IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Lamont Saunders, : Petitioner :

:

v. : No. 1221 C.D. 2016

: Submitted: April 13, 2017 Pennsylvania Department : of Corrections, : Respondent :

BEFORE: HONORABLE P. KEVIN BROBSON, Judge

HONORABLE JULIA K. HEARTHWAY, Judge HONORABLE BONNIE BRIGANCE LEADBETTER, Senior Judge

OPINION NOT REPORTED

MEMORANDUM OPINION BY JUDGE BROBSON FILED: August 10, 2017

Lamont Saunders (Petitioner), acting pro se , petitions for review of a

Final Determination of the Office of Open Records (OOR) , issued June 29, 2016

, which found that no further action was required of the Pennsylvania Department of
Corrections (Department) in regard to Petitioner’s request under Pennsyl vania ’s
Right

- to

- Know Law. 1 Petitioner does not dispute the determination of the
Department or that of the OOR, but he instead seeks to challenge the legality of his

criminal confinement. For the reas ons set forth below, we affirm.

Petitioner is an inmate incarcerated at the State Correctional
Institution at Dallas (SCI

- Dallas). Petitioner filed a Right

- to

- Know Law request with the Department’ s Open Records Officer, seeking a copy of the “Written

1 Act of February 14, 2008, P.L. 6, 65 P.S. §§ 67.101

- .3104.2

J udgment of Sentence Order” for case number CP

- 51

- CR

- 0700051

- 2003

. (Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 1

. ) Petitioner sought a copy of the sentencing ord er with the judge’s signature, the statu te under which he was sentenced, and the
“statutory authorization” to impose a life sentence without parole. ( R.R. at 1. ) The
Open Records Officer denied Petitioner ’s request on the grounds that “[t]he
record(s) that [he] requested do[es] not currently exist in the possession of the
Department. ” ( R .R. at 2

. )

Petitioner appealed to the OOR. In response, the Department

submi tted an attestation signed by Diane Yale, the Correc tions Records Supervisor

at SCI

- Dallas, stating, in pertinent part :

If the specific records requested above were in the possession of this Institution, they would be retained as official records in files within my custody. After a reasonable search, no responsive records exist within my custody, possession or control.
(R.R. at 8.) The OOR subsequently issued a Final Determination on

June 29, 2016 , de nying Petitioner’ s appeal, finding that the Department “ has
established that no responsive records exist.” (R.R. at 9.) Petitioner thereafter
petitioned this Court for review

.

On appeal, 2 Petitioner makes clear that he does not appeal the Final

Determination of the OOR. Rather, Petitioner seeks to challen ge the legality of his
detention and confinement, stating:

IT IS NOT AND WAS NOT THIS PETITIONER’ S INTENTION OR AIM TO APPEAL THE FINDINGS

2 On appeal from the OOR in a RTKL case, this Court’ s standard of review is de novo

, and our scope of review is plenary. Bowling v. Office of Open Records

, 75 A.3d 453, 477 ( Pa. 2013).3 OF THE [DEPARTMENT] OR THE [OOR] STATING THAT THE WRITTEN JUDGMENT OF SENTENCE ORDER IS NOT IN THEIR POSSESSION[.] IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN HIS AIM TO CHALLENGE HIS DETENTION AND CONFINEMENT BEING UNCONSTITUTIONAL WITHOUT THIS LAWFUL DOCUMENT. (Petitioner’s B r. at 28 ( e mphasis in original ) .) The essence of Petitioner’ s argument is that if his sentencing order does not exis t in the possession of the
Department, his incarceration must be illegal. 3 ( Id. at 9.) Petitioner, therefore,
requests that this Court remand this matter to the Court of Common Pleas and
allow Petitioner to file a Writ of Habeas Corpus. ( Id. at 20 .)

Pe titioner is essentially attempting to use the Right

- to

- Know Law ’s
appeal process to challenge the constitutionality of his criminal sentence. The
Right

- to

- Know Law , however, is not a vehicle through which an individual can
collaterally attack the legality of his criminal confinement. Foster v. Pa

. Dep ’ t of

Corr

. , 159 A.3d 1020, 1022 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2017) ; see also Moore v. Office of Open

Records , 992 A.2d 907, 910 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2010) (“[A] n appeal from an OOR order
denying Moore’ s request for access to a public record is not the proper forum to
challenge the constitutionality of his continued incarceration.”)

. The
Right

- to

- Know Law does not contain any statutory provisions or procedures
providing an individual with a right or avenue to declare his underly ing judgment

3 In support of this argument, Petitioner cites 34 Pa. Code § 91.3 , which provides , in part : The Department will accept and confine those persons committed to it under lawful court orders which conform to 42 Pa. C.S. § 9762 (relating to sentencing proceeding; place of confinement) when information has been provided to the Department as required by 42 Pa. C.S. § 9764 (relating to information required upon commitm ent and subsequent disposition).4

of sentence a legal nullity. Foster , 159 A.3d at 1022. Indeed, our Supre me Court

has held that the P ost Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 9541

- 9546, is the

exclusive state law remedy for prisoners challenging sentences that are allegedly
illegal. Commonwealth v. Descardes , 136 A.3d 493, 499 (Pa. 2016).

Additionally, t his Court addressed an argument that was essentially

identical to Petitioner’s in both Foster v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

and Morrison v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

, ___ A.3d

___ (Pa.
Cmwlth., No. 2002 C.D. 2016, filed May 23, 2017)

. In Foster , the incarcerated
petitioner sought to challenge his incarceration on the basis that the state

correctional institution where he was located did not h ave a copy of his sentencing

order. Foster , 159 A.3d at 1022. We explained that the incarcerated petitioner

could not use the Right

- to

- Know Law appeal process to collaterally attack the
sentencing court’ s judgment of sentence

. Id. at 1022

- 23. Similarly , in Morrison

, addressing another attempt to challenge confinement by a Right

- to

- Know Law
request, this Court explained that “[b]ecause in this case [petitio ner] does not
challenge the OOR’ s denial of his appeal, but rather seeks relief outside the
[Right

- to

- Know Law]

, this Court must affirm the OOR’ s Final Determination.”

Morrison

,

___ A.3d at

___ , slip op. at 5. 4

4 Likewise, we reached the same conclusion in Whitaker v. Pennsylvania Department of
Correction s (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 1781 C.D. 2012, filed March 8, 2013) ; Quarles v. Department of
Corrections (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 901 C.D. 2014, filed November 10, 2014) ; Gates v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 441 C.D. 2014, filed July 9, 2014) ; Huntley v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 1202 C .D. 2016, filed March 2, 2017)

, petition for allowance of appeal pending , (Pa., No. 383 MAL 2017) ; Dozier v. Department of Corrections (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 1613 C.D. 2016, filed March 1 6, 2017); Rhone v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 1690 C.D. 2016, filed
June 14, 2017); Fortune v. Department of Corrections (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 1765 C.D. 2016, filed June 27, 2017); Rogers v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (Pa. Cmwlth., (Footnote continued on next page...)5 Here, like the petitioners in Foster and Morrison , Petitioner attempts

to use his Right

- to

- Know Law appeal to collaterally attack his criminal

confinement. His request to remand to common pleas to challenge the legality of
his incarceration is outside the scope of a Right

- to

- Know Law appeal. Because

Petitioner does not chall enge the denial of his Right

- to

- Know Law request but,
rather, the lega lity of his detention and confinement, the a ppeal procedure under
the Right

- to

- Know Law is not the appropriate avenue for his action. T his Court

has no basi s upon which to reverse the OOR’ s Final Determination.

Accordingly, we affirm.

P. KEVIN BROBSON, Judge

(continued...)

No. 2068 C.D. 2016, filed June 28, 2017); and most recently in Person v. Department of
Corrections (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 1763 C.D. 2016, filed June 29, 2017). We acknowledge that Whitaker, Quarles

, Gate s , Huntley

, Dozier

, Rhone

, Fortune

, Rogers , and Person , as unreported panel decision s of this Court, have persuasive value, but they do not constitute binding precedent. IOP § 414(a), 210 Pa. Code § 69.414(a).IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Lamont Saunders, : Petitioner :

:

v. : No. 1221 C.D. 2016

: Pennsylvania Department : of Corrections, : Respondent :

O R D E R

AND NOW, this 10 th day of August , 201 7

, the Final Determinatio n of
the Office of Open Records is AFFIRMED.

P. KEVIN BROBSON, Judge