Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:

Steve Palmer here from Lawyer Talk Podcast. You can catch us at lawyertalkpodcast.com. Today, we're gonna have another segment of our What's the Appeal series. The idea of What's the Appeal is I I do a ton of appellate work, criminal appellate work up in my law practice. Check us out, palmerlegaldefense.com. And and I I get a lot of calls, a lot of questions about what people's options are once they've been convicted of a crime and they want to appeal their conviction. So I'm gonna continue along my series here today, and I'm gonna talk about deadlines. And the reason I wanna talk about deadlines is because they are critical.

Steve Palmer [00:00:34]:

And and by critical, I mean critical. All too often, I get folks who call me and deadlines have passed, meaning, they had thirty days to file a notice of appeal for their direct appeal and they missed that deadline. Or worse, they've already lost their direct appeal and they wanna go to a higher court, whether it's the Ohio Supreme Court or maybe even in the federal system and those deadlines have passed. It gets really, really hard to get back into court once you miss deadlines. So, you know, when people call and say, what do I do? I've just been convicted. I love it. Not that they've been convicted, but I love it because that's when I can do the most good for folks. That's when we have the most options.

Steve Palmer [00:01:10]:

It's sort of like a chess piece in the middle of the board. When your queen's in the middle, she can go all over the board. You have plenty of options. Nothing has been foreclosed yet. Once the deadlines have passed, though, your queen's in a corner, and it gets a lot harder to bring her out and and have some success. So, generally, I'm gonna talk about Ohio, and this isn't legal advice, folks, if, if you're in another state or if you're, working on your own appeal. I'm just gonna sort of focus generally on Ohio, though. In Ohio, if you've just been convicted, you have thirty days to file what's called a notice of appeal.

Steve Palmer [00:01:43]:

A notice of appeal is basically exactly what it says. It is a notice that you're appealing the conviction. And the thirty days starts to run once the sentencing entry is actually filed and journalized. There's an old adage that the court speaks through its journal entries, and that means in the old days when we would go to the court clerk of courts and actually file something. It still happens, but most stuff is is is online filed now, through an online filing system. But once the court files its sentencing entry, it's got a stamp on it, an official seal that it's been filed with the Clerk of Courts. We have thirty days here in Ohio, from the date of the filing of the sentencing entry to file a notice of appeal. As soon as we file that notice of appeal, we also file a request asking the court reporter, to produce a transcript.

Steve Palmer [00:02:29]:

And this is another cost, that people don't always think about, but it's there. So you have a court reporter, and their job is to prepare a written transcript of everything that happened during trial. And once that's done, they send that up or they transfer that up to the Court of Appeals jurisdiction along with any exhibits, along with any documents that, the lawyers filed leading up to the appeal and, anything else that might be part of the record. And then we've got a full deck here to play with. We can, we can argue whatever we want on direct appeal. We're well within our deadline. Now there's some exceptions. If you happen to miss your direct appeals, particularly here in Ohio, there is a couple different ways or at least one good way we might be able to get back in under the wire, and there's a reason for that.

Steve Palmer [00:03:13]:

Because in Ohio, it's an appeal as of right. And that matters because if you have a right to appeal, then the state, in theory, can't deny that right without good reason. And Ohio courts have generally said, and the rules generally permit, a couple of different avenues to get in under or if you're past the wire on the direct appeal. This doesn't count for a high supreme court review or other higher court review. But in the trial court, if you miss your thirty days, there's a few little tricks that we can do. One is that that we go to the trial court and say, hey. Look. Would you vacate or get rid of your judgment entry and then refile it? And that's gonna give me a new set of downs.

Steve Palmer [00:03:48]:

That's gonna let me that's gonna give me another thirty day stint that I can file my notice of appeal, and I'll get back at it. It's a lot better. I hate it's it's it's a it's a lot better if you have a good reason for missing the deadline, such that you had a lawyer, a court appointed lawyer who maybe didn't get notice that he or she was appointed to the case and therefore missed the deadline. That happens, every now and then. But, anyway, at least on a direct appeal or your appeal as of right, there's sometimes a way around those deadlines. But once you get to the highest supreme court, if you lose your direct appeal and now you wanna have a higher court review it, be careful. So what's because if you miss that deadline, it's often we call it jurisdictional, meaning the court loses jurisdiction over it and you're dead in the water. Now why does all this matter? Because in say it's a serious case, and it's one of these cases where, I we all look at them and say, well, the the Ohio or the state where you live is not likely to to reverse this thing and give you a new trial or let you go.

Steve Palmer [00:04:46]:

We're really looking out past the horizon at federal courts. And if you don't make these deadlines in your state court, then the federal courts get severely limited on their ability to review the case, and we'll get into that later, when we talk about habeas corpus. But understand for now, you've just been convicted. The best thing you can do is immediately contact a good appellate lawyer, not just one that, say, yeah. I'll do your direct appeal. Find somebody that will talk about all your array of options in a global fashion. Because if you if you're talking to a lawyer who doesn't know all those options, then they may not understand what needs to be done, what needs to be raised, when it needs to happen for purposes of preserving later federal review on habeas corpus or even direct appeal up to the US Supreme Court. So, anyway, what's the appeal? Deadlines matter.

Steve Palmer [00:05:32]:

Check us out at lawyertalkpodcast.com. If you've got a question, you got a topic, appellate or otherwise, just shoot me a question, shoot me a comment, and I'll get it covered right here. Until then, this is Lawyer Talk Off the Record on the Air.