BURNS v. STATE (2020)

ORDER OF AFFIRMANCE

Burns filed his petition more than four years after entry of the judgment of conviction on September 9, 2015, and more than two years after entry of the amended judgment of conviction on April 10, 2017.¹ Thus, Burns's petition was untimely filed. See NRS 34.726(1). Burns's petition was procedurally barred absent a demonstration of good cause—cause for the delay and undue prejudice. See id.

Burns failed to allege in his petition any good cause for why he was filing his petition more than one year after the entry of his judgment of conviction and his amended judgment of conviction. Therefore, Burns's petition should have been denied as procedurally time barred. The district court erred by considering Burns's claims on their merits, because “[a]pplication of the statutory procedural default rules to post-conviction habeas petitions is mandatory.” See State v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court (Riker), 121 Nev. 225, 231, 112 Nev. P.3d 1070, 1074 (2005). Nevertheless, because Burns was not entitled to relief, we affirm. See Wyatt v. State, 86 Nev. 294, 298, 468 P.2d 338, 341 (1970) (holding a correct result will not be reversed simply because it is based on the wrong reason). Accordingly, we

ORDER the judgment of the district court AFFIRMED.²

FOOTNOTES

1.   Burns's claims did not challenge any changes made in the second amended judgment of conviction filed on March 4, 2019. Therefore, the second amended judgment of conviction would not provide good cause to overcome the procedural bar. See Sullivan v. State, 120 Nev. 537, 541, 96 P.3d 761, 764 (2004).

2.   To the extent Burns claims the district court erred by failing to correct his presentence investigation report, this claim was not raised below and we decline to consider it for the first time on appeal. See McNelton v. State, 115 Nev. 396, 416, 990 P.2d 1263, 1276 (1999).