J-S03033-17

*Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION – SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA,

 Appellee

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DONALD M. HOLLIDAY,

 Appellant

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IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 996 WDA 2016

Appeal from the Order May 3, 2016

in the Court of Common Pleas of Lawrence County,

Criminal Division, at No(s): CP-37-CR-0000250-1994

CP-37-CR-0000798-1992

BEFORE: OLSON, SOLANO, and STRASSBURGER,* JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY STRASSBURGER, J.: FILED MARCH 17, 2017

Donald M. Holliday (Appellant) appeals from the May 3, 2016 order 

which dismissed his petition for writ of habeas corpus. We affirm.

We glean the following from the record. In the case filed at CP-37-CR0000798-1992 (1992 case), Appellant was sentenced in September 1993 to 

serve two to ten years of imprisonment. The sentencing order provided that 

Appellant would serve his time in the Lawrence County Jail, with work 

release privileges. At the end of 1993, Appellant failed to return to the jail 

from work release, and instead fled the jurisdiction, resulting in the filing of 

charges at docket number CP-37-CR-0000250-1994 (1994 case). In 1996, 

Appellant was apprehended in Kentucky, pled guilty to escape in the 1994 

case, and was sentenced to a term of nine months to five years of 
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imprisonment to run consecutive to the sentence in the 1992 case. Shortly 

thereafter, in August of 1996, the trial court ordered in the 1992 case that 

Appellant’s term of imprisonment would be served in a state correctional 

facility rather than in the county jail. 

On August 10, 2015, Appellant filed a petition for writ of habeas 

corpus, (1) “challenging the discrepency [sic] between the signed sentencing 

orders and the [Department of Corrections] (DOC)’s interpretation of them,” 

Petition, 8/10/2015, at ¶ 6 (unnecessary capitalization omitted); and (2) 

claiming that the trial court lacked jurisdiction in 1996 to amend the 

September 1993 sentencing order entered in the 1992 case. Id. at ¶ 9.

Court-appointed counsel filed a new habeas petition on November 9, 

2015. The new petition alleged that Appellant was serving an illegal 

sentence. Petition, 11/9/2015, at ¶ 6. 

Specifically, [Appellant averred] that:

a. When the original order [in the 1992 case] was 

altered or modified it became a new sentence and therefore [the 

sentence in the 1994 case] could not run consecutive as the new 

sentence [in the 1992 case] was not entered until 12 days after 

the new sentence [in the 1994 case].

b. When [the sentence in the 1992 case] was amended 

[on] 26th August 1994 it failed to state that it would run 

consecutive with [the sentence in the 1994 case].

c. [Appellant] believes and therefore avers that he has 

served the entirety of his sentence and is eligible for immediate 

parole.

Id. at ¶ 7. 
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After conducting a hearing on the petition, the trial court denied it by 

order of May 3, 2016. The court therein opined that (1) Appellant’s 

interpretation of the sentencing orders was incorrect, and (2) the 1996 

amendment to the 1993 sentence “did not amend the sentence itself but 

only the location where it was to be served.” Order, 5/3/2016, at 3. The 

trial court further noted that it did not treat Appellant’s filing as an untimelyfiled petition for relief pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 

Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546, because it did “not allege any basis for relief 

cognizable under the PCRA.” Id. at 4. 

Thereafter, Appellant pro se filed a notice of appeal, as well as a courtordered statement of errors complained of on appeal. Counsel filed a motion 

to withdraw, to which Appellant filed a response requesting that the trial 

court grant the motion and allow him to proceed pro se. After conducting a 

hearing pursuant to Commonwealth v. Grazier, 713 A.2d 81 (Pa. 1998), 

the trial court entered an order permitting counsel to withdraw, Order, 

10/3/2016, and determined that Appellant made a knowing, voluntary, and 

intelligent waiver of his right to counsel. Waiver of Counsel, 10/3/2016.

Thus, properly proceeding pro se, Appellant presents this Court with 

three questions for review. Two of Appellant’s questions concern the merits 

of the claims raised in his habeas petition (i.e., the DOC improperly 

interpreted his sentencing orders and the trial court lacked jurisdiction in 

1996 to amend his sentence in the 1992 case); the third asks, inter alia, 
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“whether the lower erred in finding that it cannot treat the foregoing habeas 

corpus petition as a petition under [the] PCRA as it does not allege any basis 

of relief cognizable under the PCRA?” Appellant’s Brief at 4 (unnecessary 

capitalization omitted).

We begin by reviewing the relevant legal principles. “[T]he PCRA 

subsumes all forms of collateral relief, including habeas corpus, to the extent 

a remedy is available under such enactment.” Commonwealth v. West, 

938 A.2d 1034, 1043 (Pa. 2007). All PCRA petitions must either (1) be filed 

within one year of the judgment of sentence becoming final, or (2) plead and 

prove a timeliness exception. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b). “[A] defendant cannot 

escape the PCRA time-bar by titling his petition or motion as a writ of 

habeas corpus.” Commonwealth v. Taylor, 65 A.3d 462, 466 (Pa. Super. 

2013). 

However, “claims that fall outside the eligibility parameters of the 

PCRA may be raised through a writ of habeas corpus.” Commonwealth v. 

Masker, 34 A.3d 841, 850 (Pa. Super. 2011) (en banc). Our Supreme 

Court has explained that “the boundaries of cognizable claims under the 

PCRA can only be extended so far as is consistent with the purposes of the 

statute.” Commonwealth v. Judge, 916 A.2d 511, 520 (Pa. 2007). 

To the extent that Appellant claims that his sentence in the 1992 case, 

as amended in 1996, is illegal, the claim is cognizable exclusively under the 

PCRA. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Jackson, 30 A.3d 516, 521 (Pa. 
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Super. 2011) (“[T]he plain language of the PCRA... states that ‘[the PCRA] 

provides for an action by which ... persons serving illegal sentences may 

obtain collateral relief.’ ... Therefore, Jackson’s ‘motion to correct illegal 

sentence’ is a PCRA petition and cannot be considered under any other 

common law remedy.”). 

Because Appellant’s sentence became final 20 years ago, and 

Appellant did not plead and offer to prove a PCRA timeliness exception, the 

trial court lacked jurisdiction to address the merits of his illegal-sentence 

claim.1 See Commonwealth v. Lawson, 90 A.3d 1, 4 (Pa. Super. 2014) 

(“The timeliness of a PCRA petition is a jurisdictional threshold and may not 

be disregarded in order to reach the merits of the claims raised in a PCRA 

 

1 The record reveals that the amendment to Appellant’s sentence in the 

1992 case resulted from the trial court’s granting of a petition to amend 

sentence filed by Appellant. Therein, Appellant explained that he received 

a state sentence in the 1994 case, but he could not be transferred to a state 

correctional facility until he was paroled on his sentence in the 1992 case, 

which he was serving in the Lawrence County Jail. Petition to Amend 

Sentence, 8/26/1996, at ¶¶ 4-5. Therefore, Appellant “request[ed] that his 

sentence be amended to reflect that he serve not less than 2 years nor more 

than 10 years in a State Correctional Facility.” Id. at ¶ 6. The trial court 

granted Appellant’s request, and signed Appellant’s proposed order 

indicating that the sentence was amended to reflect that he serve his time 

for the 1992 case in a state facility. Order, 8/26/1996. 

 Appellant argues in his brief that counsel was ineffective in petitioning for 

the amendment. That claim is also within the exclusive province of the 

PCRA; because Appellant did not present it timely, neither the trial court nor 

this Court has jurisdiction to entertain it. See 42 Pa.C.S. 9543(a)(2)(ii) 

(enumerating claims of ineffective assistance of counsel as cognizable under 

PCRA); Commonwealth v. Eller, 807 A.2d 838, 845 (Pa. 2002) (noting 

PCRA is exclusive means of obtaining relief for claims cognizable under 

PCRA).
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petition that is untimely.”); Commonwealth v. Taylor, 65 A.3d 462, 465 

(Pa. Super. 2013) (“[A]lthough illegal sentencing issues cannot be waived, 

they still must be presented in a timely PCRA petition.”). 

However, Appellant’s claim that he has served the balance of his 

sentences and should be paroled immediately is brought properly in a 

petition for writ of habeas corpus. Commonwealth v. Isabell, 467 A.2d 

1287, 1291 (Pa. 1983) (holding that the writ of habeas corpus, the “well 

known remedy for deliverance from illegal confinement,” rather than 

statutory post-conviction relief, “is particularly suited to the wrong alleged in 

this case, illegal detention resulting from an incorrect computation of 

appellant’s sentence by prison officials”). Thus, we consider the merits of 

Appellant’s claim that he is being detained unlawfully because he has 

completed his sentences. 

Appellant’s argument is as follows:

Once the court amended, changed and altered the original 

county sentence [in the 1992 case] into a now state sentence, it 

failed to state in [its] order to amend, that the state sentence [in 

the 1994 case] would still be run consecutive to the now state 

sentence [in the 1992 case;] therefore, these two state 

sentences must now be running concurrently!

Appellant’s Brief at 4 (unnecessary capitalization omitted).

The trial court offered the following response: 

It is clear that [in the 1994 case,] the court ordered the 

sentence at that case number to be served on a consecutive 

basis to the sentence previously issued [in the 1992 case]. The 

amendment on August 26, 1996 of the sentence [in the 1992 
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case] only changed the place of confinement and not the 

effective date of the sentence. In changing [Appellant’s] place 

of confinement, the court did not amend the sentence itself but 

only the location where it was to be served. Thus, the only 

reasonable and logical interpretation of the three orders in 

question is that [Appellant] received a sentence of not less than 

2 years nor more than 10 years [in the 1992 case,] and then 

received a consecutive sentence of not less than 9 months nor 

more than 5 years in the 1994 case,] and as of August 26, 1996 

a determination was made that both sentences should be served 

in a state correctional facility with the sentence [in the 1994 

case] to be served consecutively to the sentence [in the 1992 

case].

Order, 5/3/2016, at 2-3 (unnecessary capitalization omitted). 

“[A] sentence ... is to be construed so as to give effect to the intention 

of the sentencing judge. To determine this intention the reviewing court 

limits itself to the language of the written judgment.” Commonwealth v. 

Kennedy, 868 A.2d 582, 591 (Pa. Super. 2005) (citation omitted). After 

review of the sentencing orders at issue, we agree with the trial court that 

the only reasonable interpretation is that the sentence in the 1994 case runs 

consecutively to the amended sentence in the 1992 case. 

Neither the original sentencing order from 1993, nor the amendment 

ordered in 1996, references the sentence entered in the 1994 case. It was 

the sentencing order in the 1994 case that indicated it was to run 

consecutively to the sentence in the 1992 case. There simply was no reason 

for the trial court to mention anything about the 1994 case in its order 

amending the sentence in the 1992 case. 
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The sentence in the 1994 case was never amended; accordingly, that 

sentence still runs consecutively to the sentence in the 1992 case. The trial 

court’s grant of Appellant’s requested amendment to the place where he 

would serve his sentence in the 1992 case had no impact whatsoever upon 

the consecutive nature of the sentence in the 1994 case. Thus, we conclude 

that the trial court properly denied Appellant’s petition.

Order affirmed. 

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 3/17/2017