Carter v. State
Annotate this CaseAppellant was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. After appealing, Appellant began pursuing postconviction relief. More than two years after Appellant’s second petition for postconviction relief under Utah’s Post Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA) was denied, Appellant filed a Utah R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion for relief from the denial of the second petition on the basis of newly discovered evidence. The district court denied Appellant’s Rule 60(b) motion as untimely. Appellant subsequently filed a new petition for postconviction relief based upon the same newly discovered evidence presented in his Rule 60(b) motion. The clerk of court, however, did not assign the third petition a new case number but instead filed it under the case number already assigned to the second petition. As a result, the court granted the State’s motion to dismiss the third petition for lack of jurisdiction. Appellant appealed from both the denial of his Rule 60(b) motion and the dismissal of his third petition. The Supreme Court (1) affirmed the district court’s denial of Appellant’s Rule 60(b) motion; but (2) reversed the court’s dismissal of the third petition, holding that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction over the third petition regardless of the case number assigned to it.
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