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State Appellate Defender urges Michigan Supreme Court not to impose strict timelines for restoring appellate rights
Summary
The State Appellate Defender Office argued the court's proposed time limits on petitions to restore appellate rights would reduce access to justice for adults and juveniles, citing examples of successful post‑deadline restorations.
The Michigan Supreme Court heard testimony opposing proposed timelines for requests to restore appellate rights in criminal and juvenile cases, saying strict deadlines would restrict access to review for people who face systemic barriers or delayed notices of their rights.
The matter, ADM File 2022-34, proposes amendments to MCR 3.993 and MCR 6.428 to address restoration of appellate rights. Josh Pease, representing the State Appellate Defender Office (SADO), urged the court to adopt the earlier version of the proposal that allowed restoration for juveniles and adults without imposing relatively short filing windows.
Pease said deadlines in the current draft "will reduce access to justice for adults and children alike" and described barriers such as failures to appoint counsel, delays in prison mail, intellectual or developmental disabilities, and court staff filing errors. He cited named examples from SADO's written comments in which rights were restored more than two years after the ordinary appellate period, producing dispositive relief: "All these people have access to justice because they were not limited by a needlessly short time for requesting restoration of appellate rights," Pease said.
Justices questioned practical jurisdictional issues, including how a juvenile who has aged out of juvenile court might seek restoration and which court would issue the restoration order; Pease replied that the juvenile court that adjudicated the child would likely be the place to act but acknowledged the question has not been definitively resolved. When asked whether a presumptive timeline with case‑by‑case exceptions would address concerns, Pease said a presumptive two‑year window with evaluation of factors outside that period would be reasonable to him, though he could not speak for SADO organizationally without an internal discussion.
The State Bar's written comment and others point out that trial courts currently have discretion to grant restoration requests; commenters warned that strict, inflexible timelines could prevent meritorious late claims that have yielded significant relief in the past. No formal adoption or vote occurred at the hearing.
