Richard Daron Kennedy v. State of Alabama

── Richard Daron Kennedy v. State of Alabama ── Case No.: CR-2025-0566 Court: Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama Date: March 27, 2026 Author: Anderson Category: General Rel: March 27, 2026 Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published in Southern Reporter. Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals OCTOBER TERM, 2025-2026 _________________________ CR-2025-0566 _________________________ Richard Daron Kennedy v. State of Alabama Appeal from Mobile Circuit Court (CC-97-958) ANDERSON, Judge. Richard Daron Kennedy appeals the judgment of the Mobile Circuit Court dismissing his 11th petition for postconviction relief. For the reasons that follow, the judgment of the circuit court is affirmed. CR-2025-0566 This case began when Kennedy filed what he styled as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Elmore Circuit Court. Although styled as such, the circuit court determined that Kennedy's filing was actually a Rule 32, Ala. R. Crim. P., petition for postconviction relief attacking his January 1998 convictions for murder and child abuse and his resulting sentence of life plus 10 years' imprisonment. (C. 70); see also S.R.A. v. State, 292 So. 3d 1108 (Ala. Crim. App. 2019) (explaining that courts must treat a petition according to its substance and not its style). After granting Kennedy leave to proceed in forma pauperis, the Elmore Circuit Court transferred Kennedy's petition to the Mobile Circuit Court, "the court in which the petitioner was convicted." (C. 70); see also Rule 32.5, Ala. R. Crim. P. After Kennedy's petition was transferred to the Mobile Circuit Court, he filed two letters objecting to that court's treatment of his pleading as a postconviction petition, arguing that it "unlawfully suspend[ed his] habeas petition." (C. 105, 110.) On June 17, 2025, the circuit court entered an order treating Kennedy's letters as a motion to reconsider an order it had entered on October 22, 2024, identified as Document 22. The circuit court denied Kennedy's motion to reconsider, 2 CR-2025-0566 and it dismissed the petition based on Kennedy's failure to comply with that earlier order. Specifically, the circuit court explained: "This Court has previously found Kennedy to be a frivolous filer of post-conviction petitions and imposed reasonable filing restrictions upon him. See (DOC 22). The Court considers Kennedy's attempt to file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in Elmore County, Alabama as merely an attempt to circumvent those reasonable filing restrictions. This conclusion is supported by the fact that the claims raised by Kennedy in his habeas petition have been previously raised in this Court in prior Rule 32 petitions. "Kennedy's motion to reconsider is DENIED. "Because Kennedy has failed to comply with this Court's October 22, 2024, Order his petition is DISMISSED." (R. 115-16 (capitalization in original).) In response to this order, Kennedy filed a timely notice of appeal, and this appeal followed. When reviewing a circuit court's summary dismissal of a postconviction petition " '[t]he standard of review this Court uses ... is whether the [circuit] court abused its discretion.' " Lee v. State, 44 So. 3d 1145, 1149 (Ala. Crim. App. 2009) (quoting Hunt v. State, 940 So. 2d 1041, 1049 (Ala. Crim. App. 2005)). If, however, the circuit court bases its determina