Dison v. Whitley

United States Court of Appeals,

Fifth Circuit.

No. 92-4939.

Roosevelt DISON, Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

John P. WHITLEY, Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary,
Respondent-Appellee.

May 9, 1994.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Louisiana.

Before REAVLEY and JOLLY, Circuit Judges, and PARKER,* District
Judge.

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:

The pro se in forma pauperis prisoner in this case filed his

notice of appeal after the thirty-day period for filing appeals

expired. The district court held that the appeal was untimely. We

affirm.

I

Roosevelt Dison was convicted of carrying out a contract to

kill Charles Rollo, Jr., by shooting Rollo with a shotgun in the

driveway of his home in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, at 7:30

a.m. on April 15, 1979. Dison confessed to the murder and is

currently serving a life sentence in Louisiana state prison.

II

After exhausting his direct and state habeas remedies, Dison

filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court alleging that his

*
Chief Judge of the Eastern District of Texas, sitting by
designation.

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confession was involuntary and that he should have been allowed to

testify at his jury trial regarding his confession. On July 31,

1992, the district court denied Dison's habeas petition on the

grounds that Dison's confession was voluntary and that his right to

testify did not exist under state law at the time of his trial.

Dison filed an appeal that was received by the district court

after the thirty-day period for filing an appeal.1 We remanded

Dison's case to the district court for a determination of whether

Dison timely filed under the exception to the general

filed-upon-receipt rule announced by the Supreme Court in Houston

v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 108 S.Ct. 2379, 101 L.Ed.2d 245 (1988).

Under Houston, 487 U.S. at 270, 108 S.Ct. at 2382, a prisoner's

notice of appeal is deemed timely filed when he delivers the notice

to prison officials.

On remand, the magistrate judge found that Dison had delivered

his notice of appeal to prison officials on or before August 24,

1992—seven days before the expiration of the thirty-day period—but

the envelope had been returned to him because he had sent it via

"indigent mail" even though he had sufficient funds to pay the

postage. The magistrate judge also found that Dison managed to

send the envelope containing his notice of appeal out of the prison

for mailing as it was post-marked from Baton Rouge instead of

1
Dison had thirty days from July 31, 1992, to file his
appeal. Fed.R.App.P. 4(a)(1). Because the thirtieth day was a
Sunday, the final day for filing was August 31. Fed.R.App.P.
26(a). Dison's undated notice of appeal was stamped "filed by
the district court clerk on September 3"—after the thirty-day
period had expired.

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Angola. The magistrate judge concluded that Houston did not apply,

and the district court adopted the magistrate judge's findings in

holding Dison's appeal untimely.

III

In reviewing requests for federal habeas corpus relief, we

review the district court's findings of fact for clear error, but

review issues of law de novo. See Barnard v. Collins, 958 F.2d

634, 636 (5th Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct.

990, 122 L.Ed.2d 142 (1993). A timely filed notice of appeal is a

jurisdictional prerequisite to our review. Browder v. Director,

Dep't of Corrections, 434 U.S. 257, 264, 98 S.Ct. 556, 561, 54

L.Ed.2d 521 (1978). We hold that neither Dison's delivery of his

unposted notice of appeal to the prison officials nor his delivery

to his agent outside the prison constitute timely filing.

In Thompson v. Rasberry, 993 F.2d 513, 514 (5th Cir.1993), we

held that the Houston exception to the filed-upon-receipt rule:

[did] not relieve a prisoner of the responsibility of doing
all that he or she can reasonably do to ensure that documents
are received by the clerk of court in a timely manner. See
Fallen v. United States, 378 U.S. 139, 84 S.Ct. 1689, 12
L.Ed.2d 760 (1964). Failure to stamp or properly address
outgoing mail or to follow reasonable prison regulations
governing prisoner mail does not constitute compliance with
this standard.

Id. at 515 (first and third emphases added).

In the instant case, Dison did not place proper postage on

the envelope that he delivered to the prison officials on or before

August 24, 1992. The Louisiana Department of Corrections had a

policy of allowing prisoners with insufficient funds in their

drawing accounts to use "indigent," or free mail. This regulation

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is "reasonable." See Thompson, 993 F.2d at 515.2 Accordingly,

Dison committed a "[f]ailure to stamp" that "[did] not constitute

compliance" with "the responsibility of doing all he ... reasonably

[could have done] to ensure that documents [were] received by the

clerk of court in a timely manner." See Thompson, 993 F.2d at

515.3

Further, Dison's use of an unknown agent does not trigger the

Houston exception that is limited to filings with prison officials,

over whom a prisoner has no control. In contrast to the lack of

control over prison officials, the Supreme Court found crucial in

Houston, 487 U.S. at 271, 108 S.Ct. at 2382, Dison arguably

exercised some control over his agent and was not left to the

devices of the defendants in his cause of action. See Wilder v.

2
Dison, on appeal, states—without offering any evidence—that
he did not have sufficient funds in his drawing account and thus
was qualified to use indigent mail. Because Dison did not raise
this issue before the district court, we will not consider it
unless we find plain error. Big John, B.V. v. Indian Head Grain
Co., 718 F.2d 143, 148 (5th Cir.1983). We perceive no plain
error in this case. The record supports the magistrate judge's
finding that Dison had sufficient funds in his account to pay for
postage. In addition to a letter from the district attorney
stating that Dison had sufficient funds to use regular prison
mail, the August 24 notice of return, which accompanied his
returned envelope, stated that Dison could not use indigent mail
because he had more than $15 in his drawing account.
3
Moreover, the envelope was returned to Dison on August 24,
1992, giving him a week to mail it again—with correct
postage—through the prison postal system. Dison failed to avail
himself of this option. Instead, he mailed the envelope outside
the prison from Baton Rouge with the assistance of an unknown
third party. Although Dison's opportunity to try the prison
postal system again indicates that he had a second chance to
comply with Houston and Thompson, the law does not mandate a
second chance as long as the prison system was reasonably prompt
in returning the unposted envelop the first time.

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Chairman of Cent. Classification Bd., 926 F.2d 367, 370 (4th Cir.),

cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 109, 116 L.Ed.2d 78 (1991).

Thus, we hold that the logic of Houston does not encompass Dison's

delivery of his notice of appeal to his agent.

IV

For the reasons stated above, the judgment of the district

court is

AFFIRMED.

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