IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Francis G. Landmesser

, :

Appellant :

:

v. :

: Office of Luzerne County : No. 310 C.D. 2019 District Attorney : Submitted: June 7, 2019

OPINION NOT REPORTED

MEMORANDUM OPINION

PER CURIAM FILED: August 14, 2019

Francis G. Landmesser (Appellant) appeals

, pro se , from the November

15, 2018 order of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County (trial court) that

denied Appellant’s Petition for Review of the Decision of the Attorney for the

C ommonwealth (Petition for Review) , which sought review of the Luzerne County

District Attorney’s Office’s (District Attorney) denial of Appellant’s private

criminal complaint s charging his neighbors and various local authorities with

criminal conduct . Upo n review, we affirm.

On May 29, 2018, Appellant filed nine private criminal complaints

seeking redress from perceived wrongs visited upon him by his neighbors and

various local government officials in relation to a zoning dispute involving his

property. See Luzern e County Private Criminal Complaints 129

- 18 through 137

- 18.

The District Attorney denied all the private criminal complaints, citing an office

policy of not becoming involved in zoning disputes as the reason for the denial s

. See

Letter from Dis trict Attorney to Appellant dated August 27, 2018.2 On September 19, 2018, Appellant filed his Petition for Review 1 with

the trial court. The trial court conducted a hearing on the Petition for Review on

November 7, 2018. On November 15, 2018, the tria l court issued an Order and

Memorandum denying the Petition for Review (Trial Court Decision). On

December 3, 2018, Appellant timely filed his Notice of Appeal

. 2

On appeal, Appellant alleges the trial court abused its discretion by

denying his Petition for Review of the District Attorney’s denial of his private

criminal complaints. See generally Appellant’s Brief. 3 We disagree.

1 Appellant submitted only one of the nine denied private criminal complaints for review

with his Petition for Review.

2 Appellant originally filed this appeal in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, which

transferred the matter to this Court. See Superior Court Order dated January 22, 2019; see also 42 Pa.C.S. § 762(a)(4)(i) (granting the Commonwealth Court exclusive juris diction of appeals from final orders of courts of common pleas from civil and criminal matters involving local government

matters and em ployees).

3 Appellant styled his questions presented on appeal as follows:

Question 1. Was the District Attorney[’s] O ffice[’s] decision to disapprove of the complaints arbitrary and capricious?

Question 2. Did the District Attorney[’s] Office personnel comply with agency’s [sic] mission statement?

Question 3. Was the Appellant afforded his rights established by our [c]ountry’s and Commonwealth’s forefathers and [the] Nanticoke City Charter?

Question 4. Did the [trial court] consider animus/bias displayed against Appellant and [his] wife?

Question 5. Did the [trial court] consider crimes committed by all

perpetrator s?

Appellant’s Brief at 3.3 Regarding private criminal complaints, Pennsylvania’s Rules of

Criminal Procedure state, in relevant part:

(A) When the affi ant [of a criminal complaint] is not a law enforcement officer, the complaint shall be submitted to an attorney for the Commonwealth, who shall approve or disapprove it without unreasonable delay.

(B) If the attorney for the Commonwealth:

(1) approves th e complaint, the attorney shall indicate this decision on the complaint form and transmit it to the issuing authority;

(2) disapproves the complaint, the attorney shall state the reasons on the complaint form and return it to the affiant. Thereafter, the affiant may petition the court of common pleas for review of

the decision.

Pa.R.Crim.P. 506(A) & (B)

. Thus, t he prosecution of a private criminal complaint

is initially subject to approval by the district attorney of the county in which the

complaint is sought to be brought. In re Wilson , 879 A.2d 199, 211

- 12 ( Pa. Super.

2005)

. Further, as the Superior Court has explained:

The district attorney is permitted to exercise sound discretion to refrain from proceeding in a criminal case whenever he, in good faith, thinks that the prosecution

would not serve the best interests of the state. This decision not to prosecute may be im ple mented by the district attorney’ s refusal to approve the private criminal complaint at the outset

.

I d. at 212.4 In reviewing a district attorney’s decision on a private criminal

complaint, the Superior Court has explain ed the following:

It is well

- set tled that, if the Commonwealth disapproves a private criminal complaint, the complainant can petition the Court of Common Pleas for review, and the trial court must first correctly identify the nature of the reasons given by the district attorney for denyi ng the complaint. “Where the district attorney’ s denial [of a private criminal complaint] is based on a legal evaluation of the evidence,

the trial court undertakes a de novo review of the matter.”

[However,] [w]hen the district attorney disapproves a private criminal complaint on wholly policy considerations, or on a hybrid of legal and policy considerations, the trial court’ s standard of review of the district attorney’ s decision is abuse of discre tion. This deferential standard recognizes the limitations on judicial power to inter fere with the district attorney’ s discretion in these kinds of decisions. . . . Thereafter, the appellate co urt will review the trial

court’ s decision for an abuse of di scretion, in keeping with the settled principles of appellate rev iew of discretionary matters. . . .

* * *

The private criminal complainant has the burden to prove the district attorney abused his discretion, and that burden is a heavy one. In the Rule 506 petition for review, the private criminal complainant must

de monstrate the district attorney’ s decision amounted to bad faith, fraud or unconstitutionality. The complainant must do more than mere ly assert the district attorney’ s decision is flawed in these regards. The complainant must show the facts of the case lead only to the conclu sion that the district attorney’ s decision was patently discriminatory, arbitrary or pretextual, and therefore, not in the public interest. In5 the absence of such evide nce, the trial court cannot

presume to supervise the district attorney’ s exercise of prosecutorial discretion, and should leave the

district attorney’ s decision undisturbed.

In re Private Criminal Complaints of Rafferty , 969 A.2d 578, 581

- 82 (Pa. Super

.

2 009) (citations and footnote omitted).

In this case, the District Attorney disapproved Appellant ’s private

criminal complaints based on the District Attorney’s policy not to become involved

in zoning disputes. Because this denial was based on a pure poli cy consi deration,

the trial court’s review of the District Attorney’s decision was for an abuse of

discretion. See Rafferty , 969 A.2d at 581. Therefore, Appellant was required at the

hearing before the trial court to demonstrate that the District Attorne y’s “decision

was patently discriminatory, arbitrary or pretextual, and therefore, not in the public

interest .” Id. at 582. However, as the trial court explained, “[Appellant] presented

no evidence whatsoever to establish that an abuse of discretion was committed by

the [] District Attorney in disapproving the nine private criminal complaints he

filed.” Trial Court De cision at 3 (pagination supplied). Further, Appellant’s

rambling appellate brief, to the extent it raises discernable arguments, 4 fails to direct

this Court’s review to evidence of record that satisfies Appellant’s heavy burden to

prove the District Attor ney ’s alleged abuse of discretion amounted to bad faith, fraud

4 We acknowledge the District Attorney’s argument that Appellant’s brief is so rambling and incoherent as to preclude meaningful review. See District Attorney’s Brief at 6

- 8. We further acknowledge that a party’s failure to adequately develop a claim can waive the claim for review. See Berner v. Montour Twp. , 120 A.3d 433, 437 n.6 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2015) (ruling that a party’s failure to sufficiently develop an issue in a brief constitutes waiver of the issue); see also Pa.R.A.P. 2119(a). We further acknowledge that, while we may be willing to liberally construe a pro se litigant’s filings, pro se status neither confers special benefits on Appellant nor excuses shortcomings in his brief. See Commonwealth v. Adams , 882 A.2d 496, 498 (Pa. Super. 2005).
However, given the obvious nature of Appellant’s pro se challenge and our disposition thereon,

we decline to find waiver in this instance.6

o r unconstitutionality. See generally Appellant’s Brief. As a result

, we are

constrained to conclude that Appellant has failed to demonstrate that the District

Attorney improperly disapproved of Appellant’s private criminal complaints or that

the trial court abused its discretion in affirming the District Attorney’s disapproval s

.

Accordingly, we affirm the Trial Court Decision.IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Francis G. Landmesser, :

Appellant :

:

v. :

: Office of Luzerne County : No. 310 C.D. 2019 District Attorney :

PER CURIAM

O R D E R

AND NOW, this 14th day of August , 201 9

, the November 15, 2018

order of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County is AFFIRMED.

Appellant Francis G. Landmesser’s Motion to Expedite is D ISMISSED

as MOOT.