J-S58043-19

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

ROBERT MORRIS ANTHONY 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 885 WDA 2019

Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered May 24, 2019

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

No(s): CP-02-CR-0016531-2002

BEFORE: PANELLA, P.J., BENDER, P.J.E., and DUBOW, J.

MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.: FILED NOVEMBER 27, 2019

Appellant, Robert Morris Anthony, appeals pro se from the May 24, 2019 

Order dismissing his serial petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief 

Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546, as untimely. After careful review, we 

affirm.

We previously set forth the factual history in our Memorandum denying 

Appellant’s pursuit of direct appeal relief. Briefly stated, Appellant was at the 

home of Derriah Baker. Appellant announced that he needed some money, 

and Baker lured Paul Pusic to her home by asking him to bring over some 

milk. Appellant indicated that he would rob Pusic. Once Pusic arrived in his 

vehicle, Appellant approached Pusic and the two men began to struggle. 

During this incident, Appellant fired his gun, hitting Pusic in the torso. 

Appellant then pulled Pusic from the vehicle and left him to die on the 

sidewalk. He then stole Pusic’s vehicle and fled the scene. See 
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Commonwealth v. Anthony, 915 A.2d 138 (Pa. Super. 2006) (unpublished 

memorandum). Following a non-jury trial before the Honorable Donna Jo 

McDaniel, the court convicted Appellant of, inter alia, second-degree homicide, 

robbery, and carrying a firearm without a license. He received a sentence of 

life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

On December 1, 2006, this Court affirmed Appellant’s Judgment of 

Sentence. Id. On June 14, 2007, our Supreme Court denied further review. 

Appellant’s Judgment of Sentence, thus, became final on September 12, 

2007.1 

Appellant’s previous four PCRA Petitions, all decided by Judge McDaniel, 

failed to garner relief.2 Appellant pro se filed the instant Petition, his fifth, on 

March 1, 2019, invoking 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii) to overcome the PCRA’s 

time-bar. Appellant claimed in his Petition that “[s]ince Judge McDaniel was 

removed [from the bench] for over[-]sentencing criminal defendants on 

December 13, 2018, [Appellant] believes that his second[-]degree murder 

conviction should also be overturned because he too was a victim of her over[-

]sentencing procedures.” Petition, 3/1/19, at 4 (unpaginated). He asserted

that, through “numerous acts of [j]udicial [m]isconduct and miscarriages of 

justice” Judge McDaniel “upgraded his degree of guilt to give him a longer 

sentence” and denied his appeals with “false facts.” Id. He also asserted that 

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1 See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(3); U.S.Sup.Ct.R. 13.

2 Judge McDaniel retired from the bench and, on January 30, 2019, this case 

was reassigned to the Honorable Jill E. Rangos. 
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(1) the police arrested him without a valid arrest warrant; (2) that Judge 

McDaniel’s failure to rule on his pretrial suppression motion violated the Code 

of Judicial Conduct; and (3) that Judge McDaniel engaged in misconduct with 

respect to an alleged Brady3 violation. Lastly, Appellant challenges the weight 

the court gave to the Commonwealth’s evidence. Id. at 5-7 (unpaginated). 

On April 5, 2019, the PCRA court notified Appellant, pursuant to 

Pa.R.Crim.P. 907, of its intent to dismiss Appellant’s Petition as untimely 

without a hearing. On May 20, 2019, Appellant filed an Objection to the PCRA 

court’s Rule 907 Notice, reasserting his position that his claims satisfied the 

exception to the PCRA’s time bar set forth at 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii). 

Objection, 5/20/19, at 2-3 (unpaginated). 

The PCRA court dismissed Appellant’s Petition on May 24, 2019. This 

timely appeal followed. Both Appellant and the PCRA court complied with 

Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

Appellant raises the following four issues in his pro se appeal.

1. Did the [PCRA c]ourt err in denying Appellant’s PCRA [p]etition 

without a hearing since Appellant properly pleaded and proved 

an exception to the PCRA time bar[?]

2. Did the [PCRA c]ourt err in denying Appellant’s PCRA [p]etition 

when Appellant proved that he argued a Brady violation in his 

first PCRA [p]etition and Administrative Judge Donna Jo 

McDaniel denied it with false facts, thus committing judicial 

misconduct[?]

3. Did the [PCRA c]ourt err in denying Appellant’s PCRA [p]etition 

because Judge McDaniel’s own opinion and reasoning for 

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3 Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).
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finding Appellant guilty of second[-]degree homicide went 

against the weight of the evidence, thus shocking one’s 

common sense[?]

4. Did the [PCRA c]ourt err in denying Appellant’s PCRA [p]etition 

when Appellant proved that Administrative Judge McDaniel 

violated the code of Judicial Misconduct by never granting or 

denying Appellant’s motion to suppress illegally obtained 

evidence against him before his non-jury trial in violation of his 

due process rights[?]

Appellant’s Brief at 1.

“Our standard of review of a PCRA court’s dismissal of a PCRA petition 

is limited to examining whether the PCRA court’s determination is supported 

by the record evidence and free of legal error.” Commonwealth v. Root, 

179 A.3d 511, 515-16 (Pa. Super. 2018) (citation omitted). This Court grants 

great deference to the findings of the PCRA court if they are supported by the 

record. Commonwealth v. Boyd, 923 A.2d 513, 515 (Pa. Super. 2007). We 

give no such deference, however, to the court’s legal conclusions. 

Commonwealth v. Ford, 44 A.3d 1190, 1194 (Pa. Super. 2012).

Before addressing the merits of Appellant’s claims, we must first 

determine whether we have jurisdiction to entertain the underlying PCRA 

Petition. See Commonwealth v. Hackett, 956 A.2d 978, 983 (Pa. 2008) 

(explaining that the timeliness of a PCRA Petition is a jurisdictional requisite). 

In order to obtain relief under the PCRA, a petition must be timely filed. See

42 Pa.C.S. § 9545 (providing jurisdictional requirements for the timely filing 

of a petition for post-conviction relief). A petition must be filed within one 

year from the date the judgment of sentence became final. Id. at §
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9545(b)(1). Appellant’s Petition, filed almost twelve years after his Judgment 

of Sentence became final, is facially untimely. 

The PCRA, however, provides exceptions to the timeliness requirement 

in certain circumstances. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii). In addition to 

establishing the elements of a timeliness exception, a petitioner must also 

establish that he filed his PCRA Petition within one year of the date he could 

have presented his claim. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2). 

Here, as noted above, Appellant attempts to invoke the exception 

provided in Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) to overcome the PCRA’s time bar. This 

exception requires Appellant to plead and prove “the facts upon which the 

claim is predicated were unknown to the petitioner and could not have been 

ascertained by the exercise of due diligence[.]” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii). 

Our Supreme Court has held that the exception set forth in Section 

9545(b)(1)(ii) “does not require any merits analysis of the underlying claim.” 

Commonwealth v. Bennett, 930 A.2d 1264, 1271 (Pa. 2007). Rather the 

exception merely requires the petitioner to plead and prove two elements: “1) 

the facts upon which the claim was predicated were unknown and 2) could not 

have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence.” Id. at 1272 (internal 

quotation marks omitted) (citing 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii)). “If the 

petitioner alleges and proves these two components, then the PCRA court has 

jurisdiction over the claim under this subsection.” Id.

In an effort to satisfy the elements of the “unknown facts” exception, 

Appellant claims that he became aware of Judge McDaniel “resigning from the 
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[c]ourt after a series of reprimands from a higher court” when he read about 

it in a newspaper article. Appellant’s Brief at 2. Although Appellant did not 

specify when he read about Judge McDaniel’s alleged resignation, he 

nonetheless claims that he filed the instant Petition “within the allotted time.” 

Id. at 3.

Our review of the record confirms the PCRA court’s conclusion that 

Appellant failed to plead and prove the applicability of Section 9545(b)(1)(ii). 

First, Appellant alleges that he learned of Judge McDaniel’s alleged history of 

misconduct from reading a newspaper article, but he did not indicate the date 

of the article. Thus, Appellant did not demonstrate that he acted with due 

diligence. 

Additionally, even if Appellant had established that he acted with due 

diligence, allegations in a newspaper article, whether true or false, are not 

evidence. See Commonwealth v. Castro, 93 A.3d 818, 825 (Pa. 2014) 

(holding that a newspaper “article contain[ed] allegations that suggest such 

evidence may exist, but allegations in the media, whether true or false, are 

no more evidence than allegations in any other out-of-court situation”) and 

Commonwealth v. Griffin, 137 A.3d 605, 610 (Pa. Super. 2016) (holding 

that “newspaper articles do not meet the definition of ‘evidence’ because they 

are merely the reporter’s version of facts and are not admissible at trial.”). 

Because Appellant failed to satisfy this, or any other, exception to the 

PCRA’s time bar, the PCRA court lacked jurisdiction to address the merits of 
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Appellant’s claims. We are, likewise, without jurisdiction to address the merits 

of the issues raised.

Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 11/27/2019