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Lucero v. Kennard4/1/2004
. § 78-5-120(1). The second is Utah Code Annotated section 78-35a-106 (1996), which establishes the means by which a defendant can petition for post-conviction relief under the Post-Conviction Remedies Act. See generally Utah Code Ann. §§ 78-35a-106 to -110 (1996). Section 78-35a-106(1) states that "[a] person is not eligible for relief under this chapter upon any ground that: (a) may still be raised on direct appeal or by a post-trial motion." (Emphasis added.) The question before us, then, is whether a trial de novo qualifies as a "direct appeal." Id. The majority concludes that it does, and therefore rules that Lucero's failure to file for a trial de novo precludes him from petitioning for post-conviction relief under the Post-Conviction Remedies Act. I disagree.
**17 I first examine the meaning of the phrase "direct appeal." There is no provision in the Post-Conviction Remedies Act that specifically defines what constitutes a "direct appeal" for purposes of section 78-35a-106, nor is there a provision anywhere in the Utah Code defining that specific phrase for purposes of any other particular statutory scheme. [FN1] Accordingly, we must interpret the meaning of this phrase using the accepted rules of statutory interpretation. "When interpreting statutes, we determine the statute's meaning by first looking to the statute's plain language, and give effect to the plain language unless the language is ambiguous." Dick Simon Trucking, Inc. v. Utah State Tax Comm'n, 2004 UT 11, 17, 84 P.3d 1197. As I see it, a party receives a "direct appeal" when an appellate tribunal conducts a case-specific, ruling-specific review of the lower court proceedings. This understanding comports with the limited discussion that this phrase has received in various Utah courts. See, e.g., Collins v. Sandy City Bd. of Adjustment, 2002 UT 77, 18-19, 52 P.3d 1267 (referring to a "direct appeal" as a "direct review"); see also State v. Hamilton, 2003 UT 22, 25, 70 P.3d 111 (distinguishing "direct appeals" from collateral attacks). Accordingly, Utah courts have used the phrase "direct appeal" to refer to a variety of situations in which appellate tribunals undertook a case-specific, ruling-specific review of the proceedings below. See, e.g., Hutchings v. State, 2003 UT 52, 16, 84 P.3d 1150 (referring to an appellate review of a probation revocation as a "direct appeal"); Thomas v. State, 2002 UT 128, 6, 63 P.3d 672 (stating that such issues as the validity of a search warrant, the admissibility of a confession, and the correctness of a bindover order are reviewable on "direct appeal"); *181 Salazar v. Utah State Prison, 852 P.2d 988, 991 n. 6 (Utah 1993) (referring to an appellate review of a denial of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea as a "direct appeal"). Applied to the present case, a trial de novo would therefore only constitute a "direct appeal" of the justice court conviction if it provided the district court with the opportunity to conduct a case-specific, ruling-specific review of the justice court proceedings.
FN1. Black's Law Dictionary defines a "direct appeal" as "[a]n appeal from a trial court's decision directly to the jurisdiction's highest court, thus bypassing review by an intermediate appellate court." Black's Law Dictionary 94 (7th ed. deluxe 1999). A review of the Utah cases, however, indicates that this strict definition is not followed by our courts. In Pascual v. Carver, for example, the Utah Supreme Court referred to the defendant's prior appeal, which had been heard in the Utah Court of Appeals, as a "direct appeal" of the conviction. 876 P.2d 364, 366 (Utah 1994). Similarly, in State v. Lara, we referred to an appeal of a bindover order that was heard in this court as a "direct appeal." 2003
UT App 318, 20, 79 P.3d 9
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