Court Opinion

ID: 9910140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-14 20:09:59.794905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:51:03.200000
License: Public Domain

J-S40007-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  JOSEPH TAYLOR                                :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 1196 EDA 2023

             Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered April 4, 2023
    In the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County Criminal Division at
                      No(s): CP-15-CR-0001369-1997,
                          CP-15-CR-0003165-2001

BEFORE:      NICHOLS, J., SULLIVAN, J., and COLINS, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY NICHOLS, J.:                          FILED DECEMBER 14, 2023

       Appellant Joseph Taylor appeals1 pro se from the order dismissing his

fifth Post Conviction Relief Act2 (PCRA) petition as untimely.         Appellant

challenges the legality of the first-degree murder sentence imposed at Docket

No. 3165-2001. We affirm.

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 We note that although Appellant failed to file separate notices of appeal at

each docket number pursuant to Commonwealth v. Walker, 185 A.3d 969
(Pa. 2018), and its progeny, we nonetheless decline to quash Appellant’s
appeal or remand for the filing of corrected notices of appeal because the
record reflects that the PCRA court advised Appellant that he could seek
appellate review by filing “an appeal” within thirty days. PCRA Ct. Order,
4/4/23; see also Commonwealth v. Larkin, 235 A.3d 350, 352-54 (Pa.
Super. 2020) (en banc); Commonwealth v. Stansbury, 219 A.3d 157, 160
(Pa. Super. 2019).

2 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546.
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      On May 18, 1998, Appellant pled guilty to one count of attempted

murder and conspiracy for the 1996 shooting of Ironne Cannon at Docket No.

1369-2007. That same day, the trial court sentenced Appellant to fifteen to

thirty years’ imprisonment.

      On April 16, 2001, Mr. Cannon died from complications of the injuries

he sustained in 1996. As a result, the Commonwealth charged Appellant with

first-degree murder at Docket No. 3165-2001. Defendant’s pretrial motion to

dismiss based on double jeopardy was denied, and a jury subsequently

convicted Appellant of first-degree murder, and the trial court sentenced

Appellant to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This Court

affirmed Appellant’s judgment of sentence on January 14, 2005, and our

Supreme Court subsequently denied Appellant’s petition for allowance of

appeal. See Commonwealth v. Taylor, 3707 EDA 2003 (Pa. Super. filed

Jan. 14, 2005) (unpublished mem.), appeal denied, 889 A.2d 1216 (Pa. 2005).

Appellant did not file a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court

of the United States.

      On January 18, 2022, Appellant filed the instant pro se motion for

habeas corpus relief challenging the legality of his first-degree murder

sentence at Docket No. 3165-2001.        On March 20, 2023, the PCRA court

entered a Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice of intent to dismiss Appellant’s petition

without a hearing. Appellant filed a timely response. On April 4, 2023, the

PCRA court issued an order dismissing Appellant’s petition.

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      Appellant filed a notice of appeal, which was docketed on May 5, 2023.

The PCRA court issued a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion reiterating the reasons for

dismissing Appellant’s PCRA petition as untimely.

      Initially, we must address whether Appellant’s notice of appeal was

timely. As noted previously, the PCRA court docketed Appellant’s notice of

appeal on May 5, 2023, one day after the thirty-day appeal period expired.

See Pa.R.A.P. 903(a) (mandating that a notice of appeal “shall be filed within

30 days after the entry of the order from which the appeal is taken”). On June

12, 2023, this Court issued a rule to show cause as to why the instant appeal

should not be quashed as untimely. See Order, 6/12/23. Therein, this Court

instructed Appellant to provide “documentation . . . such as a properly

executed prisoner cash slip or other reasonably verifiable evidence that can

be used to verify the date that the notice of appeal was delivered to prison

authorities.” Id. (some formatting altered).

      Appellant filed a response to the order to show cause on June 26, 2023,

alleging that because the PCRA court received his notice of appeal one day

after the appeal period expired, Appellant’s notice of appeal “had to have been

placed in the institution mailbox” on or before May 4, 2023, pursuant to the

prisoner mailbox rule.   Appellant’s Resp. to Rule to Show Cause, 6/26/23

(some formatting altered). On August 8, 2023, this Court entered an order

discharging the rule to show cause and deferring the issue to the merits panel.

      It is well settled that under the prisoner mailbox rule, a document is

deemed filed on the day it is placed in the hands of prison authorities for

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mailing.   Commonwealth v. Powell, 290 A.3d 751, 756 n.9 (Pa. Super.

2023); see also Pa.R.A.P. 121(f) (stating that “[a] pro se filing submitted by

a person incarcerated in a correctional facility is deemed filed as of the date

of the prison postmark or the date the filing was delivered to the prison

authorities for purposes of mailing as documented by a properly executed

prisoner cash slip or other reasonably verifiable evidence”).

      However, even in the absence of a “postmark definitively noting the date

of mailing,” this Court has considered an appeal timely when it was clear from

the date of the PCRA court’s receipt that the notice was sent before the thirty-

day appeal deadline expired. See Commonwealth v. Patterson, 931 A.2d

710, 714 (Pa. Super. 2007) (concluding that the pro se appellant’s notice of

appeal was timely and explaining that although the “notice of appeal, on its

face, appears to have been untimely filed three days beyond the final date of

September 22, 2006 . . . . September 23rd and 24th were weekend days” and

“in order for the trial court to have received the notice of appeal by September

25th, it is likely that [the a]ppellant mailed his notice of appeal on or before

September 22nd”).

      Here, Appellant’s notice of appeal is dated April 30, 2023, which was a

Sunday. The PCRA court docketed Appellant’s notice of appeal on Friday, May

5, 2023, one day after the thirty-day appeal period expired. In order for the

PCRA court to have received the filing by May 5, 2023, it is likely that Appellant

mailed his notice of appeal on or before May 4, 2023, which was the last day

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to file a timely appeal. Therefore, we decline to quash Appellant’s appeal as

untimely. See Patterson, 931 A.2d at 714.

      On appeal, Appellant raises the following issues for our review:

      1. Whether a judgment can stand procured by fraud, due to the
         court lack of subject matter jurisdiction?

      2. Whether a challenge to the legality of Appellant’s confinement
         a claim that is the heart of habeas corpus?

      3. Whether a nunc pro tunc review was appropriat[e] in this
         matter?

Appellant’s Brief at IV (formatting altered).

      Our review of the denial of PCRA relief is limited to “whether the record

supports the PCRA court’s determination and whether the PCRA court’s

decision is free of legal error.” Commonwealth v. Lawson, 90 A.3d 1, 4

(Pa. Super. 2014) (citations omitted).

      At the outset, we note that Appellant refers to his filing as a motion for

habeas corpus relief. Our Supreme Court has held that the PCRA subsumes

the writ of habeas corpus where a remedy is available under the PCRA. See

Commonwealth v. Fahy, 737 A.2d 214, 223-24 (Pa. 1999); see also 42

Pa.C.S. § 9542 (stating that a PCRA petition “shall be the sole means of

obtaining collateral relief and encompasses all other common law and

statutory remedies . . . including habeas corpus and coram nobis”).

      A challenge to the “legality of sentence is always subject to review within

the PCRA,” however, a PCRA petitioner “must still first satisfy the PCRA’s time

limits or one of the exceptions thereto.”       Fahy, 737 A.2d at 223 (citation

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omitted); see also 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(vii). Therefore, we conclude that

the PCRA court properly construed Appellant’s motion for habeas corpus relief

as a subsequent PCRA petition.

     “[T]he timeliness of a PCRA petition is a jurisdictional requisite.”

Commonwealth v. Brown, 111 A.3d 171, 175 (Pa. Super. 2015) (citation

omitted). A PCRA petition, “including a second or subsequent petition, shall

be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final” unless the

petitioner pleads and proves one of three statutory exceptions. 42 Pa.C.S. §

9545(b)(1). A judgment of sentence becomes final for PCRA purposes “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. § 9545(b)(3).

     Courts may consider a PCRA petition filed more than one year after a

judgment of sentence becomes final if the petitioner pleads and proves one of

the following three statutory exceptions:

     (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;

     (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 retroactively.

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42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii).

      It is the PCRA petitioner’s “burden to allege and prove that one of the

timeliness exceptions applies.”     Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 994 A.2d

1091, 1094 (Pa. 2010) (citations omitted and some formatting altered). If a

petition is untimely, and none of the timeliness exceptions are met, courts do

not have jurisdiction to address the substance of the underlying claims.

Commonwealth v. Cox, 146 A.3d 221, 227 (Pa. 2016).

      Here, this Court affirmed Appellant’s judgment of sentence at Docket

No. 3165-2001 in January of 2005, and our Supreme Court denied his petition

for review on November 30, 2005. Appellant did not file a petition for writ of

certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States. Therefore, Appellant’s

judgment of sentence became final on February 28, 2006. See 42 Pa.C.S. §

9545(b)(3) (stating that the judgment of sentence becomes final at the

conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking the

review); U.S. Sup. Ct. R. 13. Accordingly, Appellant had until February 28,

2007 to file a timely PCRA petition. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1).

      Appellant’s instant PCRA petition, filed on January 18, 2022, is therefore

facially untimely. Further, as noted previously, Appellant did not argue an

exception to the PCRA time bar in his pro se motion for habeas corpus relief.

Cf. Albrecht, 994 A.2d at 1094.       Because Appellant’s petition is facially

untimely and Appellant neither pled nor proved a timeliness exception under

the PCRA, he has failed to meet the jurisdictional threshold for a court to

consider the merits of his claim.    See Fahy, 737 A.2d at 223; see also

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Brown, 111 A.3d at 175. Therefore, the PCRA court correctly concluded that

it did not have jurisdiction to review the merits of Appellant’s petition. For

these reasons, we affirm.

     Order affirmed. Jurisdiction relinquished.

Date: 12/14/2023

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