Rule 66 Prerequisites to an Adjudication on the Merits

Committee Advisory Note [December 2014]

The Rule parallels the content of Rule 66 of the Maine Rules of Criminal Procedure except “the assigned court” replaces the reference to “an assigned justice.” The new Rules do not carry over the use of the words “assigned justice” nor do they carry over Rule 69A(d) of the Maine Rules of Criminal Procedure, which includes an assigned judge in the term “assigned justice” where appearing in Part X. Instead, it relies upon the term “court” as now defined in Rule 57(d). See also Committee Advisory Note [December 2014] to M.R.U. Crim. P. 57(d).

[Advisory Notes to former Maine Rules of Criminal Procedure]

Advisory Committee Note – 1981

[M.R. Crim. P. 66.] The purpose of Rule 66 is to alert the reader to the existence of sections 2124 and 2125, subject matter jurisdiction being dictated by the former and post-conviction relief being limited to the claims authorized by the latter.

Advisory Note – October 2013

Former Rule 66 has been deleted and replaced in order to make clear that to bring a petition permitting an adjudication on the merits by an assigned justice, the petitioner must satisfy the five statutory prerequisites of (a) restraint or impediment under 15 M.R.S. § 2124; (b) prior exhaustion of remedies incidental to the proceedings in the trial court or on appeal, or administrative remedies under 15 M.R.S. § 2126; (c) absence of waiver of one or more grounds for relief under 15 M.R.S. § 2128 except as exempted under 15 M.R.S. § 2128-A; (d) timely filing of the petition under 15 M.R.S. § 2128-B; and (e) the stating of one or more grounds upon which post-conviction relief can be granted under 15 M.R.S. § 2125. Title 15 M.R.S. § 2125, in addition to alluding to the other statutory prerequisites, contains its own prerequisite that the grounds for relief asserted in the petition relate to the criminal judgment being challenged as unlawful, the sentence being challenged as unlawful or unlawfully imposed, or the post-sentencing proceeding being challenged as illegal.