J-S22038-18

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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

 Appellee

v.

GREGORY DUNBAR, 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 3374 EDA 2017

Appeal from the PCRA Order September 11, 2017

in the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County 

Criminal Division at Nos.: CP-09-CR-0002434-1985 

CP-09-CR-0002435-1985

CP-09-CR-0002436-1985

BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., STABILE, J., and PLATT*, J.

MEMORANDUM BY PLATT, J.: FILED JULY 23, 2018

Appellant, Gregory Dunbar, appeals pro se from the order denying as 

untimely his serial petition for relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act 

(“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541–9546. Appellant’s facially untimely petition 

does not plead or prove any of the three statutory exceptions to the PCRA 

time bar. Accordingly, we affirm.

This petition is the latest of over a dozen unsuccessful petitions for postconviction relief, filed in state and federal court. Several, including the instant

petition, are incorrectly styled as a petition for habeas corpus relief.1 

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1 We note that with limited exceptions not applicable here, the PCRA subsumes 

petitions for habeas corpus relief. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9542. 
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On October 7, 1985, Appellant entered counseled pleas of guilty but 

mentally ill to three separate criminal informations involving numerous 

crimes, which included attempted murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, 

and simple assault.2 On January 15, 1986, the court sentenced him to an 

aggregate term of incarceration of not less than twenty nor more than forty 

years in a state correctional institution. Appellant did not file a direct appeal.3 

On July 24, 2017, Appellant filed the instant petition, styled as a petition 

for a writ of habeas corpus, thirty years after his conviction became final and 

twenty years after the extended jurisdictional time period had expired. The 

PCRA court denied the petition on September 11, 2017. On September 25, 

2017, Appellant filed a motion for recusal and reconsideration (on the ground 

that he had filed a private criminal complaint against the PCRA court judge,

as well as other court personnel). The PCRA court denied the motion on 

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2 Appellant raped one woman at knifepoint, and gutted a second, requiring 

surgery to restore her intestines to their proper place in her abdomen. He 

broke into a home occupied by the third Victim and her two small children. 

He stabbed her in the abdomen, robbed her, and forced her to have anal and 

vaginal intercourse with him. The knife Appellant used, with the Victim’s blood 

still on it, was found in his closet. 

3 Settled Pennsylvania law makes clear that by entering a guilty plea, the 

defendant waives his right to challenge on direct appeal all non-jurisdictional 

defects except the legality of the sentence and the validity of the plea. See 

Commonwealth v. Lincoln, 72 A.3d 606, 609 (Pa. Super. 2013), appeal 

denied, 87 A.3d 319 (Pa. 2014). 
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October 4, 2017. The clerk of courts received Appellant’s notice of appeal on 

October 16, 2017. 

Appellant presents five questions for our review:

1. Did the court error [sic] and abuse its discretion by 

dismissing habeas corpus action as a PCRA in cases 2435 and 

2436 which expired in 2005?

2. Did the court abuse its discretion by ruling Appellant’s 

(which allege fraud and want of jurisdiction) [sic] issues were not 

cognizable under PCRA?

3. Did the court abuse it discretion by not granting a hearing 

(habeas corpus) on allegation that the state coersed [sic] a victim 

in case 2435, to falsely identify Appellant under oath at 

preliminary hearing, and suppress a pretrial statement that would 

of [sic] exonerated Appellant?

4. Did the court abuse its discretion by ruling Appellant was 

time barred from bring [sic] fraud claim, and challenge to court’s 

jurisdiction?

5. Did the court abuse its discretion by denying Appellant’s 

recusal petition and reconsideration request after Appellant 

informed court he filed criminal charges against it?

(Appellant’s Brief, at 5) 

Our standard of review of an order denying PCRA relief is 

whether the record supports the PCRA court’s determination, and 

whether the PCRA court’s determination is free of legal error. The 

PCRA court’s findings will not be disturbed unless there is no 

support for the findings in the certified record. 

It is undisputed that a PCRA petition must be filed within 

one year of the date that the judgment of sentence becomes final.

[See] 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1). This time requirement is 

mandatory and jurisdictional in nature, and the court may not 

ignore it in order to reach the merits of the petition. 

A judgment of sentence becomes final at the conclusion of 

direct review, including discretionary review in the Supreme Court 
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of the United States and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, or 

at the expiration of time for seeking the review. [See] 42 

Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3).

However, an untimely petition may be received when the 

petition alleges, and the petitioner proves, that any of the three 

limited exceptions to the time for filing the petition, set forth at 

42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(i), (ii), and (iii), is met. A petition 

invoking one of these exceptions must be filed within sixty days 

of the date the claim could first have been presented. [See] 42 

Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(2). In order to be entitled to the exceptions 

to the PCRA’s one-year filing deadline, the petitioner must plead 

and prove specific facts that demonstrate his claim was raised 

within the sixty-day time frame under section 9545(b)(2). 

Commonwealth v. Hernandez, 79 A.3d 649, 651–52 (Pa. Super. 2013)

(citations, internal quotation marks, and footnote omitted). 

Here, initially, we observe that Appellant misapprehends our standard 

of review, which determines whether the record supports the PCRA court’s 

determination, and whether the PCRA court’s determination is free of legal 

error. See id. at 651. We do not review for abuse of discretion. 

To be timely, Appellant’s PCRA petition had to be filed within one year 

from the date his judgment of sentence became final, which would have been 

at the conclusion of direct review by this Court, or at the expiration of time 

for seeking the review. [See] 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545 (b)(3); see also 

Commonwealth v. Alcorn, 703 A.2d 1054, 1056 (Pa. Super. 1997), appeal 

denied, 724 A.2d 348 (Pa. 1998). Our review of the record reflects that 

Appellant’s judgment of sentence became final on February 14, 1986, thirty 

days after the trial court imposed the judgment of sentence and Appellant 

declined to file a direct appeal with this Court. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3); 
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Pa.R.A.P. 903(a). Appellant filed his first petition on March 31, 1986, under 

the Post Conviction Hearing Act.4 Appellant did not file the instant PCRA 

petition until July 24, 2017. Thus, Appellant’s PCRA petition currently on 

appeal is patently untimely, unless he pleads and proves one of the three 

statutory exceptions to the PCRA time bar. 

However, Appellant fails to plead any of the three cognizable exceptions 

to the PCRA time bar.5 

Accordingly, the PCRA court properly determined that Appellant’s 

petition is untimely, with no cognizable exception to the statutory time bar 

pleaded or proven, and it lacked jurisdiction to review Appellant’s claims on 

the merits. 

Order affirmed.6

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4 We note for the sake of completeness and clarity that Appellant is ineligible 

for the grace period which was applied to first PCRA petitions, where the 

petitioner’s judgment of sentence became final on or before the effective date 

of the 1995 amendments, allowing the petition to be considered timely if filed 

by January 16, 1997. See Act of November 17, 1995, P.L. 1118, No. 32 

(Spec. Sess. No. 1), § 3(1); see also Commonwealth v. Rivera, 802 A.2d 

629, 631 (Pa. Super. 2002). As previously noted, Appellant filed his first 

petition on March 31, 1986, under the Post Conviction Hearing Act. 

5

Instead, he asserts a variety of purported abuses of discretion, not 

cognizable under the PCRA, most notably the frivolous claim that the PCRA 

court had refused his motion to recuse for lack of jurisdiction based on 

Appellant’s private criminal complaint against the PCRA court judge. 

6 The PCRA court suggests that the instant claim be quashed because the

notice of appeal was not received until October 16, 2017. (See PCRA Court 

Opinion, at 3). However, the certified record includes Appellant’s envelope 
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Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 7/23/18

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with a postmark of October 10, 2017. “[A] pro se prisoner’s appeal will be 

deemed to be filed when the inmate places the document in the hands of 

prison officials or in the prison mailbox[.]” Smith v. Pennsylvania Bd. of 

Prob. & Parole, 683 A.2d 278, 279 (Pa. 1996). Accordingly, we give 

Appellant the benefit of the Prisoner Mailbox Rule. Nevertheless, we may 

affirm the decision of the PCRA court if there is any basis on the record to 

support the PCRA court’s action; this is so even if we rely on a different basis 

in our decision to affirm. See Commonwealth v. Wiley, 966 A.2d 1153, 

1157 (Pa. Super. 2009).