Opinion
No. CR12-1033
03-14-2013
CORNELIOUS PAIGE PETITIONER v. HON. DAVID L. REYNOLDS, CIRCUIT JUDGE RESPONDENT
Cornelious Paige, pro se petitioner. No response.
PRO SE PETITION FOR WRIT OF
MANDAMUS [FAULKNER COUNTY
CIRCUIT COURT, CR 07-515]
PETITION MOOT.
PER CURIAM
Petitioner Cornelious Paige filed a pro se petition for writ of mandamus in this court, alleging that Circuit Judge David L. Reynolds had failed to act in a timely manner on a petition for postconviction relief under Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 37.1 (2012) that petitioner had filed on August 6, 2009. Judge Reynolds filed a response to the petition for writ of mandamus and attached a copy of an order filed on December 11, 2012, that disposed of the petition. This court requested an amended response to explain the delay of over three years in acting on the petition. Paige v. Reynolds, 2013 Ark. 73 (per curiam).
Judge Reynolds has now filed a supplemental response, in which he indicates that the circuit clerk had a system in place at the time to forward pleadings to the appropriate court and that his staff had been advised to follow procedures to ensure prompt handling once the pleadings were received. Judge Reynolds's review of the files did not conclusively disclose whether the clerk failed to follow the policy in place or whether there was some inadvertent mishandling of the pleadings in his office.
Judge Reynolds did, however, note that the current on-line case-management system did not reflect the filing of the petition or that a letter from the circuit clerk acknowledging the filing of the petition had been sent to petitioner, as was the practice in place. The judge's review of the hard files reflected that the petition had indeed been filed as already noted, but did not reflect that the procedure for sending an acknowledging letter had been followed. Because there was also a conversion to a new case-management system sometime during this time frame, it may also have been possible that the petition was not transferred during the data conversion to the current system.
While Judge Reynolds was unable to determine the exact cause of the delay, it seems that the delay was an anomaly resulting from clerical error rather than the consequence of a failure to have appropriate procedures in place. Because no further action appears to be required concerning the court's procedures for prompt handling of pleadings, we address appellant's petition for mandamus. The petition for mandamus is moot because the underlying petition has been acted on by the circuit court. Nelson v. Glover, 2012 Ark. 307 (per curiam); see also Watts v. Griffen, 2013 Ark. 44 (per curiam); Glaze v. Reynolds, 2013 Ark. 43 (per curiam).
Petition moot.
Cornelious Paige, pro se petitioner.
No response.