J-S45008-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

NOEL BROWN 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 1656 EDA 2022

Appeal FROM the Order Entered May 20, 2022

In the Court of Common Pleas of Wayne County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-64-CR-0000258-2016

BEFORE: OLSON, J., STABILE, J., and MURRAY, J.

MEMORANDUM BY OLSON, J.: FILED MARCH 02, 2023

Appellant, Noel Brown, appeals pro se from the order entered on June 

15, 2022, dismissing as untimely his third petition pursuant to the Post 

Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. We affirm.

We briefly set forth the facts and procedural history of this case as 

follows. Following a jury trial in 2016, Appellant was convicted of interference 

with custody of children, dissemination of photos of child sex acts, corruption 

of minors, furnishing liquor to minors, and trafficking in minors.1 On February 

3, 2017, the trial court sentenced Appellant to an aggregate term of 180 to 

394 months of incarceration. We affirmed Appellant’s judgment of sentence 

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1 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 2904(a), 6312(c), 6301(a)(1)(ii), 3011(b), and 6310.1(a), 

respectively. This Court provided a more detailed recitation of the facts 

pertaining to Appellant’s underlying convictions in an unpublished 

memorandum filed on October 23, 2017. See Commonwealth v. Brown, 

2017 WL 4772761, at *1 (Pa. Super. 2017). 
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on October 23, 2017. See Commonwealth v. Brown, 2017 WL 4772761

(Pa. Super. 2017) (unpublished memorandum), reargument denied

(November 22, 2017). Thereafter, “Appellant untimely filed petitions for 

allowance of appeal to our Supreme Court, which were denied.” 

Commonwealth v. Brown, 2020 WL 1461011, at *1 (Pa. Super. 2020). On 

October 25, 2018, Appellant filed his first PCRA petition. On July 1, 2019, the 

PCRA court denied relief. Appellant appealed and, on March 24, 2020, this 

Court dismissed the appeal because Appellant’s appellate brief was deficient. 

See id.

Relevant to the current appeal, on January 10, 2022, Appellant filed a 

pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus with the Commonwealth Court of 

Pennsylvania, which was transferred to the Wayne County Court of Common 

Pleas. On April 20, 2022, the Wayne County Court of Common Pleas entered 

an order concluding that Appellant’s claims fell under the provisions of the

PCRA. Accordingly, the court dismissed Appellant’s filing as an untimely PCRA 

petition. 

Appellant did not file a notice of appeal. Instead, on May 17, 2022, 

Appellant filed a pro se motion for reconsideration with the PCRA court, which 

the PCRA court denied by order entered on May 20, 2022. Technically, the 

motion for reconsideration qualified as a third petition under the PCRA, raising 

the same claims as Appellant’s second petition. See Commonwealth v. 

Taylor, 65 A.3d 462, 466 (Pa. Super. 2013) (“[A]ll motions filed after a 

judgment of sentence is final are to be construed as PCRA petitions.”). After 
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the PCRA court denied relief, Appellant filed a pro se notice of appeal on May

31, 2022. This timely appeal resulted. Appellant and the PCRA court complied 

with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.2

Initially, we note that Appellant’s pro se brief does not conform to our 

Rules of Appellate Procedure. Most notably, Appellant fails to provide this 

Court with the PCRA court’s order or opinion in question, a statement of both 

the scope and standard of review, a statement of questions involved, a copy 

of the statement of errors complained of on appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 

1925(b) or an averment that no Rule 1925(b) statement was ordered. See

Pa.R.A.P. 2111. We could dismiss Appellant’s pro se appeal on this basis 

alone. See Pa.R.A.P. 2101; see also Commonwealth v. Vurimindi, 200 

A.3d 1031, 1037 (Pa. Super. 2018) (“Although this Court is willing to liberally 

construe materials filed by a pro se litigant, pro se status confers no special 

benefit upon the appellant; to the contrary, any person choosing to represent 

himself in a legal proceeding must, to a reasonable extent, assume that his 

lack of expertise and legal training will be his undoing.”).

Upon review, however, we conclude that the PCRA court lacked 

jurisdiction to entertain Appellant’s PCRA petition. We previously stated: 

It is well-established that the timeliness of a PCRA petition is 

jurisdictional and that if the petition is untimely, courts lack 

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2 We note that while this appeal was pending, on June 9, 2022, Appellant filed 

another PCRA petition, his fourth overall. The PCRA court denied relief by 

order entered on June 15, 2022, Appellant appealed that decision, and we 

address that appeal separately. See Commonwealth v. Brown, 1985 EDA 

2022.
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jurisdiction over the petition and cannot grant relief. The PCRA is 

intended to be the sole means of achieving post-conviction 

collateral relief. If an issue is cognizable under the PCRA, the 

issue must be raised in a timely PCRA petition and cannot be 

raised in a petition for writ of habeas corpus. In other words, a 

defendant cannot escape the PCRA time-bar by titling his petition 

or motion as a writ of habeas corpus. Moreover, regardless of 

how a petition is titled, courts are to treat a petition filed after a 

judgment of sentence becomes final as a PCRA petition if it 

requests relief contemplated by the PCRA. 

Commonwealth v. Fantauzzi, 275 A.3d 986, 994–995 (Pa. Super. 2022)

(internal quotations, citations, and brackets omitted). “On appeal from the 

denial of PCRA relief, our standard of review is whether the findings of the 

PCRA court are supported by the record and free of legal error.” 

Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal, 833 A.2d 719, 723 (Pa. 2003).

This Court dismissed Appellant’s direct appeal on March 24, 2020. 

Appellant did not file a timely petition for allowance of appeal with the 

Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Therefore, Appellant’s judgment of sentence 

became final on April 23, 2020, when the 30-day period for seeking review 

expired. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3) (“[A] judgment becomes final at the 

conclusion of direct review, including discretionary review in the Supreme 

Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, or at the 

expiration of time for seeking the review.”). Thus, Appellant had one year 

from the date that his judgment of sentence became final, or until April 23, 

2021, to file a timely PCRA petition. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1) (“Any 

petition under this subchapter, including a second or subsequent petition, shall 

be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final....”). Here, 
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Appellant, on January 10, 2022, filed a writ of habeas corpus, raising claims 

pertaining to his trial including, inter alia, issues surrounding witness 

identification, his preliminary hearing and right to counsel at that proceeding, 

jury selection, and the return of property. The PCRA is the sole means by 

which an appellant may collaterally challenge his conviction. 

Commonwealth v. Descardes, 136 A.3d 493, 498 (Pa. 2016), citing 42 

Pa.C.S.A. § 9543(a)(1)(i). As such, the PCRA court properly treated 

Appellant’s contentions as claims under the PCRA and dismissed his filing as 

an untimely PCRA petition on April 20, 2022.

Appellant reasserted his untimely collateral claims in a motion for 

reconsideration, which he filed on May 20, 2022. We consider this to be 

Appellant’s third PCRA petition. Because this filing was submitted after April 

23, 2021, it was patently untimely under the PCRA. “If a PCRA petition is 

untimely filed, the jurisdictional time-bar can only be overcome if the 

petitioner alleges and proves one of the three statutory exceptions, as set 

forth in 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1).” Fantauzzi, 275 A.3d at 996. “The three 

narrow statutory exceptions to the one-year time-bar are as follows: (1) 

interference by government officials in the presentation of the claim; (2) 

newly[-]discovered facts; and (3) an after-recognized constitutional right.” 

Id. (citation omitted). Appellant does not cite the PCRA at all, let alone point 

to one of the PCRA’s jurisdictional exceptions. “If a petitioner fails to invoke 

a valid exception to the PCRA time-bar, courts are without jurisdiction to 

review the petition and provide relief.” Id. at 997 (citation omitted). Without 
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jurisdiction, the PCRA court properly dismissed Appellant’s claims. For the 

foregoing reasons, Appellant is not entitled to relief.

Order affirmed. 

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 3/2/2023