J-S10045-18

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

ALTON DANIEL BROWN 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 1346 EDA 2017

Appeal from the PCRA Order December 30, 2016

In the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County Criminal Division 

at No(s): CP-46-CR-0001095-1997

BEFORE: BOWES, J., OLSON, J., and NICHOLS, J.

MEMORANDUM BY NICHOLS, J.: FILED MARCH 22, 2018

Appellant Alton Daniel Brown appeals pro se from the order dismissing 

his fifth Post Conviction Relief Act1 (PCRA) petition as untimely. Appellant 

claims that the PCRA court erred in (1) failing to consider his recusal motion, 

(2) refusing to consider his alleged status as a political prisoner as a claim for 

habeas corpus relief, and (3) rejecting his claim that he timely filed the instant 

petition upon recently discovering the fact that he is a political prisoner. We 

quash. 

A detailed recitation of the history of Appellant’s 1998 sentence of 

twenty to forty years’ imprisonment for possessing an instrument of crime and 

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1 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546. 
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robbery2is unnecessary in this matter. Of relevance here, Appellant filed the 

instant pro se “Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus and/or Post Conviction 

Relief” on November 14, 2016.

3

 

On November 30, 2016, the PCRA court issued a Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice

of its intent to dismiss Appellant’s petition. Appellant filed a pro se “Response 

to Notice of Intent to Dismiss and Request for Recusal.”4 The PCRA court 

dismissed Appellant’s petition on December 30, 2016, but did not address his 

request for recusal. 

Appellant filed a pro se notice of appeal that was docketed on April 25, 

2017. The notice of appeal was dated January 6, 2017. An envelope 

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2 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 907 and 3701, respectively.

3 Appellant claimed that he was a political prisoner and raised several PCRA 

claims. Appellant asserted that he discovered he was a political prisoner after 

the courts of the Commonwealth and the United States denied him relief. He 

maintained his innocence, asserted that various errors limited his right to 

present a full defense, and stated that officials sabotaged his efforts to obtain 

relief. In a section requesting habeas corpus relief, Appellant requested that 

he be officially recognized as a political prisoner “instead of being classified as 

a legally convicted and sentenced prisoner.” Pet. for Writ of Habeas Corpus

and/or Post Conviction Relief, 11/14/16, at 6. 

4 Appellant asserted that he was claiming political prisoner status for the first 

time and that he stated at least two exceptions to the PCRA time bar based 

on that status. Additionally, Appellant asserted that the PCRA court’s intended 

dismissal of his petition evinced the court’s involvement in the conspiracy to 

sabotage his efforts to obtain relief. Appellant thus claimed there was the 

appearance of partiality or an actual conflict of interest and demanded that 

“[a]ll current and further proceeding regarding th[is] case . . . be automatically 

referred to the Office of the Court Administrator for reargument.” Appellant’s 

Resp. & Request for Recusal, 12/21/16, at 1.
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postmarked April 19, 2017, with $0.46 in postage paid was attached to the 

notice of appeal. Additionally, a DC-138A prison cash slip dated January 6, 

2017 in Appellant’s handwriting was attached. The cash slip did not bear a 

signature of a prison official or a notation of a deduction from Appellant’s 

account.

The PCRA court issued an order for the filing of a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) 

statement. Appellant timely filed his Rule 1925(b) statement after obtaining 

an extension of time. The court filed a responsive opinion suggesting that 

Appellant’s notice of appeal was untimely and that Appellant failed to establish 

that he timely filed his PCRA petition. 

On June 23, 2017, this Court issued a rule to show cause why this appeal 

should not by quashed. Appellant responded pro se and maintained that he 

delivered his notice of appeal to prison officials on January 6, 2017. 

In his response to the rule to show cause, Appellant averred that he 

requested a completed copy of the prison cash slip, but his request was 

refused. In support, he attached a handwritten note to the prison business 

office, dated January 19, 2017, requesting a cash slip. On that document, 

Appellant wrote, “I did not date this cash slip, but it should have been signed 

by staff on or about 1/6/17. It is needed to prove that I mailed my PCRA 

petition to the court on or about 1/6/16 (cash slip enclosed).” A handwritten 

response at the bottom of the note stated, “This is not considered legal” and 

referred Appellant to his monthly billing statement. The response was 

apparently dated April 20, 2017. 
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Appellant also attached a copy of his monthly billing statement and 

averred that the entry for January 6, 2017, confirmed that his notice of appeal 

was mailed on that date. The entry for January 6, 2017, however, indicates

a mailing to Norristown with a deduction of $0.88 from his account. 

Appellant further averred that after discovering that a notice of appeal 

had not been docketed in the trial court, he filed a petition for nunc pro tunc

relief on April 18, 2017. According to Appellant, he attached a copy of his 

January 6, 2017 notice of appeal and the copy of the cash slip to his petition 

for nunc pro tunc relief. Appellant thus claimed that the court clerk must have 

disregarded his petition for nunc pro tunc relief and instead filed the attached 

copy of the notice of appeal and cash slip with the envelope postmarked April 

19, 2017.

5

 

This Court discharged the rule to show cause and referred the matter to 

this panel. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that this appeal was not 

timely filed. 

“It is well settled that the timeliness of an appeal implicates our 

jurisdiction and may be considered sua sponte. Jurisdiction is vested in the 

Superior Court upon the filing of a timely notice of appeal.” Commonwealth 

v. Crawford, 17 A.3d 1279, 1281 (Pa. Super. 2011) (citations and quotation 

marks omitted). Generally, an appellant invokes this Court’s jurisdiction by 

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5 The record does not contain a copy of Appellant’s petition for nunc pro tunc

relief. 
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filing a notice of appeal within thirty days of the entry of the order being 

appealed. See Pa.R.A.P. 903(a). 

In an appeal from the denial of PCRA relief, the Pennsylvania Supreme 

Court has reiterated that a pro se prisoner’s notice of appeal will be deemed 

filed when it is placed in a prison mailbox or deposited with prison authorities. 

Commonwealth v. Jones, 700 A.2d 423, 426 (Pa. 1997) (discussing the 

“prisoner mailbox” rule). The pro se prisoner, however, “bears the burden of 

proving that he or she in fact delivered the appeal within the appropriate time 

period.” Id. 

Jones instructs that courts should be “inclined to accept any reasonably 

verifiable evidence of the date that the prisoner deposits the appeal with the 

prison authorities.” Id. Examples of such evidence include postmarks on the 

envelope used to mail the notice of appeal or postal forms that indicate the 

date of mailing. Id. The prisoner may also produce a cash slip “noting both 

the deduction from his account for the mailing to the prothonotary and the 

date of the mailing,” or an “affidavit attesting to the date of deposit.” Id. 

Evidence regarding the prison’s or the court’s mail policies may also establish 

the last possible date on which an appeal was delivered to prison officials. Id. 

Here, the PCRA court refused to consider Appellant’s incomplete prison 

cash slip as reasonably verifiable evidence. The court noted that the cash slip 

did not indicate that postage was deducted from his account and was not 

signed by a prison official. We agree with the court’s analysis that the 
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incomplete cash slip did not constitute reasonably verifiable evidence of the 

date Appellant allegedly deposited his notice of appeal. See id.

Appellant’s attempts to bolster his claim that he deposited his notice of 

appeal with prison officials on January 6, 2017, are unavailing. Appellant’s 

handwritten note to the business office not only suffered from dubious 

authenticity, but also contained internal inconsistencies. First, the notations 

suggested that Appellant made his request on January 19, 2017—thirteen 

days after he purported to have delivered his notice of appeal to prison 

officials, but some two months before he alleged he discovered his appeal was 

not yet docketed. Second, the request was made to verify the filing of a “PCRA 

petition,” not a notice of appeal. Third, the handwritten response was dated 

April 20, 2017.

Appellant’s billing statement was also problematic. It only indicated that 

$0.88 was deducted from his account for mail to Norristown on January 6, 

2017, yet the envelope attached to his notice of appeal was postmarked for 

$0.46 postage paid. 

We acknowledge Appellant’s allegation that he attached a copy of his 

notice of appeal as an exhibit to a petition for nunc pro tunc relief that he 

mailed in April of 2017. Nevertheless, we cannot blindly accept his theory 

that court officials discarded his petition for nunc pro tunc relief and filed the 

exhibit with the attached envelope for his April 2017 mailing. 
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Thus, Appellant has not produced reasonably verifiable evidence that he 

timely filed his notice of appeal. See Jones, 700 A.2d at 426. Accordingly,

we must quash this appeal. 

Appeal quashed. 

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 3/22/18