Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-10796 Trial Court No. 3UN-09-042 Civ No. 5807
02-22-2012
JUAN FERNANDO NAVARRO, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Glenda Kerry, Girdwood, for the Appellant. Mary A. Gilson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and John J. Burns, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Unalaska, Steve W. Cole, Judge.
Appearances: Glenda Kerry, Girdwood, for the Appellant. Mary A. Gilson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and John J. Burns, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Bolger, Judges.
MANNHEIMER, Judge.
On June 24, 2009, Juan Fernando Navarro petitioned the superior court to grant him post-conviction relief from a criminal judgement that was entered on May 22, 2007.
In May 2007, at the time the underlying criminal judgement was entered against Navarro, AS 12.72.020(a)(3)(A) provided that petitions for post-conviction relief had to be filed within two years after the entry of the challenged judgement. But during the 2008 legislative session, the legislature shortened this limitation period to eighteen months.
In Navarro's case, the superior court ruled that Navarro's petition for post-conviction relief was governed by this new, shorter limitation period, and that Navarro's petition was therefore time-barred. Navarro appeals, arguing that his petition should be governed by the two-year limitation period that was in effect when his judgement of conviction was entered.
This issue is moot. As we explained above, Navarro's criminal judgement was entered on May 22, 2007, and Navarro did not file his petition for post-conviction relief until June 24, 2009. That is, Navarro filed his petition two years and one month after the judgement was entered against him. Thus, even if the two-year limitation period applied to Navarro's case, his petition was still time-barred.
Navarro suggests that the question of which limitation period applies to his case might still be important because, if the superior court had thought that Navarro's case was governed by the two-year limitation period, the superior court might have been more willing to relax the limitation period and allow Navarro's petition for post-conviction relief to go forward.
But the superior court had no authority to relax the limitation period simply because Navarro narrowly missed the cut-off date. The superior court would have been authorized to relax the limitation period only if Navarro proved that his case fell within one of the exceptions codified in AS 12.72.020(b). Navarro does not assert that his case falls within any of these exceptions — or that, for some other reason, it would be fundamentally unfair to apply the limitation period to him.
For these reasons, the claim that Navarro raises on appeal is moot, and this appeal is DISMISSED.
See SLA 2008, ch. 75, §§ 26-28.