J-S79024-17

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

SAVOY S. ROBINSON 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 2281 EDA 2017

Appeal from the PCRA Order June 23, 2017

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

No(s): CP-51-CR-0807931-2004

BEFORE: GANTMAN, P.J., LAZARUS, J., and OTT, J.

MEMORANDUM BY LAZARUS, J.: FILED JANUARY 23, 2018

Savoy S. Robinson appeals from the order, entered in the Court of 

Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, denying his petition filed pursuant to 

the Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546 (PCRA). Upon 

careful review, we affirm. 

On April 13, 2005, Robinson was sentenced to life imprisonment, plus 

21⁄2 to 5 years, after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and 

possession of an instrument of crime in relation to the shooting death of a 

fellow halfway house resident in July 2004. Robinson’s judgment of sentence 

was affirmed by this Court, and our Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal 

on May 15, 2007. Robinson subsequently filed four PCRA petitions, which 

were either dismissed or withdrawn. Robinson filed the instant petition, his 

fifth, on April 5, 2017, in which he invoked the newly-discovered fact and 

newly-recognized constitutional right exceptions to the PCRA timeliness 
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requirements. Specifically, Robinson asserted that on March 31, 2017, he 

discovered that the trial court and the Commonwealth had “encroached on the 

powers of the Legislative Branch by rewriting and changing the provisions of 

42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9711[ s]entencing procedure for murder of the first degree[, 

t]hus[] arbitrarily creating an unconstitutional sentencing statute[.]” 

Amended PCRA Petition, 5/15/17, at 5. By order dated June 23, 2017, the 

PCRA court dismissed Robinson’s petition as untimely. This timely appeal 

follows, in which Robinson asserts that the PCRA court erred in dismissing his 

petition as untimely and failing to find that he had satisfied one of the 

exceptions to the time bar. 

This court’s standard of reviewing an order dismissing a PCRA petition 

is whether the determination of the PCRA court is supported by the record 

evidence and is free of legal error. Commonwealth v. Hart, 911 A.2d 939, 

941 (Pa. Super. 2006) (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. Carr, 768 A.2d 1164, 1166 (Pa. Super. 2001). 

Generally, a PCRA petition, including a second or subsequent petition, 

must be filed within one year of the date the judgment of sentence is final 

unless the petition alleges, and the petitioner proves, that an exception to the 

time for filing the petition1is met, and that the claim was raised within 60 

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1 The statutory exceptions to the time bar are as follows:
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days of the date on which it became available. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b) and 

(c). The timeliness of a post-conviction petition is jurisdictional. 

Commonwealth v. Lewis, 63 A.3d 1274, 1280–81 (Pa. Super. 2013), 

quoting Commonwealth v. Chester, 895 A.2d 520, 522 (Pa. 2006) (“[I]f a 

PCRA petition is untimely, neither this Court nor the [PCRA] court has 

jurisdiction over the petition. Without jurisdiction, we simply do not have the 

legal authority to address the substantive claims.”).

Here, Robinson’s judgment of sentence became final on or about August 

15, 2007, upon the expiration of the ninety-day period for filing a writ of 

certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3); 

U.S.Sup.Ct.R. 13. Thus, his April 2017 petition, filed nearly ten years after 

his judgment of sentence became final, was patently untimely. Unless 

Robinson pled and proved one of the timeliness exceptions under 42 Pa.C.S.A. 

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(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.

42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii).
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§ 9545(b)(1), the PCRA court was without jurisdiction to consider the merits 

of the petition.

Robinson invokes both the newly-discovered facts and newly-recognized 

constitutional right exceptions to the PCRA time bar. Essentially, Robinson 

asserts that the trial court and Commonwealth encroached on the province of 

the jury by not allowing it to consider imposing the death penalty in violation 

of 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9711, which requires that the jury determine whether a 

defendant convicted of first-degree murder shall be imprisoned for life or 

sentenced to death. Robinson asserts that he discovered this fact on March 

31, 2017, and that he did so with due diligence pursuant to Commonwealth 

v. Burton, 121 A.3d 1063 (Pa. Super. 2015), in which we held that, when 

assessing due diligence under the PCRA, the presumption of access to 

information available in the public domain does not apply to pro se petitioners. 

Robinson is entitled to no relief.

Robinson claims that the trial court and Commonwealth “rewrote” and 

“changed” the provisions of section 9711 at the time of his trial. However, a 

statute in existence at the time of Robinson’s trial is not a “new fact” within 

the meaning of the PCRA. See Commonwealth v. Watts, 23 A.3d 980 (Pa. 

2011) (subsequent court decision not “new fact” for purposes of PCRA 

timeliness exception). Moreover, Robinson is unable to explain why he was 

unable to “discover” section 9711 until March 31, 2017. Instead, he places 

mistaken reliance on Burton, in which a pro se PCRA petitioner discovered an 

exculpatory confession made by a co-defendant more than 15 years after his 
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trial, at a time when the petitioner was no longer represented by counsel. 

Conversely, here, Robinson was represented by counsel at the time of trial, at 

which time he could have discovered the existence of section 9711. 

Because Robinson failed to plead and prove any exception to the time 

bar, the PCRA court did not err in dismissing his patently untimely petition.

Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 1/23/18