SANDPOINT — An incorrectly addressed envelope upended an appeal filed by a Bonner County man who was injured in a shootout in 2011.

Richard Allen Larson is serving consecutive two- to five-year prison terms after a jury convicted him of two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the Upper Pack River Valley gunbattle.

Larson was accused of attacking his former girlfriend and threatening her with a pistol. He allegedly opened fire on the woman’s new boyfriend, prompting him to return fire and injure Larson.

The Idaho Court of Appeals upheld Larson’s conviction and sentence in 2014 and the Idaho Supreme Court denied a petition for review the following year.

Larson deposited two copies of a pro se petition relief into the prison’s legal mail system in February 2016, but used an incorrect address for the Bonner County Courthouse. Larson later realized his error and sent a letter of explanation and another petition to the correct address the following May.

First District Judge Barbara Buchanan dismissed the petition on grounds it had not been timely filed.

Larson argued the petition was timely filed under the “mailbox rule,” which deems a pro se inmate’s document filed as of the date it was submitted to prison authorities so it can be mailed.

But the appeals court ruled the mailbox rule does not apply because he didn’t correctly address the envelope.

“The petition would have been timely under the mailbox rule if the envelope was properly addressed; however, it was not properly addressed,” Chief Judge David Gratton said in an unpublished opinion that was released Wednesday.

Gratton added that a misdirected petition filed by a non-incarcerated person would similarly be regarded as untimely.

Larson, 66, is imprisoned at the Idaho State Correctional Center in Kuna, according to the Idaho Department of Correction. The 2,172-bed men’s prison south of Boise houses minimum-, medium- and close-custody offenders.

A parole hearing is scheduled for December, according to IDOC’s website.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.