Moore v. State

The trial court properly denied the defendant's motion for an out-of-time appeal of his 20-year-old conviction on his guilty plea conviction to manslaughter, since the defendant's failure to file a timely motion arose from his own conduct and not from ineffective assistance of counsel.

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After pleading guilty to manslaughter, David Timothy Moore waited 20 years before asking the trial court for leave to file an out-of-time appeal. Finding that Moore’s failure to file a timely appeal was due to his own actions, the court denied the motion for out-of-time appeal, which denial Moore has appealed in the present case. We hold that because some evidence supported the trial court’s finding, and because in any case Moore failed to show ineffective assistance of counsel let alone manifest injustice, we must affirm. Construed in favor of the trial court’s findings, the record shows that following his indictment on a murder charge for stabbing a fellow prison inmate to death, Moore in 1989 pled guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter, which plea was in part motivated by an incriminatory statement he had made to law enforcement officers. As agreed to in the negotiated plea, the court sentenced Moore to 15 years to be served consecutively to the sentences he was already serving. The court informed Moore of his right to appeal within 30 days. No appeal or motion to withdraw the plea followed.

Twenty years later, Moore moved for leave to file an out-of-time appeal, arguing that the guilty-plea transcript contained no statement as to the factual basis for the crime to which Moore pled guilty. Finding that indeed no proper factual basis was contained in the record, the trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the question of whether Moore’s failure to appeal was attributable to his trial counsel or to Moore. Based on the evidence, the trial court found that Moore’s own conduct was the cause of the failure to appeal, and thus the court denied his motion for an out-of-time appeal. Moore appeals this denial.

Moore v. State

The trial court properly denied the defendant's motion for an out-of-time appeal of his 20-year-old conviction on his guilty plea conviction to manslaughter, since the defendant's failure to file a timely motion arose from his own conduct and not from ineffective assistance of counsel.

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