Proposed Rules Archives

• Proposed Changes to RAP 16.8 - Personal Restraint Petition - Filing and Service (in Word Format)
• Comments Received for RAP 16.8 - Personal Restraint Petition - Filing and Service

Purpose: This amendment is intended to ensure that petitions that contain only technical deficiencies are not rejected for filing, possibly depriving an incarcerated pro se petitioner of the opportunity to file a timely petition. Pursuant to the proposed amendment, a petition with a technical deficiency should be filed and the clerk should direct the petitioner to correct the deficiency within 60 days. The addition of new subsection (c) is not intended to apply to a petition that is wholly deficient, such as a petition that fails to set forth any basis for relief. Such a petition should be filed and dismissed as frivolous pursuant to Rule 16.8A, as proposed by the subcommittee. The addition of new subsection (e) is intended to reflect the current state of the law pursuant to In re Bonds, 165 Wn.2d 135 (2008), which gives the court authority to accept timely amendments, but that new grounds raised for the first time in an amended petition that is filed outside the one-year time bar do not relate back to the original petition, and will be time-barred unless they fall within an exception to the time bar.