J-S51006-18

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

LAMONT CAMPFIELD, 

Appellant

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 2833 EDA 2017

Appeal from the PCRA Order August 17, 2017

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

No(s): CP-51-CR-0630421-1991

BEFORE: DUBOW, J., NICHOLS, J., and FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.

MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.: FILED OCTOBER 23, 2018

Appellant, Lamont Campfield, appeals from the Order dismissing his 

sixth Petition, filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 

Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546, as untimely. We affirm.

On April 28, 1992, a jury convicted Appellant of five crimes, including 

Second-Degree Murder, and the court subsequently sentenced him to a term 

of life imprisonment. This Court affirmed Appellant’s Judgment of Sentence

on September 29, 1997.

1

 Appellant did not seek review with the Pennsylvania 

Supreme Court. Thus, Appellant’s Judgment of Sentence became final on 

October 29, 1997.

2

____________________________________________

1 Commonwealth v. Campfield, 704 A.2d 1115 (Pa. Super. 1997). 

2 See Pa.R.A.P. 1113 (requiring an appeal from the Superior Court to be filed 

with the Supreme Court within 30 days of the entry of the Superior Court’s 
J-S51006-18

- 2 -

Appellant subsequently filed PCRA Petitions in 1999, 2004, 2006, 2010, 

and 2012, none of which garnered relief.3 Appellant filed the instant pro se

Petition, his sixth, on April 20, 2016, followed by a pro se Supplemental 

Petition on February 2, 2017. The court issued a Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 Notice, to 

which Appellant filed a response. The PCRA court dismissed Appellant’s 

Petition on July 24, 2017. This appeal followed. 

Appellant presents the following issues for our review:

1. Whether the PCRA court erred [when it dismissed] Appellant’s 

PCRA petition without a hearing, where Appellant invoked an 

exception under 42 Pa. C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii) and 42 Pa. C.S. § 

9545(b)(2)? 

2. Whether Appellant was denied effective assistance of counsel 

and a fair trial, pursuant to Commonwealth v. Pierce, 527 

A.2d 973 (Pa. 1987); Commonwealth v. Bennett, 930 A.2d 

1264 (Pa. 2007); [and] Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 

668 ([] 1984)?

3. Whether a miscarriage of justice occurred where the lower 

court erred in failing to instruct the jury of a complete Kloiber

charge?4

____________________________________________

order); 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(3) (judgment of sentence becomes final at the 

conclusion of direct review or the expiration of time for seeking the review)

3 This Court affirmed the PCRA court’s dismissal of Appellant’s 1999, 2006, 

and 2012 petitions. Appellant did not appeal his 2004 or 2010 petitions to 

this Court.

4 After raising this issue, Appellant does not discuss or argue it at any point 

thereafter. Thus, even if an exception to the PCRA’s time bar did apply, 

Appellant has waived this claim. See Commonwealth v. Perez, 93 A.3d 

829, 838 (Pa. 2014) (finding that claims failing to advance developed 

argument or cite supporting authorities and record are waived). 
J-S51006-18

- 3 -

Appellant’s Brief at 4.

We review the denial of a PCRA Petition to determine whether the record 

supports the PCRA court’s findings and whether its order is otherwise free of 

legal error. Commonwealth v. Fears, 86 A.3d 795, 803 (Pa. 2014). Before 

addressing the merits of Appellant’s claims, however, we must first determine 

whether we have jurisdiction to entertain the underlying PCRA Petition. 

Under the PCRA, any petition “including a second or subsequent petition, 

shall be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final[.]” 42 

Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). A Judgment of Sentence becomes final “at the 

conclusion of direct review, including discretionary review in the Supreme 

Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, or at the 

expiration of time for seeking the review.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(3). The 

PCRA’s timeliness requirements are jurisdictional in nature, and a PCRA court 

may not address the merits of the issues raised if the petitioner did not timely 

file the PCRA petition. Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 994 A.2d 1091, 1093 

(Pa. 2010). In fact, no court has jurisdiction to review the merits of the claims 

raised in an untimely PCRA Petition. Commonwealth v. Lambert, 884 A.2d 

848, 851 (Pa. 2005).

As noted above, Appellant’s Judgment of Sentence became final on 

October 29, 1997. Thus, Appellant’s deadline to file a PCRA Petition was 

October 29, 1998. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). This Petition, filed on April 20, 

2016, is facially untimely. 
J-S51006-18

- 4 -

Appellant asserts that this Petition falls within the PCRA’s timeliness 

exception for newly discovered facts provided in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii). 

Appellant’s Brief at 8-14. The newly discovered fact exception requires that 

“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[.]” 42 

Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii). A Petition based on this exception must be filed

“within 60 days of the date the claim could have been presented.” 42 Pa.C.S. 

§ 9545(b)(2). 

Due diligence demands that the petitioner take reasonable steps to 

protect his own interests. Commonwealth v. Carr, 768 A.2d 1164, 1168 

(Pa. Super. 2001). A petitioner must explain why he could not have learned 

the new fact(s) earlier with the exercise of due diligence. Commonwealth 

v. Breakiron, 781 A.2d 94, 98 (Pa. 2001). This rule is strictly enforced. 

Commonwealth v. Monaco, 996 A.2d 1076, 1080 (Pa. Super. 2010). 

Appellant avers that he learned about certain ballistic and identifying 

evidence that had been elicited at his 1992 trial after receiving, in July 2016,

a transcript of his trial. Appellant’s Brief at 9-10. He also avers that he 

recently learned that his first PCRA counsel abandoned him in 1999 by failing 

to file a Petition for Allowance of Appeal with the Supreme Court, and asserts 

that his first PCRA counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to 

challenge trial counsel’s representation because there were allegedly potential 

witnesses “available to testify on the Appellant’s behalf to prove his 
J-S51006-18

- 5 -

innocence.” Id. at 12-13. Based on these alleged “newly discovered facts,”

Appellant contends that this Petition is timely under 42 Pa.C.S. § 

9545(b)(1)(ii) and 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2). He also asserts that the PCRA 

court should have appointed counsel after he filed the instant PCRA “as 

mandated by law [so] he or she would have seen that ... Appellant just 

received the after-discovered evidence.” Appellant’s Brief at 8. Appellant’s 

averments have no merit.

The Honorable Tracy Brandeis-Roman provided the following analysis of 

Appellant’s claim that his knowledge, allegedly recently gleaned from the 1992 

transcript, provided an exception to the PCRA’s time-bar as a newly discovered 

fact:

At the outset, [Appellant’s] failure to specify the date he 

discovered these purported facts was fatal to demonstrating 

compliance with the sixty-day mandate. Furthermore, [Appellant], 

who was present during his trial, failed to establish that the facts 

were both unknown to him prior to 2016 and previously 

unascertainable. [Appellant] conceded his presence at trial, but 

nevertheless intimated that because he was represented by 

counsel, he was unaware of the facts underlying this claim. 

[Appellant’s] argument, unsupported by any legal authority, [is] 

unpersuasive.

Trial Ct. Op., dated 10/16/17, at 3. 

We agree. Appellant fails to establish that he could not have ascertained 

the “new facts” pertaining to ballistic and identifying evidence sometime prior 

to receiving the trial transcripts twenty-four years after his trial. Appellant’s 

brief does not contain any plausible explanation why more than twenty years 

elapsed before he requested the transcripts or why, specifically, he requested 
J-S51006-18

- 6 -

them for the first time in 2016. As Appellant concedes, he was present at 

trial. At that time, he became aware of the ballistic and identifying evidence 

that the Commonwealth presented against him. Moreover, given that this is 

Appellant’s sixth PCRA petition, we are not persuaded, nor has Appellant 

proved, that he either exercised due diligence in ascertaining these “new 

facts” or that the “new facts” were unknown to Appellant until he requested 

the transcripts more than twenty years after the conclusion of trial. See also 

Commonwealth v. Grove, 170 A.3d 1127, 1149 (Pa. Super. 2017) (grant of 

a PCRA evidentiary hearing “is not meant to function as a fishing expedition 

for any possible evidence that may support some speculative claim”). 

Accordingly, having failed to demonstrate due diligence, the trial court 

properly concluded that Appellant fails to satisfy the timeliness exception 

provided in Section 9545(b)(1)(ii).

Likewise, Appellant’s claims of PCRA counsel’s 1999 abandonment and 

ineffectiveness do not render this petition timely. Appellant concedes that 

prior counsel’s alleged ineffectiveness cannot be invoked as a newly

discovered fact for purposes of 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii). See Appellant’s 

Brief at 11-12. He, nonetheless, asserts that “[i]f initial PCRA counsel had 

investigated the entire record, he would have seen where trial counsel was 

ineffective” and Appellant “would not have known of any of this since he did 

not receive any discovery and/or transcripts until or about July 2016.” Id. at 

13. 
J-S51006-18

- 7 -

Appellant correctly notes that prior counsel’s ineffectiveness does not 

satisfy the after-discovered facts exception so as to render an untimely PCRA 

Petition reviewable. See Commonwealth v. Gamboa-Taylor, 753 A.2d 

780, 784-85 (Pa. 2000); see also Commonwealth v. Wilson, 824 A.2d 331, 

335-36 (Pa. Super. 2003) (en banc) (holding that failure of counsel to file an 

appellate brief is not an exception to the jurisdictional timeliness requirements 

of the PCRA). Moreover, for the reason set forth above, even if this claim 

were colorable, Appellant’s assertion that he did not know about counsel’s 

ineffectiveness until he received the 1992 trial transcript does not bring this 

issue within the subsection (b)(1)(ii) timeliness exception.

Finally, Appellant’s claim that the PCRA Court was “mandated” to 

appoint counsel to represent him in this sixth PCRA Petition is without legal 

support.

A PCRA court is required to appoint counsel for an indigent petitioner 

only after he or she files a first PCRA petition. Pa.R.Crim.P. 904(C). A court 

must appoint counsel on a subsequent PCRA petition only if an evidentiary 

hearing is required. Pa.R.Crim.P. 904(D). A PCRA court may also appoint 

counsel whenever the interests of justice so require. Pa.R.Crim.P. 904(E).

In the instant case, this is Petitioner’s sixth, and not his first, PCRA 

Petition, so the court was not required to appoint counsel. Moreover, as 

discussed above, the Petition is facially untimely and Appellant failed to satisfy 

any of the timeliness requirements so as to provide the courts with 
J-S51006-18

- 8 -

jurisdiction. Accordingly, a hearing was not required. Further, Appellant has 

failed to convince this Court that the interests of justice required the 

appointment of counsel.

We conclude the PCRA court properly dismissed Appellant’s sixth PCRA 

Petition as untimely. We, thus, affirm.

Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 10/23/18