Court Opinion

ID: 9839900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-14 16:08:53.028594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:00.543664
License: Public Domain

J-S20041-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT OP 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  FRANK ADAM YEAGER                            :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 93 EDA 2023

            Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered December 19, 2022
                 In the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County
              Criminal Division at No(s): CP-39-CR-0000377-2013

BEFORE:      DUBOW, J., KUNSELMAN, J., and COLINS, J.

MEMORANDUM BY COLINS, J.:                          FILED SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

       Frank Adam Yeager, pro se, appeals from the order dismissing as

untimely his November 28, 2022 filing, which was construed by the lower

court as Post Conviction Relief Action (“PCRA”) petition. See 42 Pa.C.S. §§

9541-9546. We agree that Yeager’s filing was properly adjudicated as a PCRA

petition. Resultantly, because Yeager failed to plead and prove an exception

to the PCRA’s time bar, neither we nor the lower court have jurisdiction to

consider the claims raised therein. As such, we affirm the order dismissing his

petition.

       While the facts underpinning Yeager’s convictions are not inherently

relevant to this appeal, we adopt the lower court’s factual and procedural

summaries leading to the present matter:

____________________________________________

 Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
J-S20041-23

            The victim was a saleswoman for Pulte Homes at its new
     development in Upper Macungie Township, Lehigh County. On
     November 25, 2012, just before closing time at 7:00 p.m., she
     was alone in the office at the development. [Yeager] entered the
     office and asked the victim if she would show him one of the model
     homes[;] the victim became suspicious because of the way
     [Yeager] was acting and because he did not ask for information
     about the home. She told him to look at the home himself. He
     went to the model home and was there for about 45 minutes. It
     was [Yeager’s] plan to get the woman alone in an upstairs
     bedroom of the model home and to rape her there. When he was
     upstairs in the model home, he looked from the windows to see if
     the victim was [coming]. To prepare for the rape, he closed the
     curtains in a bedroom and turned off the lights.

            When the victim did not come to the model home, [Yeager]
     returned to the office and told her that there was a water leak in
     the home and he wanted to show it to her. She was still suspicious
     and she refused to go with him. [Yeager] continued to ask her to
     inspect the leak. A male co-worker of the victim then entered the
     office at which point [Yeager] quickly left. [Yeager] went to his
     pickup truck and waited for the male co-worker to leave. After a
     while, [Yeager] got tired of waiting and drove off.

            In various statements, [Yeager] admitted that it was his
     plan to lure the victim into a bedroom on the second floor of the
     model home and to rape her there. He stated that he chose the
     office closing time because of the likelihood that the woman would
     be alone.

            Police obtained a search warrant and found, inter alia, a
     handwritten note by [Yeager] describing his fantasy about raping
     a female realtor and a suicide note detailing plans to rape other
     women that had been unsuccessful and expressing an intent to
     kill himself and set the model home on fire after raping the victim.
     Additionally, a search performed on [Yeager’s] pickup truck
     revealed numerous tools consistent with the plans [Yeager]
     detailed, including matches, a lighter, knives, binoculars, a ski
     mask, gloves, rope, two handguns, several magazines and
     ammunition, a chain, padlocks, duct tape and realty brochures.

           [Yeager] entered a guilty plea to one count of [a]ttempted
     [r]ape on April 29, 2013. In exchange for his plea, the
     Commonwealth withdrew two firearms and possession of

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      instruments of crime charges. [Yeager was sentenced to ten to
      twenty years’ imprisonment.] On his direct appeal, [Yeager] did
      not claim he was innocent. He also did not [make that allegation]
      in his counseled PCRA.

            [Yeager] filed a timely PCRA [p]etition on September 9,
      [2015]. The PCRA court conducted an evidentiary hearing and
      denied the petition on April 4, 2016. The Superior Court affirmed
      the denial of the PCRA [petition] on June 13, 2017.

             [Yeager] filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus[, the
      document controlling the present case,] on November 28, 2022
      and captioned it as a civil matter. The Clerk of Judicial Records
      forwarded it to the [lower court] for review. After reviewing the
      petition, [it] determined that [Yeager’s submission was] a petition
      for post-conviction relief. . . . On November 30, 2022, the [c]ourt
      entered an order putting [Yeager] on notice of the [c]ourt’s intent
      to dismiss without a hearing. [Yeager] filed a response on
      December 13, 2022. On December 19, 2022, the [c]ourt entered
      an order dismissing [Yeager’s] PCRA [petition].

Trial Court Opinion, 1/24/23, at 2-4 (citations and quotation marks omitted)

(formatting altered) (italics added). After that dismissal, Yeager filed a timely

notice of appeal. The relevant parties have adhered to their obligations under

Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 1925, and accordingly, this matter

is ripe for review.

      Preliminarily, as it controls this appeal, we note that the PCRA is the

“sole means of obtaining collateral relief and encompasses all other common

law and statutory remedies … including habeas corpus[.]” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9542

(italics added); see also Commonwealth v. Taylor, 65 A.3d 462, 465-66

(Pa. Super. 2013) (“[T]he PCRA is intended to be the sole means of achieving

post-conviction relief. Unless the PCRA could not provide for a potential

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remedy, the PCRA statute subsumes the writ of habeas corpus.”) (citations

omitted).

      In arguing that the lower court erred by applying the PCRA to his

petition, Yeager contends that his November 28, 2022 filing should have been

treated outside of the PCRA’s domain as a habeas petition because “the

contractual enforcement of a plea agreement … is not cognizable under the

auspice of the [PCRA.]” Appellant’s Brief, at 7.

      While it is true that “a collateral petition to enforce a plea agreement is

regularly treated as outside the ambit of the PCRA and under the contractual

enforcement theory of specific performance[,]” Commonwealth v. Kerns,

220 A.3d 607, 611-12 (Pa. Super. 2019) (emphasis added), in a wholly

distinct manner, Yeager’s petition attempts to invalidate his plea agreement.

See Appellant’s Brief, at 9 (“[Yeager’s] plea agreement … is contractual[ly]

invalid for lack of the availability of ‘an attempt’ in the charge of rape. This

enforcement of the initial plea bargain is a legal impossibility as the factual

basis for the plea does not exist[.]”). Essentially, Yeager argues that he

entered into his plea under false pretenses because although he “adequately

prepared for a rape, … [he] never went through with a significant step toward

that rape since the acts [were] confined to preparation only and were

abandoned before any transgression of the law[.]” Id. (quotation marks

omitted) (formatting altered). Accordingly, there was no factual basis for him

to assent to what he is implicitly describing as an unlawfully induced plea.

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      Despite him arguing to the contrary, such a contention, believing his

original plea agreement to be “void” or “voidable,” id., at 10, falls squarely

within the PCRA’s ambit. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(iii) (establishing that,

under the PCRA, relief may be sought if there has been a conviction or

sentence involving an unlawfully induced guilty plea “where the circumstances

make it likely that the inducement caused the petitioner to plead guilty and

the petitioner is innocent[]”); see also, e.g., Commonwealth v. Oliver, 128

A.3d 1275, 1280 (Pa. Super. 2015). Consequently, as the PCRA is capable of

providing him with the relief that he now seeks, the court was correct in

treating Yeager’s filing as his second PCRA petition.

      With Yeager having filed a PCRA petition, as with all cases involving the

denial of PCRA relief, “we examine whether the PCRA court’s determination is

supported by the record and free of legal error.” Commonwealth v.

Montalvo, 114 A.3d 401, 409 (Pa. 2015) (citation and internal quotation

marks omitted). To seek relief under the PCRA, a petitioner must satisfy the

jurisdictional requisite of timeliness; otherwise, a PCRA court cannot hear

untimely PCRA petitions. See Commonwealth v. Zeigler, 148 A.3d 849, 853

(Pa. Super. 2016). Specifically, PCRA petitions must be filed within one year

of the date a judgment of sentence becomes final. See Commonwealth v.

Bennett, 930 A.2d 1264, 1267 (Pa. 2007); 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). A

judgment becomes final “at the conclusion of direct review, including

discretionary review in the Supreme Court of the United States and the

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Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, or at the expiration of time for seeking the

review.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(3).

      Notwithstanding jurisdictional concerns, a petitioner can avail himself of

the PCRA’s three exceptions to its one-year time bar. Specifically, for an

otherwise untimely PCRA petition, a petitioner must demonstrate the

existence of: (1) newly-discovered facts; (2) interference by a government

official; or (3) a newly-recognized constitutional right. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. §

9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii). A petitioner seeking to prove the applicability of a time-bar

exception must also allege and prove that he filed his petition within one year

of the date his time-bar exception claim first could have been presented. 42

Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2). “Our Supreme Court has repeatedly stated it is the

petitioner’s burden to allege and prove that one of the timeliness exceptions

applies.” Commonwealth v. Smallwood, 155 A.3d 1054, 1060 (Pa. Super.

2017) (citation omitted).

      After   this   Court   affirmed   Yeager’s   judgment    of   sentence    in

Commonwealth v. Yeager, 2014 WL 10786870 (Pa. Super., December 22,

2014) (unpublished memorandum), and he sought no further relief from our

Supreme Court, Yeager’s judgment of sentence necessarily became final in

the year 2015. Yeager then filed his first and timely PCRA petition on

September 9, 2015, which was ultimately resolved through this Court’s

affirmance of the PCRA court’s dismissal of that petition in 2017. Therefore,

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Yeager’s present 2022 petition, filed several years after his judgment of

sentence became final, is facially untimely.

      Yeager does not illuminate, much less discuss, any of the three bases

that were available to him in his attempt to surmount the PCRA’s time bar in

his 2022 petition or in his appellate brief. As he has failed to plead and prove

the applicability of any exception, we are without jurisdiction to consider the

underlying allegations contained in his petition, and the lower court was

correct in its determination of the same. In the absence of any PCRA time bar

exception, we affirm the lower court’s order dismissing Yeager’s PCRA petition.

      Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 9/14/2023

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