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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37 

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF 

PENNSYLVANIA 

v. 

TERRENCE BONNER, No. 3972 EDA 2017 

Appellant 

Appeal from the PCRA Order, December 11, 2017, 

in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County 

Criminal Division at No. CP-51-CR-0015853-2008 

BEFORE: GANTMAN, P.J., PANELLA, J., AND FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E. 

MEMORANDUM BY FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.: FILED JANUARY 07, 2019 

Terrence Bonner appeals from the December 11, 2017 order 

dismissing his petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act 

("PCRA"), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. After careful review, we affirm. 

The relevant facts of this case were summarized by a prior panel of 

this court on direct appeal and need not be reiterated in full here. See 

Commonwealth v. Bonner, 27 A.3d 255, 255-257 (Pa.Super. 2011), 

appeal denied, 40 A.3d 1233 (Pa. 2012). In sum, in the early morning 

hours of April 13, 2008, appellant broke into the home of the victims, 

N.P. ("Husband") and M.M. ("Wife"), robbed them at knifepoint, sexually 

assaulted wife, and stole their vehicle. On September 25, 2009, a jury 

found appellant guilty of burglary, robbery, robbery of a motor vehicle, 
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possessing instruments of crime, and indecent assault' in connection with 

this incident. Following his convictions, the trial court sentenced appellant to 

an aggregate term of 13 to 26 years' imprisonment on November 20, 2009. 

Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal on December 9, 2009.2 

On August 17, 2011, a panel of this court affirmed appellant's 

judgment of sentence, and our supreme court denied allowance of appeal on 

March 13, 2012. Id. Appellant did not seek review with the United States 

Supreme Court. On April 9, 2012, appellant filed a timely pro se PCRA 

petition, and Michael L. Doyle, Esq. ("Attorney Doyle"), was appointed to 

represent him. On May 16, 2014, Attorney Doyle filed an amended PCRA 

petition on appellant's behalf. Attorney Doyle subsequently left the practice 

of law, and appellant's current counsel, Zak T. Goldstein, Esq. 

("PCRA counsel"), was appointed to represent him. On May 5, 2017, PCRA 

counsel filed a second amended PCRA petition on appellant's behalf. On 

October 24, 2017, the Commonwealth filed a motion to dismiss appellant's 

second amended petition. On November 13, 2017, the PCRA court provided 

appellant with notice of its intention to dismiss his petition without a 

hearing, pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 907(1). Appellant did not file a response 

' 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 3502(a), 3701(a), 3702(a), 907(a), and 3126(a), 

respectively. 

2 Appellant was represented during his jury trial by Peter L. Maas, Esq. ("trial 

counsel"), and on direct appeal by Karl Baker, Esq. and Owen Larrabee, Esq. 

(collectively, "appellate counsel"). 

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to the PCRA court's Rule 907 notice. Thereafter, on December 11, 2017, the 

PCRA court dismissed appellant's petition without an evidentiary hearing. 

This timely appeal followed.3 

Appellant raises the following issues for our review: 

I. Whether the PCRA Court erred in denying 

[a]ppellant's [PCRA] Petition because trial 

counsel was ineffective in failing to object to 

the prosecution's closing argument about crime 

in Philadelphia because the argument was 

unfairly prejudicial and calculated only to 

inflame the passions of the jury[?] 

II. Whether the PCRA Court erred in denying 

[a]ppellant's [PCRA] Petition because trial 

counsel was ineffective in failing to object and 

request a mistrial or cautionary jury instruction 

when the Commonwealth presented 

identification evidence and argued in closing 

that the complainants had successfully 

identified [a]ppellant as the person who 

burglarized their home after the 

Commonwealth, in order to defeat a defense 

motion for a pre-trial lineup, stipulated at the 

preliminary hearing that the witnesses would 

never identify [a]ppellant as the person who 

burglarized their home[?] 

III. Whether the PCRA Court erred in denying 

[a]ppellant's [PCRA] Petition where appellate 

counsel in [a]ppellant's direct appeal was 

ineffective in failing to challenge [a]ppellant's 

conviction based on the sufficiency of the 

evidence where the only evidence connecting 

[a]ppellant to the crime was the presence of 

3 The record reflects that on December 12, 2017, the PCRA court directed 

appellant to file a concise statement of errors complained of on appeal, in 

accordance with Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b). Appellant filed his timely Rule 1925(b) 

statement on December 15, 2017, and the PCRA court filed its Rule 1925(a) 

opinion on June 6, 2018. 

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his fingerprints on an inherently movable 

object which was taken during the crime 

approximately half an hour to an hour later[?] 

Appellant's brief at vii -viii. 

Proper appellate review of a PCRA court's dismissal of a PCRA petition 

is limited to the examination of "whether the PCRA court's determination is 

supported by the record and free of legal error." Commonwealth v. Miller, 

102 A.3d 988, 992 (Pa.Super. 2014) (citation omitted). "The PCRA court's 

findings will not be disturbed unless there is no support for the findings in 

the certified record." Commonwealth v. Lawson, 90 A.3d 1, 4 (Pa.Super. 

2014) (citations omitted). "This Court grants great deference to the findings 

of the PCRA court, and we will not disturb those findings merely because the 

record could support a contrary holding." Commonwealth v. Hickman, 

799 A.2d 136, 140 (Pa.Super. 2002) (citation omitted). 

When the PCRA court denies a petition without an evidentiary hearing, 

as is the case here, we "examine each issue raised in the PCRA petition in 

light of the record certified before it in order to determine if the PCRA court 

erred in its determination that there were no genuine issues of material fact 

in controversy and in denying relief without conducting an evidentiary 

hearing." Commonwealth v. Khalifah, 852 A.2d 1238, 1240 (Pa.Super. 

2004). This court has long recognized that there is no absolute right to an 

evidentiary hearing. Commonwealth v. Hart, 911 A.2d 939, 941 

(Pa.Super. 2006) (citation omitted). "It is within the PCRA court's discretion 

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to decline to hold a hearing if the petitioner's claim is patently frivolous and 

has no support either in the record or other evidence." Commonwealth 

v. Wah, 42 A.3d 335, 338 (Pa.Super. 2012) (citations omitted). 

Appellant's first two claims concern the effectiveness of his trial 

counsel. To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under the 

PCRA, a petitioner must establish the following three factors: "first[,] the 

underlying claim has arguable merit; second, that counsel had no reasonable 

basis for his action or inaction; and third, that Appellant was prejudiced." 

Commonwealth v. Charleston, 94 A.3d 1012, 1020 (Pa.Super. 2014) 

(citation omitted), appeal denied, 104 A.3d 523 (Pa. 2014). 

[A] PCRA petitioner will be granted relief only when 

he proves, by a preponderance of the evidence, that 

his conviction or sentence resulted from the 

[i]neffective assistance of counsel which, in the 

circumstances of the particular case, so undermined 

the truth -determining process that no reliable 

adjudication of guilt or innocence could have taken 

place. 

Commonwealth v. Spotz, 84 A.3d 294, 311 (Pa. 2014) (internal quotation 

marks omitted; some brackets in original), citing 42 Pa.C.S.A. 

§ 9543(a)(2)(ii). 

"[C]ounsel is presumed to be effective and the burden of 

demonstrating ineffectiveness rests on appellant." Commonwealth v. 

Ousley, 21 A.3d 1238, 1242 (Pa.Super. 2011) (citation omitted), appeal 

denied, 30 A.3d 487 (Pa. 2011). Additionally, counsel is not ineffective for 

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failing to raise a claim that is devoid of merit. Commonwealth v. Ligons, 

971 A.2d 1125, 1146 (Pa. 2009). 

Appellant contends that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to 

object to comments the prosecutor made during her closing argument that 

referenced crime in Philadelphia. (Appellant's brief at 4.) Specifically, 

Assistant District Attorney Allyson Busch ("ADA Busch") made the following 

comments during her closing statement which appellant now challenges on 

appeal: 

Now, the defense would like you to ask us for more, 

always more. More prints from the house, more 

work by the police, more investigation . . . . Ladies 

and gentlemen as I told you from the beginning, this 

is real crime in Philadelphia. This is not CSI, it's not 

a TV show. I don't get to write in everything I wish I 

could possibly have in a case. That's not what the 

law requires. These are detectives and police 

officers that have gone up elevators with you just as 

you have every day this week. You've seen what 

crime is like in Philadelphia. You've seen what 

this Criminal Justice Center is. It is a shame 

that our Crime Scene Unit can't go to every 

single home invasion where a knife has been 

held to someone's throat. That we're so plagued 

by other things that they have to stay busy with. 

That our cops have limited resources. But they did a 

heck of a lot in this case. They held the scene. They 

tried to print the house where they thought that they 

could possibly get prints. They lifted prints that just 

were no good. 

Notes of testimony, 9/24/09 at 149-150 (emphasis added). 

Appellant argues that ADA Busch's comments were "prejudicial, 

inflammatory, and burden -shifting" and that trial counsel's failure to object 

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on this basis entitles him to a new trial. (Rule 1925(b) statement, 12/15/17 

at ¶ la; see also appellant's brief at vii, 6-7.) We disagree. 

"Our standard of review for a claim of prosecutorial misconduct is 

limited to whether the trial court abused its discretion." Commonwealth v. 

Harris, 884 A.2d 920, 927 (Pa.Super. 2005) (citations omitted), appeal 

denied, 928 A.2d 1289 (Pa. 2007). Not every unwise remark on a 

prosecutor's part, however, constitutes reversible error. Id. "Prosecutorial 

misconduct occurs when the effect of the prosecutor's comments would be 

to prejudice the trier of fact, forming in its mind fixed bias and hostility 

toward the defendant so that it could not weigh the evidence objectively and 

render a true verdict." Commonwealth v. Duffy, 832 A.2d 1132, 1137 

(Pa.Super. 2003), appeal denied, 845 A.2d 816 (Pa. 2004). 

Counsel['s] remarks to the jury may contain fair 

deductions and legitimate inferences from the 

evidence presented during the testimony. The 

prosecutor may always argue to the jury that the 

evidence establishes the defendant's guilt, although 

a prosecutor may not offer his personal opinion as to 

the guilt of the accused either in argument or in 

testimony from the witness stand. Nor may he or 

she express a personal belief and opinion as to the 

truth or falsity of evidence of defendant's guilt, 

including the credibility of a witness. 

Commonwealth v. Chmiel, 777 A.2d 459, 466 (Pa.Super. 2001), appeal 

denied, 788 A.2d 372 (Pa. 2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 1059 (2002). 

Following our careful review, we agree with the PCRA court that 

ADA Busch's comments, when read as a whole, were not so prejudicial as to 

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warrant that a new trial be granted. "A petitioner establishes prejudice 

when he demonstrates that there is a reasonable probability that, but for 

counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have 

been different." Commonwealth v. Johnson, 966 A.2d 523, 533 (Pa. 

2009) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). "[A] prosecutor is 

permitted fairly wide latitude in advocating for the Commonwealth, including 

the right to argue all fair conclusions from the evidence, to respond to 

defense arguments, and to engage in a certain degree of oratorical flair." 

Harris, 884 A.2d at 931. All such comments must be reviewed in the 

context in which they were made. Commonwealth v. Robinson, 877 A.2d 

433, 441 (Pa. 2005). 

Here, the record reflects that ADA Busch's references to crime in 

Philadelphia were not the type of comments that would cause the jury to 

form a fixed bias or hostility towards appellant and prevent it from rendering 

a fair and impartial verdict. Rather, ADA Busch's comments were a fair 

response to trial counsel's repeated arguments throughout trial bemoaning 

the lack of fingerprint and DNA evidence presented by the Commonwealth. 

(See notes of testimony, 9/23/09 at 40-42; 9/24/09 at 135-137.) 

Accordingly, appellant's trial counsel had no basis upon which to object, and 

appellant's underlying ineffectiveness claim must fail. See Commonwealth 

v. Rivera, 816 A.2d 282, 292 (Pa.Super. 2003) (stating, "counsel will not be 

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considered ineffective for failing to pursue meritless claims."), appeal 

denied, 828 A.2d 350 (Pa. 2003). 

Appellant also contends that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to 

object to comments ADA Busch made during her closing argument that 

referenced the fact that appellant fit the description of the assailant given by 

the victims at trial. (Appellant's brief at 10.) Specifically, ADA Busch stated 

as follows: 

They may not be able to say it was [appellant], but 

boy did they get a good description of him, five-foot 

eight, dark complexion, wearing a purple T-shirt with 

writing on it, a bandana on his head. We know 

[appellant] a month later had a black doo rag on. 

Late 30's, clean shaven, medium build, athletic. May 

15 of last year [appellant] looked something a lot 

more like this. Gray hair not very visible especially if 

it's covered, no beard. They can't name him or 

but [sic] they can tell you exactly what he looks like 

and that's what they did. 

I guess the defense would have you believe, I guess, 

even though there's absolutely no evidence of this in 

the record, that some man came in at 4:30 in the 

morning at 1211 South Juniper looking a heck of a 

lot like [appellant], same build, height, skin color, 

something on his head, terrorized them, took their 

car, drove around awhile, parked it. . . . 

. . . The evidence shows that a man that looks just 

like him broke into that house, took the keys, took 

the car, left his prints, drove it around, parked in his 

hurry to escape a violation home invasion that he 

had just committed. . . . 

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Notes of testimony, 9/24/09 at 146, 151-152. 

Appellant contends that these comments were the equivalent of 

informing he jury "that the complainants had successfully identified 

[a]ppellant as the person who burglarized their home[,]" and that the 

Commonwealth was precluded from doing so because it had stipulated at the 

December 4, 2008 preliminary hearing that the victims could not identify 

appellant as the perpetrator. (Appellant's brief at vii, 11-15; see also notes 

of testimony, 12/4/08 at 4-6.) 

Upon review, we find that appellant's claim that trial counsel was 

ineffective for failing to object to ADA Busch's closing argument on this basis 

is meritless. It is well settled that a prosecutor is permitted to argue 

reasonable and legitimate inferences from the testimony presented at trial. 

See Chmiel, 777 A.2d at 466. Contrary to appellant's contention, neither 

victim in this case specifically identified appellant as their assailant at trial, 

but merely described the physical characteristics of the individual who 

assaulted them on the morning in question. Wife testified that the individual 

who broke into her home and assaulted her was between 5'8" and 5'9" in 

height, had a medium build, and a dark complexion. (Notes of testimony, 

9/23/09 at 79.) Likewise, Husband testified that Wife's assailant had an 

average, athletic build, dark skin, and was wearing a bandana and "purplish" 

T-shirt. (Id. at 123-124.) ADA Busch's comments during her summation 

merely asked the jury to draw a reasonable inference that appellant, who 

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matched the physical description given by the victims, was the individual 

who broke into their home. See Chmiel, 777 A.2d at 466. These 

comments were supported by the record and were entirely proper. 

Accordingly, trial counsel had no basis upon which to object, and appellant's 

ineffectiveness claim must fail. See Rivera, 816 A.2d at 292 (stating, 

"counsel will not be considered ineffective for failing to pursue meritless 

claims[]"). 

In his final claim, appellant argues that appellate counsel were 

ineffective for failing to argue on direct appeal that the Commonwealth failed 

to present sufficient evidence to prove his identity as the perpetrator. 

(Appellant's brief at 16.) In support of this contention, appellant avers that 

the only evidence linking him to this crime was the fingerprint evidence 

recovered from inside the victims' vehicle, "an inherently movable object," 

and that the Commonwealth "failed to eliminate the possibility that [he] had 

been in the car on a previous occasion. . . ." (Id. at xvi, 18-19.) Appellant 

maintains that there were numerous other explanations as to why his 

fingerprints were discovered inside the vehicle, including the fact that he 

may have entered the vehicle to search for valuables on another occasion; 

or that he may have entered the vehicle for some other purpose in the hour 

it had been missing. (Id. at 19.) Appellant argues that appellate counsel 

had no reasonable basis for failing to pursue this particular argument on 

appeal. (Id.) We disagree. 
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It is well settled that "post -conviction relief claims alleging that 

counsel had provided ineffective assistance are generally to be considered 

distinct from the underlying claims that the trial court erred, even though 

such underlying claims of error had been litigated on direct appeal." 

Commonwealth v. Kimbrough, 938 A.2d 447, 450 (Pa.Super. 2007); 

Commonwealth v. Collins, 888 A.2d 564, 571-572 (Pa. 2005). "As we 

made clear in Collins, although we will analyze a distinct claim of 

ineffectiveness that is based on the underlying issue decided on direct 

appeal, in many cases those claims will fail for the same reasons they failed 

on direct appeal." Commonwealth v. Washington, 927 A.2d 586, 607 

(Pa. 2007), citing Collins. 

Upon review, we agree with the PCRA court that appellant's underlying 

sufficiency claim lacks arguable merit, and thus, appellant's ineffectiveness 

claim must fail. The record reflects that on direct appeal, a panel of this 

court held that there was sufficient evidence to sustain appellant's conviction 

for robbery of a motor vehicle. See Bonner, 27 A.3d at 257-258. 

Specifically, the Bonner court found that evidence established that appellant 

took the victim into the kitchen with a knife at her throat, repeatedly 

threatened to kill her until she handed over the keys to her car, and 

ultimately fled from the house in victim's car. Id. at 258. As this court has 

already concluded that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to infer that 

appellant was the perpetrator of the crimes in question, any alternative 

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argument to the contrary would have also failed. As noted, appellate 

counsel cannot be deemed ineffective for failing to raise a claim that is 

devoid of merit. See Ligons, 971 A.2d at 1146. 

Based on the foregoing, we discern no error on the part of the PCRA 

court in dismissing appellant's petition without conducting an evidentiary 

hearing. 

Order affirmed. 

Judgment Entered. 

Joseph D. Seletyn, 

Prothonotary 

Date: 1/7/19 

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