Commonwealth v. Hartsgrove

We consider whether a pro se defendant, incarcerated in a correctional facility, shall be deemed to have filed a notice of appeal with the trial court at the moment he deposited it in the prison’s institutional mailbox. The defendant claims to have placed the notice, which was in a stamped envelope addressed to the Superior Court clerk for Norfolk County, into the hands of the prison authorities within the thirty-day period as specified in Mass. R. A. P. 4 (b), as amended, 378 Mass. 928 (1979). The Superior Court clerk did not receive the notice until after the deadline had passed. The…