Opinion

State v. Fowler

  • 156 Ariz. 408
  • 752 P.2d 497
  • 1987 Ariz. App. LEXIS 580
Court
Court of Appeals of Arizona
Filed
Oct 29, 1987
Status
Published
Author
Kleinschmidt
On the bench
Shelley, Kleinschmidt, Brooks
Cited by
15 cases
Authority
More cited than 12.8%

holding that statute of limitations “unconstitutionally invade[d] the province of the supreme court’s rule-making authority” because it contradicted limitation period stated in Rules of Criminal Procedure

How later courts described this case

  • holding that statute of limitations “unconstitutionally invade[d] the province of the supreme court’s rule-making authority” because it contradicted limitation period stated in Rules of Criminal Procedure
  • holding a statutory one-year time limitation applying to filing petitions for post-conviction relief unconstitutional because the law conflicted with Rule 32
  • statute must yield to court rule governing procedural matter
  • right to post-conviction relief is substantive but time limits are procedural

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

KLEINSCHMIDT, Judge,

concurring.

I concur in the result. I do not find the distinctions drawn by many of the cases cited by the majority between what is “procedural” and what is “substantive” to be very helpful. I tend to agree with the observation of the Colorado Supreme Court in Page v. Clark, 197 Colo. 306, 314-15 , 592 P.2d 792, 800-01 (1979), that a particular rule may be procedural in one context and substantive in another, depending on the underlying social policies of the competing rule of court and statute. Viewed this way, a very strong argument can be made *415 that the legislative policy of finality embodied in A.R.S. § 13-4234(F) ought to prevail in this case. Given cases like Daou v. Harris, 139 Ariz. 353 , 678 P.2d 934 (1984) (reasonable time limits are procedural), and the fact that the right to prescribe the rules of evidence, a field in which there is great room for fundamental policy considerations to operate, remains a province of the supreme court, I cannot say that the statutory one year limitation is substantive. Nor can I say that the statute is “reasonable and workable” in relation to the rule so that the two can co-exist. See State ex rel. Collins v. Siedel, 142 Ariz. 587 , 691 P.2d 678 (1984).

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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