Andrew Luke Lemasters v. State of Missouri

Summary

The Court held that Lemasters’s Rule 29.15 motion was premature because the trial court had not complied with the mandate issued in his direct appeal, so the criminal judgment was not yet final. Because the postconviction filing period had not begun, the motion court’s merits judgment was vacated and the case was remanded with instructions to treat the pro se motion as filed when the Rule 29.15(b) filing period begins.