J-S61041-19

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

CARMEN WOODS 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 3444 EDA 2017

Appeal from the PCRA Order September 15, 2017

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

No(s): CP-51-CR-0611411-1982

BEFORE: BOWES, J., OLSON, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*

MEMORANDUM BY STEVENS, P.J.E.: FILED DECEMBER 13, 2019

Appellant, Carmen Woods, appeals from the order entered in the Court 

of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County dismissing as untimely his sixth 

petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S.A. 

§§ 9541-9546. Herein, Appellant contends the PCRA court erred because he 

qualified under the newly-discovered fact exception to the PCRA time-bar. We 

affirm.

The PCRA court summarizes the pertinent facts and procedural history, 

as follows:

[I]n November, 1982, Appellant, together with his co-defendant, 

Michael Jones, was tried and convicted in a jury trial before the 

Honorable Albert F. Sabo, for the May 16, 1982 murder of Chester 

Laws, Jr., and the May 18, 1982 shooting at Homer Lane, who 

witnessed the murder. Lane testified at trial and Appellant was 

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* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
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convicted of first-degree murder, aggravated assault, and related 

offenses.

Following the guilty verdicts, new counsel came into the case and 

numerous rounds of post-trial motions were filed and litigated. 

Among the many issues raised was that Lane intended to recant 

his testimony. An evidentiary hearing was held prior to sentencing 

in accordance with the rules at the time. Lane testified and he did 

not recant his trial testimony. All motions were denied and 

Appellant was then sentenced [to life imprisonment without the 

possibility of parole] in December 1983. The judgment of 

sentence was affirmed by the Superior Court. Allocatur was 

granted by the Supreme Court[, which] also affirmed the 

judgment of sentence.

[Thereafter, Appellant filed numerous rounds of Post Conviction 

Hearing Act (“PCHA”) and PCRA appeals predicated on either 

Lane’s recantation that he lied about witnessing the murder 

because Appellant had shot at him, or on prior counsels’ failure to 

call certain witnesses who could have impeached Lane’s 

credibility. Appellant filed other PCRA petitions deemed 

meritless.]

On August 17, 2016, Appellant filed the instant PCRA petition, his 

sixth. . . . In Appellant’s instant petition, he alleged his most 

recent PCRA was timely. Appellant once again raised the issue 

that he discovered “new evidence” which would discredit Homer 

Lane. Also, Appellant asserted that the Commonwealth violated 

Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1983), by failing to disclose 

information to defense and by misrepresenting Mr. Lane’s 

motivation for coming forward and providing testimony. After 

reviewing the pleadings, the record, and the law, and after 

complying with notice and procedural requirements, [the PCRA 

court] dismissed the petition as untimely without addressing the 

merits. The instant timely pro se appeal followed.

PCRA Court Opinion, 3/25/19, at 1, 3-4.

Appellant presents the following questions for our review:

1. [Did] Appellant plead[] and prove[] a valid exception to the 

PCRA’s statute of limitations, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1), in that 

subsection (b)(1)(i) is invoked and satisfied?
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2. [Was] Appellant entitled to a New Trial or further proceedings 

based upon a denial of due process of law as guaranteed under 

the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the 

United States, and Article 1 § 9 of the Pennsylvania 

Constitution, by virtue of the suppression of material 

exculpatory or favorable evidence, and the Commonwealth’s 

failure to correct false testimony[?]

Appellant’s brief, at 2.

This Court's standard of review regarding an order dismissing a petition 

under the PCRA is whether the determination of the PCRA court is supported 

by the evidence of record and is free of legal error. Commonwealth v. 

Halley, 870 A.2d 795, 799 n.2 (Pa. 2005). We will not disturb the PCRA 

court's findings unless the certified record does not support such findings. 

Commonwealth v. Carr, 768 A.2d 1164, 1166 (Pa.Super. 2001).

Before addressing the merits of Appellant’s issues, however, we must 

first determine whether the PCRA court correctly concluded that his serial 

PCRA petition is untimely. The timeliness of a post-conviction petition is 

jurisdictional. Commonwealth v. Hernandez, 79 A.3d 649, 651 (Pa.Super. 

2013). Generally, a petition for relief under the PCRA, including a second or 

subsequent petition, must be filed within one year of the date the judgment 

becomes final, unless the petition alleges, and the petitioner proves, that an 

exception to the time for filing the petition, set forth at Sections 9545(b)(1)(i), 

(ii), and (iii), is met.1 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545. A PCRA petition invoking one of 

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1 The exceptions to the timeliness requirement are:
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these statutory exceptions must “be filed within 60 days of the date the claims 

could have been presented.” See Hernandez, 79 A.3d 651-52 (citations 

omitted); see also 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(2).2 Finally, exceptions to the 

PCRA's time bar must be pled in the petition, and may not be raised for the 

first time on appeal. Commonwealth v. Burton, 936 A.2d 521, 525 (Pa. 

Super. 2007); see also Pa.R.A.P. 302(a) (providing that issues not raised 

before the lower court are waived and cannot be raised for the first time on 

appeal).

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(i) the failure to raise the claim previously was the result of 

interference of 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 retroactive.

42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9545(b)(1)(i), (ii), and (iii).

2 The Pennsylvania legislature recently amended this section of the PCRA to 

provide petitioners one year to file a petition invoking a time-bar exception. 

See Act of 2018, October 24, P.L. 894, No. 146. This amendment does not 

apply to Appellant’s serial petition.
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Here, it is uncontested that Appellant’s judgment of sentence became 

final over thirty years ago pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3).3 Thus, 

Appellant’s present PCRA petition, his sixth, filed in 2016, is patently untimely. 

Accordingly, the PCRA court was without jurisdiction to address the petition 

on its merits unless Appellant satisfied his burden of pleading and proving that 

one of the enumerated exceptions applies. See Hernandez, supra.

Appellant claims his petition meets the PCRA's time-bar exception for 

newly discovered facts. This Court has summarized:

The timeliness exception set forth in 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 of 

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.

The timeliness exception set forth at Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) has 

often mistakenly been referred to as the “after-discovered 

evidence” exception. This shorthand reference was a misnomer, 

since the plain language of subsection (b)(1)(ii) does not require 

the petitioner to allege and prove a claim of “after-discovered 

evidence.” Rather, an initial jurisdictional threshold, Section 

9545(b)(1)(ii) requires a petitioner to allege and prove that there 

were facts unknown to him and that he exercised due diligence in 

discovering those facts. Once jurisdiction is established, a PCRA 

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3 Section 9545(b)(3) provides, “For purposes of this subchapter, a judgment 

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.A. § 9545(b)(3). 
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petitioner can present a substantive after-discovered evidence 

claim.

Commonwealth v. Brown, 111 A.3d 171, 176 (Pa.Super. 2015) (citations 

and quotation marks omitted).

Stated differently, subsection 9545(b)(1)(ii)

“has two components that must be alleged and proved. Namely, 

the PCRA petitioner must establish that: 1) the facts upon which 

the claim is predicated were unknown to him and 2) could not 

have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence. If the 

petitioner alleges and proves these two components, then the 

PCRA court has jurisdiction over the claim under this subsection.

Id., at 176-77 (quoting Commonwealth v. Bennett, 930 A.2d 1264, 1272 

(Pa. 2007) (emphasis in original).

In support of his newly-discovered fact claim, Appellant argues that a 

person working on a documentary project recently furnished him with 

information obtained from two articles published in the Philadelphia Inquirer

newspaper on May 19, 1982 and June 3, 1982, respectively, reporting on the 

shooting of Chester Laws, Jr. In Appellant’s brief, he maintains the newspaper 

articles contained the following exculpatory quotes supplied by the victim’s 

father to Philadelphia Inquirer reporters: 

Laws Sr. informed police that he found him a witness to his son’s 

shooting. (Philadelphia Inquirer, May 19, 1982, Robert J. Terry);

and

I got hold of him [Homer Lane] and he breaks, then I took him to 

the police. (Philadelphia Inquirer, pg. 5, June 3, 1982, Marguerita 

Delguidice).
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Appellant’s brief, at 7. Specifically, Appellant maintains that such statements 

implicated Homer Lane in the shooting of Chester Laws, Jr.

The PCRA court determined, however, that “[t]his evidence could have 

been discovered at any point starting with their publication in 1982. . . . As 

these facts were easily discoverable and in the public record for longer than 

60 days before this petition was filed, the petition is time-barred, and we lack 

jurisdiction to address the merits.” PCRA Opinion, at 6 (quoting 

Commonwealth v. Fisher, 870 A.2d 864, 871 (Pa. 2005)). We agree. 

Appellant was represented by counsel at all relevant stages of his 

criminal trial. Why it is that neither counsel nor he were able to discover two 

Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper articles reporting on the fatal shooting at 

issue and published just one day before, and two weeks after, Appellant’s 

arrest, is not explained. In this regard, we note that this case bears no 

similarity to Commonwealth v. Burton, 121 A.3d 1063 (Pa.Super. 2015) 

(en banc), in which this Court recognized a pro se petitioner exception to the 

due diligence rule in discovering new information in the public domain, as the 

information here was available at the very outset of Appellant’s counseled 

defense. 

As such, Appellant fails to carry his burden to establish that the articles 

were ascertainable no earlier than 60 days prior to his filing of the present 

petition, despite the passage of 34 years from the original dates of their 

publication in a prominent Philadelphia newspaper. Accordingly, we discern 

no error with the Court’s order dismissing Appellant’s petition as untimely.
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Order affirmed. 

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 12/13/19