Facts
- Luis Perez-Llamas was stopped by a Utah Highway Patrol officer while traveling in a van, and officers discovered marijuana hidden in a shrink-wrapped tire.
- Perez-Llamas moved to suppress the evidence; the district court denied the motion.
- Perez-Llamas entered a conditional guilty plea to possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance (a second-degree felony), preserving his right to appeal the suppression ruling.
- The district court imposed the sentence associated with the conviction level but suspended prison and instead ordered a 364-day jail term.
- On the day he was sentenced, Perez-Llamas applied in the district court for a certificate of probable cause under Utah Rule of Criminal Procedure 27(e), seeking to stay execution of his sentence and remain at liberty during appeal; the district court denied the application.
- Perez-Llamas then filed an application with the Utah Court of Appeals under Rule 27(e).
- The State filed a written response within five days, and the court of appeals denied the application by written order seven days later, concluding Perez-Llamas had not met Rule 27’s substantive requirements.
- Perez-Llamas filed an original petition for extraordinary relief in the Utah Supreme Court against the Utah Court of Appeals and three of its judges in their official capacities, asking the Supreme Court to order the court of appeals to provide a “hearing” under Rule 27(e).
- In the Supreme Court, Perez-Llamas did not seek review of the merits of the certificate denial or the underlying conviction; he challenged only the procedure used, arguing Rule 27(e) required an oral hearing in the court of appeals.
Issues
- Whether a petition for extraordinary relief was a proper method to challenge the court of appeals’ handling of a Rule 27(e) certificate-of-probable-cause application when certiorari would not provide timely review.
- Whether Utah Rule of Criminal Procedure 27(e) required the Utah Court of Appeals to provide an oral hearing on the application, or whether a paper-based process satisfied the rule’s “hearing” requirement.
Decision
- The Utah Supreme Court held the petition was properly before it as an extraordinary-relief proceeding because, on these facts, certiorari was not an adequate or speedy remedy given the short jail sentence and the time-sensitive nature of Rule 27 proceedings.
- The court denied the petition for extraordinary relief.
- The court held the court of appeals provided a “hearing” within the meaning of Rule 27(e) by accepting written submissions (the application and the State’s response) and issuing a prompt written ruling; Rule 27(e) did not require an oral argument in the court of appeals.
Legal Principles
- Extraordinary relief under Utah law may be available to review an appellate court’s procedure when ordinary review (such as certiorari) would not provide a timely, effective remedy in light of the short duration of the sentence and the fast timetable contemplated by Rule 27.
- Utah Rule of Criminal Procedure 27(e)’s requirement that a court “hold a hearing” on a certificate-of-probable-cause request can be satisfied, in an appellate-court setting, through written motion practice followed by a prompt written order.
- Rule 27 must be read together with the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure governing motion practice, under which appellate courts commonly decide time-sensitive requests based on the papers without an automatic right to oral argument.
Conclusion
The Utah Supreme Court denied Perez-Llamas’s request for extraordinary relief, ruling that the Utah Court of Appeals’ prompt consideration of the Rule 27(e) application on written submissions qualified as the required “hearing” and that Rule 27(e) did not entitle him to an oral hearing before the court of appeals.