J-S70030-15

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION – SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P 65.37

*Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

: PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee :

:

v. :

:

ROBERT WOODARD, :

:

Appellant : No. 968 EDA 2015

Appeal from the PCRA Order March 9, 2015,

Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County,

Criminal Division at No. CP-51-CR-0220171-1992

BEFORE: DONOHUE, LAZARUS and PLATT*, JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY DONOHUE, J.: FILED DECEMBER 14, 2015

Robert Woodard (“Woodard”) appeals from the order of court 

dismissing his petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 

Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-46 (“PCRA”). We affirm.

The record reveals that on December 10, 1992, Woodard was 

convicted of multiple counts of robbery, burglary, rape and possessing an 

instrument of crime. The trial court imposed an aggregate sentence of 

forty-eight to ninety-six years of incarceration. This Court affirmed his 

judgment of sentence on May 5, 1994. Woodard did not seek review of our 

determination with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Accordingly, his 

judgment of sentence became final on June 4, 1994, which marked the 

expiration of the period of time in which Woodard could have sought such 

review. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3).
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On February 2, 2015, Woodard filed the petition at issue in this appeal, 

which he classified as a petition for writ of habeas corpus. In this petition, 

Woodard alleged that he was entitled to relief based upon the United States 

Supreme Court decision in Alleyne v. United States, __ U.S. __, 133 S.Ct. 

2151 (2013), and this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Newman, 99 

A.3d 86 (Pa. Super. 2014). Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, 2/9/15, at 2-

3, 8-11. Despite Woodard’s classification of his filing, the PCRA court 

elected to treat it as a PCRA petition. It concluded that the petition was 

untimely and that Woodard had failed to plead or prove an exception to the 

PCRA’s time-bar, thereby depriving the PCRA court of jurisdiction to consider 

the petition. On this basis, it dismissed Woodard’s petition. PCRA Court 

Opinion, 3/9/15, at 1-3. 

This timely appeal followed, in which Woodard presents eight issues 

for our review. See Woodard’s Brief at 2-3. “Our standard of review of the 

denial of a PCRA petition is limited to examining whether the evidence of 

record supports the court's determination and whether its decision is free of 

legal error.” Commonwealth v. Smith, 121 A.3d 1049, 1052 (Pa. Super. 

2015). 

We begin with the PCRA court’s decision to treat Woodard’s petition as 

a petition filed under the PCRA. Woodard does not explicitly challenge this 

determination; in his sixth issue on appeal, Woodard stops short of arguing 

that his claims are not cognizable under the PCRA, claiming only that his 
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claims can “also” be reviewed under Pennsylvania’s habeas corpus statute. 

Woodard’s Brief at 13. However, because the PCRA court’s disposition was 

premised entirely on that classification, we will begin by reviewing it. 

“[B]oth the PCRA and the state habeas corpus statute contemplate 

that the PCRA subsumes the writ of habeas corpus in circumstances where 

the PCRA provides a remedy for the claim.” Commonwealth v. Hackett, 

956 A.2d 978, 985 (Pa. 2008) (citation omitted). Section 9543 of the PCRA 

addresses eligibility for relief under its provisions. Of relevance, it provides 

as follows: 

§ 9543. Eligibility for relief

(a) General rule.--To be eligible for relief under this 

subchapter, the petitioner must plead and prove by a 

preponderance of the evidence all of the following:

***

(2) That the conviction or sentence resulted from 

one or more of the following:

(i) A violation of the Constitution of this 

Commonwealth or the Constitution or laws of the 

United States 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.

42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9543(a)(2)(i). 

In his petition, Woodard alleges that his sentence is unconstitutional 

based upon the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Alleyne and this 

Court’s decision in Newman. Although Woodard’s claim does not implicate 
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the truth determining process, as required by § 9543(a)(2)(i), the 

Pennsylvania Supreme Court has called for an expansive, not restrictive, 

application of these PCRA’s eligibility requirements, such that there need not 

be a strict adherence to the “truth determining process” language: 

[W]e have held that the scope of the PCRA eligibility 

requirements should not be narrowly confined to its 

specifically enumerated areas of review. 

Commonwealth v. Judge, 591 Pa. 126, 916 A.2d 

511, 520 (2007). Such narrow construction would be 

inconsistent with the legislative intent to channel 

post-conviction claims into the PCRA's framework, 

id., and would instead create a bifurcated system of 

post-conviction review where some post-conviction 

claims are cognizable under the PCRA while others 

are not. Commonwealth v. Lantzy, 558 Pa. 214, 

736 A.2d 564, 569–70 (1999). 

Instead, this Court has broadly interpreted the 

PCRA eligibility requirements ... regardless of the 

‘truth-determining process’ language ... from Section 

9543(a)(2)(i). 

Hackett, 956 A.2d at 986. 

At its heart, Woodard’s claim challenges his sentence as illegal, which 

is a claim that the PCRA is intended to address. Commonwealth v. 

Burkett, 5 A.3d 1260, 1275 (Pa. Super. 2010) (“PCRA review is limited to 

defendants who claim that they were wrongfully convicted and/or are 

serving an illegal sentence.”). Accordingly, in light of the expansive view we 

must take with regard to the PCRA’s eligibility requirements, see Hackett, 

956 A.2d at 986, we find no abuse of discretion in the PCRA court’s 

determination that Woodard’s claim is cognizable under the PCRA. 
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Having so concluded, we turn our attention to whether the trial court 

erred in its determination that it was without jurisdiction to entertain 

Woodard’s petition. It is well established that “[t]he PCRA’s timeliness 

requirements are jurisdictional in nature, and a court may not address the 

merits of the issues raised if the PCRA petition was not timely filed.” 

Commonwealth v. Copenhefer, 941 A.2d 646, 648-49 (Pa. 2007). The 

PCRA provides, in relevant part, as follows: 

(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, 

unless the petition alleges and the petitioner proves 

that:

(i) the failure to raise the claim previously was the 

result of interference by government officials with 

the presentation of the claim in violation of the 

Constitution or laws of this Commonwealth or the 

Constitution or laws of the United States;

(ii) 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; or

(iii) the right asserted is a constitutional right that 

was recognized by the Supreme Court of the United 

States or the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania after 

the time period provided in this section and has been 

held by that court to apply retroactively. 

(2) Any petition invoking an exception provided in 

paragraph (1) shall be filed within 60 days of the 

date the claim could have been presented.

42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b). 
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As explained above, Woodard’s judgment of sentence became final on 

or about June 4, 1994. The present petition was filed on February 9, 2015, 

and so it is clearly untimely on its face. As such, Woodard was required to 

plead and prove one of the exceptions to the one-year time bar contained in 

§ 9545(b)(1), and establish that he filed his petition within sixty days of the 

date the claim could have first been presented, as required by § 9545(b)(2). 

In his PCRA petition, Woodard does not explicitly attempt to establish 

any of the timeliness exceptions in his petition; he alleges only that the 

Alleyne and Newman decisions render his sentence unconstitutional and 

therefore illegal. Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, 2/9/15, at 7-11. To the 

extent that the substance of Woodard’s claim can be interpreted as an 

attempt to raise the exception for “after discovered facts” of subsection 

(b)(1)(ii), this attempt must fail. First, it is well established that recently 

published case law does not qualify as “after discovered facts” for purposes 

of establishing an exception to the PCRA’s time-bar. Commonwealth v. 

Brandon, 51 A.3d 231, 235 (Pa. Super. 2012). To the extent that 

Woodard’s claim can be construed as an attempt to argue that Alleyne

recognized a new constitutional right as contemplated in subsection 

(b)(1)(iii), this attempt must also fail. This Court recently considered 

whether Alleyne applies retroactively to cases on collateral appeal and 

concluded that it does not. Commonwealth v. Riggle, 119 A.3d 1056, 
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1067 (Pa. Super. 2015). Accordingly, he cannot be entitled to relief on this 

basis. 

Because Woodard’s petition was facially untimely and he has failed to 

satisfy the requirements for an exception to the PCRA’s time-bar, the PCRA 

court was correct in its conclusion that it was without jurisdiction to consider 

the merits of the claim raised therein. Finding no error by the PCRA court, 

we affirm. 

Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 12/14/2015