MT VERNON — The Fifth District Appellate Court remanded a case involving a federal inmate serving time in North Carolina who is trying to present new information he allegedly uncovered via a Freedom of Information Act request into court.
In its 10-page order issued Jan. 28, Fifth District Appellate Court three-justice panel reversed and remanded the late 2016 judgment of former Madison County Associate judge Jennifer Hightower to get the FOIA contents into court.
The appellate court ruled that defendant Jedene Randolph Rooks' previous appointed counsel "failed to ensure that the existing claims alleged by Rooks in his pro se section petition were properly presented to the court and failed to allege available facts to overcome the applicable two-year limitations period."
The appellate court reversed the trial court's denial of the appointed counsel's petition and remanded the case. The appellate court ordered that Rooks, who has been asking to present his own petition pro se, receive new appointed counsel.
Appellate court Justice Milton S. Wharton wrote the order with Justice Thomas M. Welch and Justice David K. Overstreet concurring.
The case stems from Rooks' guilty plea in December 1993 to unlawful possession with intent to deliver cocaine, according to the background provided in the appellate decision. Rooks agreed to a plea in exchange for a six-year prison sentence to be served concurrently with a longer federal sentence.
Rooks, now 51, currently is housed at the low-security federal correctional institution in Butner, N.C., according to an online inmate search. His current release date is September 19, 2023.
In January 2013, Rooks filed a pro se petition for relief "based upon new information he learned after obtaining documents pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request," the ruling states.
With these new facts, which were not described in the ruling, Rooks argued that the case originally presented against him during his plea hearing was erroneous and thus the judgment was based on an insufficient factual basis, the appellate decision states.
"Rooks asserted that if the State’s Attorney had presented the true and accurate facts to the trial court, the court could have found that the State lacked sufficient evidence to establish the elements of the offense," Wharton wrote. "Rooks also alleged that the State’s Attorney improperly withheld and/or failed to provide this potentially exculpatory evidence from Rooks, his trial attorney, and the court."
The following month, a Madison County Circuit Court judge dismissed the petition, saying it was untimely and did not "fall within any category of collateral remedies that would be available to Defendant."
Rooks appealed. The following year the Fifth District Appelalte Court vacated the dismissal, finding the court was wrong when it dismissed the petition less than 30 days after it was filed.
With the case back in Madison County, counsel was appointed to Rooks in late March 2015. The appointed counsel eventually filed a petition, though not Rooks' original petition, on Rooks' behalf.
The appointed counsel's petition was dismissed in December 2016 and Rooks asked to be allowed to proceed pro se with his original petition, but the Madison County Circuit Court did not allow the request.
Rooks appealed that denial in his motion to reconsider.
In the appellate court's ruling, the panel declined to make any determinations on the merit of Rooks' allegations but noted a newly appointed counsel may make his or her own determination.
"If this new counsel reviews the file and concludes that the claims are without merit, then he or she cannot in good faith file an amended petition on Rooks' behalf and must withdraw," Wharton wrote.