Delaware's Supreme Court says a prison inmate whose appeal was rejected because it was submitted too late will get a second chance after prosecutors acknowledged that prison officials gave him the wrong mailing address.
After a judge in January denied his motion for post-conviction relief, Ron C. Phillips filed an appeal notice Feb. 13, more than a week before the deadline.
The letter was never delivered. Instead, it was marked "return to sender" and sent back to Vaughn Correctional Center, which apparently didn't receive it until April 12.
Phillips then filed another appeal notice April 23, but it was rejected as untimely.
Prosecutors subsequently acknowledged that the law library at Vaughn provided Phillips with an outdated and inaccurate list of addresses for the Delaware courts and related legal services.
