Court Opinion

ID: 9960165
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-15 16:11:25.330005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:19:14.930376
License: Public Domain

J-S10005-24

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  TERRENCE GRAHAM                              :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 668 WDA 2023

             Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered May 5, 2023
  In the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County Criminal Division at
                     No(s): CP-63-CR-0001119-2010

BEFORE: OLSON, J., KING, J., and LANE, J.

MEMORANDUM BY OLSON, J.:                                FILED: APRIL 15, 2024

       Appellant, Terrence Graham, appeals pro se from the order entered on

May 5, 2023, which dismissed his second petition filed under the Post

Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. We affirm.

       A jury found Appellant guilty of two counts of criminal homicide and one

count each of abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence. 1 On

July 26, 2011, the trial court sentenced Appellant to serve two consecutive

terms of life in prison for his homicide convictions and to serve concurrent

terms of incarceration for the remaining convictions. We affirmed Appellant’s

judgment of sentence on February 15, 2013 and the Pennsylvania Supreme

Court denied Appellant’s petition for allowance of appeal on August 28, 2013.

____________________________________________

1 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 2501(a), 5510, and 4910(1), respectively.
J-S10005-24

Commonwealth v. Graham, 68 A.3d 364 (Pa. Super. 2013) (unpublished

memorandum) at 1-23, appeal denied, 74 A.3d 125 (Pa. 2013).

        Appellant filed a timely, first PCRA petition on August 20, 2014.

Following the appointment of counsel, the PCRA court dismissed Appellant’s

petition on February 10, 2020 and this Court affirmed the PCRA court’s order

on April 22, 2021. Commonwealth v. Graham, 253 A.3d 303 (Pa. Super.

2021) (non-precedential decision) at 1-9.

        Appellant filed the current PCRA petition on November 15, 2021. Within

this petition, Appellant acknowledged that it was facially untimely under the

PCRA's one-year time-bar. See Appellant's Second PCRA Petition, 11/15/21,

at 8.    However, Appellant claimed that his petition was timely under the

governmental interference exception to the time-bar.          Id. at 7.      As ably

summarized by the PCRA court, Appellant claimed:

          during his first PCRA petition, . . . [Appellant] filed a motion
          for discovery on May 31, 2016, requesting specific items of
          evidence. On August 4, 2016, the PCRA court ordered the
          Commonwealth to provide the requested discovery items
          within 30 days or show just cause as to why [Appellant]
          should not have the discovery items. The Commonwealth
          responded to [Appellant’s] discovery requests on February
          27, 2018, and March 1, 2018. [Appellant] contends that in
          these responses, the Commonwealth failed to provide the
          requested discovery. Specifically, he addresses the phone
          records belonging to [Appellant’s] phone. . . . [Appellant]
          argues that it was the failure of the Commonwealth to provide
          this discovery, specifically citing the phone records for [his
          telephone number], as the government[al] interference that
          allows his second PCRA petition to meet one of the timeliness
          requirement exceptions.

PCRA Court Opinion, 7/18/23, at 7 (footnotes omitted).

                                       -2-
J-S10005-24

      On December 29, 2022, the PCRA court provided Appellant with notice

that it intended to dismiss his petition in 20 days, without holding a hearing.

See PCRA Court Order, 12/29/22, at 1; see also Pa.R.Crim.P. 907(1).

Appellant filed a response to the PCRA court’s Rule 907 notice on January 17,

2023. However, the PCRA court dismissed Appellant’s petition on May 5, 2023

on the basis of untimeliness and Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal. We

now affirm the dismissal of Appellant’s untimely, serial PCRA petition.

      “As a general proposition, we review a denial of PCRA relief to determine

whether the findings of the PCRA court are supported by the record and free

of legal error.” Commonwealth v. Eichinger, 108 A.3d 821, 830 (Pa. 2014).

      Before this Court may address the substance of Appellant’s claims, we

must first determine if this petition is timely.

        [The PCRA requires] a petitioner to file any PCRA petition
        within one year of the date the judgment of sentence
        becomes final. A judgment of sentence becomes final at the
        conclusion of direct review . . . or at the expiration of time
        for seeking review.

                                       ...

        However, an untimely petition may be received when the
        petition alleges, and the petitioner proves, that any of the
        three limited exceptions to the time for filing the petition, set
        forth at 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(i), (ii), and (iii), are met.
        A petition invoking one of these exceptions must be filed
        within [one year] of the date the claim could first have been
        presented. In order to be entitled to the exceptions to the
        PCRA’s one-year filing deadline, the petitioner must plead
        and prove specific facts that demonstrate his claim was raised
        within the [one-year] timeframe.

                                       -3-
J-S10005-24

See Commonwealth v. Lawson, 90 A.3d 1, 4-5 (Pa. Super. 2014)

(quotation marks and some citations omitted).

      In the present case, the PCRA court found Appellant's petition to be

untimely filed. PCRA Court Order, 5/5/23, at 1. We agree. Appellant's

judgment of sentence became final at the end of the day on November 26,

2013, which was 90 days after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied

Appellant’s petition for allowance of appeal and Appellant’s time for filing a

petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court expired.

See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3) (“A judgment becomes final at the conclusion

of direct review, including discretionary review in the Supreme Court of the

United States . . . , or at the expiration of time for seeking the review”); see

also U.S.Sup.Ct.R. 13.1. The PCRA expressly requires that a petition be filed

“within one year of the date the judgment becomes final.”         42 Pa.C.S.A.

§ 9545(b)(1). As such, Appellant had until November 26, 2014 to file a timely

PCRA petition.   Since Appellant filed his current petition on November 15,

2021, the current petition is patently untimely and the burden thus fell upon

Appellant to plead and prove that one of the enumerated exceptions to the

one-year time-bar applied to his case.      See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1);

Commonwealth v. Perrin, 947 A.2d 1284, 1286 (Pa. Super. 2008) (to

properly invoke a statutory exception to the one-year time-bar, the PCRA

demands that the petitioner properly plead and prove all required elements of

the relied-upon exception).

                                     -4-
J-S10005-24

      Appellant purports to invoke the “governmental interference” exception

to the time-bar. This statutory exception provides:

        (1) Any petition under this subchapter, including a second or
        subsequent petition, shall be filed within one year of the date
        the judgment becomes final, unless the petition alleges and
        the petitioner proves that:

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

                                      ...

        (2) Any petition invoking an exception provided in paragraph
        (1) shall be filed within one year of the date the claim could
        have been presented.

42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b).

      To successfully invoke the governmental interference exception, a

“petitioner must plead and prove the failure to previously raise the

[underlying] claim was the result of interference by government officials, and

the information could not have been obtained earlier with the exercise of due

diligence.” Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal, 941 A.2d 1263, 1268 (Pa. 2008).

      The PCRA court thoroughly explained why Appellant’s petition does not

satisfy the governmental interference exception:

        [Appellant’s] allegation, that the Commonwealth fail[ed] to
        provide, during the [first PCRA proceedings], the cellphone
        records relating to his own cellphone constituted
        government[al] interference which prevented him from
        presenting [certain] claims in his previous PCRA petition,
        cannot be sustained. [Appellant] fails to sustain his burden
        to show that his failure to raise these claims was the result

                                     -5-
J-S10005-24

        of government[al] interference or that the records in question
        could not have been obtained earlier with the exercise of due
        diligence. The information contained in the cellphone records
        was admittedly available to his trial counsel during the
        pretrial proceedings and was made part of the record when
        provided in discovery on March 25, 2011. Clearly, these
        records were available during trial and at the time of his first
        PCRA petition. [Appellant] further admits that his cellphone
        was available to him and in the possession of his cousin, and
        that the only reason he did not have the cellphone and the
        corresponding records is because he did not speak to his
        cousin for an extended period of time. Furthermore, there
        were other sources of information, beyond the cellphone
        records, which could have been used in support of these
        claims, such as the testimony of the victim’s father at
        sentencing and [Appellant’s] own personal knowledge.
        Because [Appellant] cannot demonstrate that the failure to
        raise these claims was the result of government interference
        or that the evidence which was allegedly withheld contained
        information that could not have been obtained earlier with
        the exercise of due diligence, he has failed to meet his burden
        to establish an exception for his petition’s untimeliness.

PCRA Court Opinion, 7/18/23, at 12 (citations omitted).

      We agree with the PCRA court’s able explanation and thus conclude that

Appellant's petition is time-barred and that our “courts are without jurisdiction

to offer [Appellant] any form of relief.” Commonwealth v. Jackson, 30 A.3d

516, 523 (Pa. Super. 2011). Hence, we affirm the PCRA court's order, which

dismissed Appellant’s second PCRA petition without a hearing.

      Order affirmed. Jurisdiction relinquished.

                                      -6-
J-S10005-24

DATE: 04/15/2024

                   -7-