J-S37006-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

RONALD CLARK 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 2142 EDA 2021

Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered October 14, 2021

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

No(s): CP-51-CR-1241151-1993

BEFORE: BOWES, J., LAZARUS, J., and OLSON, J.

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Ronald Clark appeals from the order entered on October 14, 2021, 

wherein the trial court dismissed the PCRA petition as untimely. We affirm. 

On December 2, 1994, a jury convicted Appellant of murder, possessing 

instruments of crime (“PIC”), and criminal conspiracy in relation to the 

October 7, 1993 shooting of Aineis Sunn Life after an argument in a 

Philadelphia delicatessen. Following a penalty-phase hearing, the jury 

sentenced Appellant to death. Our Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of 

sentence on April 2, 1998. See Commonwealth v. Clark, 710 A.2d 31 (Pa. 

1998).

Appellant timely filed a PCRA petition asserting, inter alia, that 

Philadelphia Police Homicide Detective Manuel Santiago coerced a witness, 

Sherry Taggart, to identify him as the assailant in a photographic array. See
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Commonwealth v. Clark, 961 A.2d 80, 90 (Pa. 2008) Following an 

evidentiary hearing, the PCRA court rejected that claim but awarded Appellant

a new penalty-phase hearing. Our Supreme Court affirmed the denial of PCRA 

relief on the guilt-phase claims. See Id. (“Taggart specifically testified that 

she remembered no coaching by police in connection with the photo array. 

. . . We conclude there was no error in the PCRA court’s credibility-based 

findings”). Thereafter, the Commonwealth elected to forego a capital 

sentence, and on August 16, 2011, the trial court imposed life imprisonment

for murder and concurrent terms of six to twelve months and three to six 

years for PIC and criminal conspiracy, respectively. Appellant did not file a 

direct appeal from his new judgment of sentence. 

On March 30, 2018, Appellant filed pro se the instant PCRA petition

invoking newly-discovered facts concerning alleged misconduct in an 

unrelated case by Detective Santiago and Detective Frank Jastrzembski, who

also assisted in Appellant’s murder investigation. Essentially, Appellant pled 

that he discovered the pertinent allegations of police corruption and 

prosecutorial misconduct in that unrelated case on February 20, 2018, after 

reading an article published the preceding day in the Philadelphia Daily News. 

The article reported on the potential effects of the 2016 exoneration of 

Anthony Wright and his civil suit against Philadelphia and the eleven police 

detectives that investigated him. Detective Santiago was identified in the 

2018 article and both detectives were named in Mr. Wright’s 2016 civil 
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complaint. The PCRA court initially dismissed the pro se petition without a 

hearing, but this Court vacated that order, appointed counsel, and remanded 

the matter to the PCRA court for further proceedings. Commonwealth v. 

Clark, 2762 EDA 2019, Order filed 9/11/20.

On February 1, 2021, with the assistance of counsel, Appellant filed an 

amended petition that raised a substantive claim asserting that he is entitled 

to a new trial based upon newly-discovered evidence that 

Detectives Jastrzembski and Santiago corrupted Mr. Wright’s criminal 

investigation. Re-asserting the merits of his prior unsuccessful claim relating 

to the alleged coercion of Sherry Taggart, as well as new claims of coercion 

relating to two other Commonwealth witnesses, Appellant argued that “[t]he 

prior PCRA court and appellate courts relied on the other witness statements 

but did not have any of the newly-discover[ed] evidence regarding the corrupt 

detectives” when it previously rejected his claims. See Amended PCRA 

Petition, 2/1/21, at 5-6, 14-15 .

The documents attached to the amended petition included Mr. Wright’s 

2016 civil complaint, which was laden with various allegations of police 

corruption in cases unrelated to Appellant’s murder conviction, including 

averments that Detective Santiago invoked his Fifth Amendment right against 

self-incrimination while testifying in the criminal prosecution of 

Percy St. George and that Detectives Jastrzembski and Santiago concealed 

exculpating evidence in a case against Jimmy Dennis. See id. Exhibit B at 
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22-23. While none of the new facts related directly to Appellant’s murder 

conviction, the amended petition also asserted an unspecified Brady1 claim, 

ostensibly based upon the Commonwealth’s supposed failure to disclose to 

him the detectives’ alleged corruption in the various unrelated cases. Id. at 

6, 10-12. As if an afterthought, the amended petition also asserted, “Based 

on the pleadings, Petitioner’s PCRA Petition is timely filed based upon newlydiscovered evidence.” Id. at 13.2

 

Following the Commonwealth’s response, and proper notice pursuant to 

Pa.R.Crim.P. 907, the PCRA court dismissed the PCRA petition as both 

meritless and untimely filed without exception to the PCRA time bar. This 

timely appeal followed. 

The trial court did not order Appellant to file a concise statement of 

errors complained of on appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b), but it filed a 

fourteen-page opinion explaining its decision on the merits. Appellant

presents one question for review:

1. Did the PCRA court err in dismissing Appellant’s PCRA Petition 

without a hearing because Appellant presented ongoing newlydiscovered evidence relating to continued habitual practices of 

investigative corruption and corruption of the judicial process by 

Detectives Frank Jastrzembski and Manuel Santiago, detectives 

that organized the tainted case against Appellant, and these 

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1 Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).

2 The amended PCRA petition cites to “Ex. A” in support of proposition that

the “newly-discovered evidence” allowed him to circumvent the time-bar. The 

purported exhibit is not attached to any of the three copies of the amended 

petition included in the certified record. 
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nefarious practices were never disclosed to Appellant by the 

Commonwealth?

Appellant’s brief at 4.

We begin with a review of the applicable legal principles.

The standard of review of an order dismissing a PCRA petition is 

whether that determination is supported by the evidence of record 

and 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. Further, a PCRA court has discretion to dismiss a PCRA 

petition without a hearing if the court is satisfied that there are no 

genuine issues concerning any material fact; that the defendant 

is not entitled to post-conviction collateral relief; and that no 

legitimate purpose would be served by further proceedings.

Commonwealth v. Cruz, 223 A.3d 274, 277 (Pa.Super. 2019) (cleaned up). 

“It is an appellant’s burden to persuade us that the PCRA court erred and that 

relief is due.” Commonwealth v. Stansbury, 219 A.3d 157, 161 (Pa.Super. 

2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

It is well-settled that, “[b]ecause the PCRA time limitations implicate 

our jurisdiction and may not be altered or disregarded in order to address the 

merits of a petition, we must start by examining the timeliness of Appellant’s 

petition.” Commonwealth v. Davis, 86 A.3d 883, 887 (Pa.Super. 2014). 

Indeed, “no court has jurisdiction to hear an untimely PCRA petition.” 

Commonwealth v. Ballance, 203 A.3d 1027, 1031 (Pa.Super. 2019). The 

PCRA provides as follows regarding the time for filing a PCRA petition:

Any petition [filed pursuant to the PCRA], 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:
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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. § 9545(b)(1). Further, any petition invoking an exception to the 

one-year time bar “shall be filed within one year of the date the claim could 

have been presented.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2).3 

Appellant’s judgment of sentence became final in 2011, after he declined 

to appeal the imposition of life imprisonment following re-sentencing. 

Appellant filed the PCRA petition that is the subject of the instant appeal on 

March 30, 2018. Hence, it was facially untimely and, therefore, barred unless 

he pled and proved one of the aforementioned exceptions to the PCRA time 

requirement. 

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3 Effective December 24, 2018, for claims arising one year prior to that date, 

i.e., December 24, 2017, or later the period to file a petition invoking one of 

the three exceptions to the time-bar was extended from sixty days to one 

year. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2). As Appellant filed his petition on March 30, 

2018. He had one year to invoke the exception. 
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Appellant’s assertions relating to his February 2018 discovery of the 

alleged corruption of Detectives Jastrzembski and Santiago in the criminal 

prosecution of Mr. Wright effectively raises the newly-discovered facts 

exception to the PCRA time-bar. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii). This 

timeliness exception “has two components, which must be alleged and proved. 

Namely, the petitioner must establish that: 1) the facts upon which the claim 

was predicated were unknown and 2) could not have been ascertained by the 

exercise of due diligence.” Commonwealth v. Medina, 92 A.3d 1210, 1216 

(Pa.Super. 2014) (en banc) (cleaned up). Due diligence requires a petitioner 

to both take reasonable steps to protect his interests and explain why he could 

not have learned of the new evidence earlier. See Commonwealth v. 

Brensinger, 218 A.3d 440, 448-49 (Pa.Super. 2019) (en banc).

Appellant’s amended petition and appellate brief fashion mostlysubstantive, after-discovered evidence arguments supporting his entreaty for 

a new trial. To the extent that he invokes the newly-discovered fact exception 

to the time bar, Appellant failed to satisfy either facet of the due diligence 

element.

4

 Namely, he failed to identify the steps he took to protect his 

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4 To the extent that the facts contained in Wright’s 2016 exoneration and civil 

suit against Philadelphia were matters of public record, we do not presume 

then-incarcerated Appellant to have knowledge of that information. See

Commonwealth v. Burton, 158 A.3d 618, 638 (Pa. 2017) (holding, “the 

presumption that information which is of public record cannot be deemed 

“unknown” for purposes of subsection 9545(b)(1)(ii) does not apply to pro se

prisoner petitioners.”). Significantly, however, the Supreme Court’s holding 

(Footnote Continued Next Page)
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interests and neglected to provide any explanation as to why he could not 

have obtained the relevant information relating to the corruption and 

misconduct of Detectives Jastrzembski and Santiago with the exercise of due 

diligence. Indeed, the amended petition is completely silent as to Appellant’s 

diligence in searching out evidence of misconduct in the seven years between

the 2011 re-sentencing and his serendipitous discovery of the Philadelphia 

Daily News article in 2018.

5

 For the reasons explained, infra, this omission is 

fatal to the claimed exception to the PCRA’s time limitation. 

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in Burton does not alleviate the concomitant requirement to plead and prove

due diligence. See id (PCRA Court must still determine whether “the facts

could have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence, including an 

assessment of the petitioner’s access to public records.”). 

5 That is not to say that Appellant was unaware of Detective Santiago’s 

involvement in his case. As noted in the body of this memorandum, in 2008, 

our High Court affirmed the PCRA court’s decision to reject Appellant’s prior 

assertion that Detective Santiago coerced the testimony of various witnesses. 

Indeed, Appellant’s instant assertions argue, inter alia, that the new-found 

facts bolster his prior allegations of corruption. See Amended PCRA Petition, 

2/1/21, at 5-6; Appellant’s brief at 11, 22-23 (“Prior PCRA court and appellate

courts relied on the other witness statements and detective testimony but did 

not have any of the newly-discover[ed] evidence regarding the corrupt 

detectives.”). As the merits of the prior allegations of misconduct have been 

previously litigated, they are not cognizable herein. See 42 Pa.C.S. 

§ 9544(a)(3). Moreover, regardless of Appellant’s old assertions against 

detective Santiago, the amended petition that is the genesis of the instant 

appeal, fails to explain why Appellant could not have learned the new facts

implicating Detectives Jastrzembski and Santiago earlier through the exercise 

of due diligence.
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In Commonwealth v. Fennell, 180 A.3d 778, 782 (Pa.Super. 2018), 

this Court discussed the due diligence prong of the newly-discovered-fact 

exception as follows: 

Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) requires a petitioner to demonstrate he did 

not know the facts upon which he based his petition and could not 

have learned those facts earlier by the exercise of due diligence. 

Due diligence demands that the petitioner take reasonable steps 

to protect his own interests. A petitioner must explain why he 

could not have learned the new fact(s) earlier with the 

exercise of due diligence. This rule is strictly enforced.

Additionally, the focus of this exception is on the newly discovered 

facts, not on a newly discovered or newly willing source for 

previously known facts.

Commonwealth v. Fennell, 180 A.3d 778, 782 (Pa.Super. 2018) (emphasis 

in original). See also Brensinger, supra (stating, due diligence requires 

petitioner to both take reasonable steps to protect his interests and explain 

why he could not have learned of new evidence earlier.).

Hence, under the strict interpretation of § 9545(b)(1)(ii) promulgated 

by our precedent, it was incumbent upon Appellant to plead that he exercised

reasonable diligence in pursuit of salient information implicating the 

detectives. While Appellant asserts that he filed the instant petition upon 

learning of the Philadelphia Daily News article discussing Mr. Wright’s 

exoneration and civil suit against Philadelphia, he failed to present any 

argument that either states the reasonable steps that he took to protect his 

own interests or explained why he could not have learned of the new facts 

earlier. Hence, the exception fails. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii), 

Commonwealth v. Porter, 35 A.3d 4, 21-22 (Pa. 2012) (finding Brady 
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allegation raised in serial PCRA petition was untimely and not subject to 

§ 9545(b)(1)(ii) where the petitioner “offered no explanation of why, with the 

exercise of due diligence, the information . . . could not have been discovered” 

in years-long gap between conviction and revelation). 

Accordingly, having concluded that the present appeal arises from an 

untimely filed PCRA petition and that no exceptions to the statutory time bar 

apply, we affirm the order dismissing the petition without a hearing.6 

Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 2/22/2023

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6 As noted, the PCRA court dismissed the PCRA petition based upon both 

untimeliness and a lack of merit. However, the PCRA court’s Rule 1925(a) 

opinion stated the petition was timely pursuant to the newly-discovered fact 

exception and denied relief on the merits. As noted in the body of this 

memorandum, the certified record does not support the PCRA court’s volteface. As such, we affirm the court’s dismissal on the basis of untimeliness. 

See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Prater, 256 A.3d 1274, 1285 (Pa.Super. 

2021) (“Although the PCRA court did not deny relief for this reason, we may 

affirm its ruling for any reason supported by the record.”).