it wasn't.
But, but then the court also
suggested that it did not
see error in Justice Spina's
reading of Mains, but
at the same time, it did not go so far as to issue a holding
in that regard, which would have opened up the question of
whether the court,
the full court should properly proper
properly be reviewing procedural decisions issued
by single justices
-: Counsel. If there is a post Mains reasonableness rule
akin to what's in the footnote and Nassau.
When does the statute of limitations for E.D.P.A start?
-: Well,
it would, there would need to be
I would say some decision from a state court
about whether a filing was reasonable
in order for the
the federal court to know whether in fact
-: In this very case,
how would the
District of
Massachusetts know if we said there is a
reasonableness rule, post Mains,
how would the district of Massachusetts know
whether or not the EPO is right?
or the statute of limitations had run?
-: Well, the, the, there, there should be a decision from
from a state court as to whether a petition was, was timely
or not, whether it satisfied the reasonableness rule or not.
However, I will say this, that Mr.
Mains filed his 2017
gatekeeper petition
which challenged the first two motions for new trial, more
than seven years after Nassau.
And the Nassau court said that
Nassau was unreasonable
because, because it was more, more than seven years
after Mains.
I'm sorry, did I,
-: Does that answer Justice Wendlant's question
which is that, it's, it might've been a difficult question
about the time Nassau's decided, but we're now
12 years later.
So all of these things are past statute of limitations
At this point.
So it may have been a hard question before Nassau
but it's not any more because anything now is too late.
-: We'd say at the, at the very least that's the case.
But,
-: I suggested
that perhaps when Justice Abrams wrote down footnote
in Main,
that she didn't contemplate
that there would be cases that would fall within this gap.
Let's say that th th that that's accurate.
Why isn't he right?
That, that the
average
pro se litigants really
on no notice post Mains to expect, Oh, well
this decision came out from the SJC.
Let me get going.
I've got 30 days to file my gatekeeper petition.
-: Well, a couple of things, one, I don't know how
Justice Abrams could not have contemplated it
because we're, if, if somebody had received a denial
of a new trial motion the day before Mains
they would be in this category that we're talking about.
So there, there really had to be people
in this group at the time, that Mains was issued.
Also the Mains decision itself spent close
to two pages in the context of, of waiver talking
about the importance of not relieving pro se litigants
from the same rules applied to others.
And in fact, one of the things they said
about Mains himself was that he had shown
that he can litigate, that he knew how to bring a motion
for new trial and a gatekeeper petition.
And so it's no excuse
for him not to be subject to the waiver rule.
So it would be hard to then read Mains to say
that somehow there, there, there was an implicit exception
for pro se litigants or at the very least that
that the Mains court did not contemplate
and did not take a strict position
with respect to the pro se litigants.
But also beyond that, we're talking
about people who had already brought a challenge
to their conviction and that, and
that challenge had already been fleshed
out through a motion for a new trial.
And so this is somebody who has an incentive to, to continue
on with their challenge and somebody who's already fleshed
out the arguments in support of their challenge.
And on top of that
as I said before, there's, there's a concept of
of diligence and promptness that runs throughout the law.
We see that in deadlines and statute of limitations
even in the rule 30 context where the rule
says "the motion could be brought at any time."
There's also case law saying that if it's brought
to long after the conviction, that could be taken
into account as a reason to deny the motion for new trial.
So even the most lenient rule that there is timing wise
there's still a concept of diligence and promptness.
And so even the pro se litigant should be aware
of that and to take that into account.
-: Does anyone have any further questions?
Okay. Thank you very much, counsel.
-: Thank you.