J-S43012-17

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee

v.

RAYMOND J. LAMBERT

Appellant No. 1458 WDA 2016

Appeal from the PCRA Order entered August 29, 2016

In the Court of Common Pleas of Elk County

Criminal Division at No: CP-24-CR-0000363-2008

BEFORE: STABILE, SOLANO, and FITZGERALD*, JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY STABILE, J.: FILED SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

Appellant, Raymond J. Lambert, appeals from the August 29, 2016 

order entered in the Court of Common Pleas of 59th Judicial District, Elk 

County Branch, denying his petition for collateral relief pursuant to the Post 

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

Appellant argues the PCRA court erred in dismissing the instant PCRA 

petition as untimely. We disagree. Accordingly, we affirm the order.

The underlying facts of this matter are not in dispute.1 Briefly, 

following a jury trial, Appellant was convicted, inter alia, of murder in the 

____________________________________________

*

Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.

1 Relevant to this matter, it is also undisputed that Appellant was 18 years 

old at the time he committed the underlying crimes. See Appellant’s Brief at 

8. 
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first degree. On May 7, 2010, the trial court sentenced Appellant to life 

without parole for the murder conviction. Appellant did not file a direct 

appeal. 

Appellant filed the instant PCRA petition on March 28, 2016, 

approximately six years after his judgment became final.2 After appointing 

counsel, the PCRA court dismissed the petition as untimely. On appeal, 

Appellant argues he is entitled to PCRA relief under Montgomery v. 

Louisiana, 136 S.Ct. 718 (2016), and Miller v. Alabama, 132 S.Ct. 2455 

(2012). We disagree. 

“[A]n appellate court reviews the PCRA court’s findings of fact to 

determine whether they are supported by the record, and reviews its 

conclusions of law to determine whether they are free from legal error.” 

Commonwealth v. Spotz, 84 A.3d 294, 311 (Pa. 2014). All PCRA 

petitions, “including a second or subsequent petition, shall be filed within 

one year of the date the judgment becomes final” unless an exception to 

timeliness applies. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1). “The PCRA’s time 

restrictions are jurisdictional in nature. Thus, [i]f a PCRA petition is 

untimely, neither this Court nor the [PCRA] court has jurisdiction over the 

____________________________________________

2 As noted, the trial court sentenced Appellant on May 7, 2010. Appellant 

did not file a direct appeal. Accordingly, Appellant’s judgment, for purposes 

of the PCRA, became final on June 7, 2010, upon expiration of the 30-day 

period he had to file an appeal with this Court and he had until June 7, 2011 

to file a timely petition. 
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petition. Without jurisdiction, we simply do not have the legal authority to 

address the substantive claims.” Commonwealth v. Chester, 895 A.2d 

520, 522 (Pa. 2006) (first alteration in original) (internal citations and 

quotation marks omitted). As timeliness is separate and distinct from the 

merits of Appellant’s underlying claims, we first determine whether this 

PCRA petition is timely filed. See Commonwealth v. Stokes, 959 A.2d 

306, 310 (Pa. 2008) (consideration of Brady claim separate from 

consideration of its timeliness). The timeliness requirements of the PCRA 

petition must be met, even if the underlying claim is a challenge to the 

legality of the sentence. See Commonwealth v. Holmes, 933 A.2d 57, 60 

(Pa. 2007) (“Although legality of sentence is always subject to review within 

the PCRA, claims must still first satisfy the PCRA’s time limits or one of the 

exceptions thereto”) (citing Commonwealth v. Fahy, 737 A.2d 214, 223 

(1999)).

Again, we must first determine whether the instant petition is timely. 

As noted above, Appellant filed the instant petition in 2016, almost six years 

after his judgment of sentence became final. As such, the instant petition is 

facially untimely. To overcome the untimeliness of the petition, Appellant 

argues that he is entitled to review based on Miller3and Montgomery.

4

 

We disagree. 

____________________________________________

3 Miller held that “mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 

18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition 

(Footnote Continued Next Page)
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Even if Montgomery would make his petition timely, he is not entitled 

to relief under Miller. We have repeatedly held that Miller does not apply 

to defendants who were eighteen or older when they committed murders. 

See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Furgess, 149 A.3d 90, 94 (Pa. Super. 

2016). As noted above, Appellant was 18 years old at the time of the 

underlying crimes. Accordingly, Appellant has no claim under Miller. 

Because Appellant has no claim under Miller, Montgomery does not affect 

the outcome of this matter. 

Appellant also argues that despite the fact he was an adult at the time 

of the crimes, Miller should be applied to him because his brain, as is the 

case in juveniles, was not fully developed. We rejected a similar contention 

in Commonwealth v. Cintora, 69 A.3d 759 (Pa. Super. 2013). In 

Cintora, two appellants, who were nineteen and twenty-one years of age at 

the time of their underlying crimes, and were sentenced to life 

imprisonment, claimed:

[T]hat because Miller created a new Eighth Amendment right, 

that those whose brains were not fully developed at the time of 

their crimes are free from mandatory life without parole 

(Footnote Continued) _______________________

on ‘cruel and unusual’ punishments.” Miller, 132 S.Ct. at 2460 (emphasis 

added).

4

In Montgomery, the Unites States Supreme Court held that Miller was a 

new substantive rule that, under the United States Constitution, must be 

retroactively applied in cases on state collateral review. Montgomery, 136 

S.Ct. at 736.
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sentences, and because research indicates that the human mind 

does not fully develop or mature until the age of 25, it would be 

a violation of equal protection for the courts to treat them or 

anyone else with an immature brain, as adults. Thus, they 

conclude that the holding in Miller should be extended to them 

as they were under the age of 25 at the time of the murder and, 

as such, had immature brains.

Cintora, 69 A.3d at 764. In rejecting the argument, we concluded that “[a] 

contention that a newly-recognized constitutional right should be extended 

to others does not render their petition timely pursuant to [S]ection 

9545(b)(1)(iii).” Id. (emphasis added). Thus, as in Cintora, Appellant’s 

claim that Miller applied to the case sub judice based on his mental 

development is without merit. 

In light of the foregoing, we conclude that Appellant’s PCRA petition is 

untimely and that Appellant failed to plead and prove any exception to save 

it from the PCRA’s time bar. Accordingly, we will not review the merits of 

Appellant’s contentions because we have no jurisdiction to entertain an 

untimely PCRA petition. See Chester, supra. 

Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 9/18/2017