J-S01043-24

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

JEREMY HEATH BARNEY 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 976 MDA 2023

Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered June 23, 2023

In the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster County 

Criminal Division at No(s): CP-36-CR-0005676-2012

BEFORE: PANELLA, P.J.E., KUNSELMAN, J., and COLINS, J.

MEMORANDUM BY COLINS, J.: FILED AUGUST 02, 2024

Jeremy Heath Barney,

1 pro se, appeals from the order denying his 

“Motion to Correct the Record.” We quash.

A detailed recitation of the facts is unnecessary to the disposition of this 

appeal. Briefly, after representing himself in front of a jury, Barney was found 

guilty of, inter alia, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child and was 

sentenced to twenty-to-forty years of incarceration. This Court affirmed his 

judgment of sentence in 2015, and our Supreme Court denied his petition for 

allowance of appeal that same year. See Commonwealth v. Barney, No. 

1460 MDA 2014 (Pa. Super., filed Mar. 27, 2015), appeal denied, 120 A.3d 

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 Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 We use the spelling of Barney’s first name as indicated in the case caption, 

but we note that Barney refers to himself as “Jermey” and the lower court 

identifies Barney as “Jeremey” in its Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion. 
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1064 (Pa. 2015).

In 2016, Barney filed a pro se petition pursuant to the Post Conviction 

Relief Act, and counsel was appointed thereafter. See 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-46 

(“PCRA”). Despite a protracted series of legal proceedings,2the lower court 

never addressed the bulk of the issues contained in the 2016 PCRA petition, 

nor did it file Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice about its intention to dismiss the matter.

In 2022, Barney filed an application seeking clarification of the status of the

petition. The lower court denied this application and, that same day, indicated 

that his petition had been denied “by operation of law” when he was 

resentenced in 2018. 

Thereafter, Barney filed a pro se notice of appeal seeking appellate

resolution of his 2016 PCRA petition, which was docketed in this Court at 1494 

MDA 2022. We initially remanded to establish whether Barney wished to 

proceed pro se pursuant to Commonwealth v. Grazier, 713 A.2d 81 (Pa. 

1998), and later, in our final disposition of the appeal, remanded for the lower 

court to enter an order either granting or denying the outstanding claims in 

his 2016 PCRA petition. 

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2 During the pendency of his PCRA review, Barney was resentenced in 2018 

in accordance with Commonwealth v. Wolfe, 140 A.3d 651 (Pa. 2016)

(holding that ten-year mandatory minimum sentence for involuntary deviate 

sexual intercourse conviction was unconstitutional). Ultimately, this Court 

affirmed his new judgment of sentence, which was identical to the sentence 

originally imposed, and our Supreme Court denied his petition for allowance 

of appeal. See Commonwealth v. Barney, 241 A.3d 428 (Pa. Super. 2020)

(unpublished memorandum), allocatur denied, No. 76 MAL 2021 (Pa., filed

July 7, 2021), cert. denied, 142 S.Ct. 1455 (U.S., filed April 4, 2022).
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In June 2023, following the Grazier hearing and prior to our second 

remand, Barney filed identical motions seeking a “correction of the record”

with both this Court in the 1494 MDA 2022 appeal as well as with the lower 

court. While this Court did not rule upon Barney’s motion at 1494 MDA 2022, 

the lower court entered an order denying Barney’s motion on June 23, 2023, 

which is presently on appeal. 

In his motion, Barney seeks to change two docket entries to reflect what 

he contends are more accurate descriptions of the documents he filed and to 

remove specifically named former counsel “from receiving any of the filings[,] 

documents[,] and orders” because that attorney “has not been [his attorney] 

since 2015.” Motion to Correct the Record, 6/11/23. 

Prior to addressing the merits of this appeal, we first address the 

appealability of the lower court’s order. Generally, an appeal only may be 

taken from a final order, unless otherwise permitted by rule or statute. K.M.G. 

v. H.M.W., 171 A.3d 839, 842 (Pa. Super. 2017). A final order is one that 

disposes of all the parties and all the claims, is entered as a final order 

pursuant to the trial court’s determination, finally disposes of a PCRA petition, 

or grants sentencing relief on a PCRA petition and otherwise disposes of the 

petition. See Pa.R.A.P. 341(b), (c), (f).

Here, the lower court’s June 23, 2023 order did not finally dispose of 

Barney’s 2016 PCRA petition, which was on appeal at that date and was 

subsequently remanded to the lower court for its resolution and remains 

pending as of the date of issuance of this memorandum. Furthermore, the 
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order the lower court did not designate it as a final order under Rule of 

Appellate Procedure 341(c).

Barney’s motion was ostensibly filed pursuant to Rule of Appellate 

Procedure 1926, which provides that an appellant may file an “application” to 

correct “anything material to a party [that has been] omitted from the record 

by error ... or is misstated therein.” Pa.R.A.P. 1926(b)(1). However, Rule 1926 

envisions that the correction occurs ancillary to an appeal. See id. (stating 

that when the trial court makes a correction it “shall direct that a supplemental 

record be certified and transmitted” to the appellate court considering the 

appeal); Commonwealth v. Montalvo, 244 A.3d 359, 370 (Pa. 2021)

(noting that separate procedures are set forth in the Rules of Criminal and 

Appellate Procedure for correction of errors in trial and appellate courts)

3; 20A 

West’s Pennsylvania Practice, Appellate Practice § 1926:7 (2023) (“Rule 1926 

provides an appellant with the opportunity to eliminate potentially 

troublesome impediments to appellate review by making necessary 

corrections or modifications to the record on appeal once the record is lodged 

with the appellate court.”). While this Court could have acted on Barney’s

motion filed in the 1494 MDA 2022 appeal as a properly filed application to 

correct the record in that appeal, following our remand for further PCRA 

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3 See Montalvo, 244 A.3d at 370 (citing Pa.R.Crim.P. 115(C)); see 

Pa.R.Crim.P. 115, Comment (“Paragraph (C) provides a method for correcting 

transcripts and correcting or modifying the record before appeal by 

incorporating Pa.R.A.P. 1922(c) and Pa.R.A.P. 1926, which otherwise apply 

only after an appeal has been taken.”).
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proceedings and relinquishment of jurisdiction, the application was not 

attached to an appeal in this Court. Moreover, Rule 1926 does not authorize 

the filing of its own independent appeal solely to address the trial court’s 

decision to deny a request to correct the record.4

Therefore, we conclude that the lower court’s June 23, 2023 order was 

interlocutory and not subject to an immediate appeal.5 However, Barney is 

not without recourse to challenge this order, as it will be made appealable by 

a final resolution of his 2016 PCRA petition. See Pa.R.A.P. 341, Comment; 

K.H. v. J.R., 826 A.2d 863, 870-71 (Pa. 2003) (appeal from a final order 

draws into question the propriety of earlier non-final orders in that case).6

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4 We distinguish the present case from that of Commonwealth v. Pridgen, 

No. 989 MDA 2023, 2024 WL 1270509 (Pa. Super., filed Mar. 26, 2024), where 

this Court addressed the denial of a request to correct the record as a separate 

appeal after we directed the appellant to seek relief in the PCRA court during 

the pendency of an earlier appeal, that motion was not denied by the lower 

court until after the appeal was resolved and therefore there was no ongoing 

proceeding, and the appellant had “no other means of challenging the trial 

court’s denial of that motion.” Id. at *1 n.1. Here, we hold only that a request 

for a correction of the record during a PCRA action should be litigated and 

appealed in the context of the PCRA matter and any appeal from the denial of 

the request prior to the final resolution of the PCRA matter should be deemed 

interlocutory. 

5

Interlocutory orders may be appealed as of right or by permission, see

Pa.R.A.P. 311, 312, but those circumstances are not germane to the present 

matter. 

6 To the extent Barney raises a challenge to the June 23, 2023 order in a 

subsequent appeal, we direct the lower court to state the basis for its ruling 

on Barney’s motion to correct the record in an opinion issued in response to 

that appeal. The Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion for this appeal merely stated that 

that the court “did not abuse its discretion in denying [Barney’s] [M]otion to 

(Footnote Continued Next Page)
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Appeal quashed.

Judgment Entered.

Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 08/02/2024

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Correct the Record,” without any further elaboration. Opinion, 8/18/23, at 2 

(unpaginated).