Court Opinion

ID: 9839267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-12 17:09:10.689088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:54.524243
License: Public Domain

J-S30030-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  JEFFREY GIDDINGS                             :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 283 EDA 2023

           Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered January 17, 2023
  In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
                     No(s): CP-51-CR-0514881-1991

BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., LAZARUS, J., and SULLIVAN, J.

MEMORANDUM BY LAZARUS, J.:                         FILED SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

       Jeffrey Giddings appeals pro se from the order dismissing his petition

filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-

9546. Because Giddings’ petition is untimely and he has not satisfied any

exception to the PCRA’s timeliness requirement,1 we affirm.

       In 1992, following a bench trial, the Honorable David N. Savitt convicted

Giddings of four counts of robbery and one count each of first-degree murder,

criminal conspiracy and possessing an instrument of crime. On October 21,

1992, the court sentenced Giddings to life imprisonment. This Court affirmed

Giddings’ judgment of sentence.          Commonwealth v. Giddings, 640 A.2d
____________________________________________

1 These exceptions are:  (1) the failure to raise the claim previously was due
to governmental interference; (2) the facts of the claim were unknown to the
petitioner and could not have been ascertained by due diligence; or (3) a
newly-recognized constitutional right that the United States Supreme Court or
Pennsylvania Supreme Court has been held to apply retroactively. See 42
Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii).
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471 (Pa. Super. 1994) (Table).                 Giddings did not seek review in the

Pennsylvania Supreme Court and, thus, his judgment of sentence became final

on February 28, 1994, when his time for seeking such review expired. See

42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3); Pa.R.A.P. 1113 (allowing thirty days to file petition

for allowance of appeal).

       Approximately eight years later, on February 6, 2002, Giddings filed a

pro se PCRA petition, his first, in which he averred that his trial counsel was

ineffective for failing to file a petition for allowance of appeal. The PCRA court

appointed counsel and ultimately permitted counsel to withdraw pursuant to

Turner/Finley.2 On October 2, 2002, the PCRA court dismissed Giddings’

PCRA petition and, on collateral appeal, this Court affirmed the dismissal of

the petition. See Commonwealth v. Giddings, 832 A.2d 536 (Pa. Super.

2003) (Table). Giddings did not file a petition for allowance of appeal.

       Over the next several years, Giddings filed a second and third PCRA

petition, each of which was dismissed as untimely. In 2016, Giddings filed his

fourth PCRA petition, pro se, seeking relief under Miller v. Alabama, 567

U.S. 460 (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 460 (2016).3 The
____________________________________________

2  Commonwealth v. Turner, 544 A.2d 927 (Pa. 1988); Commonwealth
v. Finley, 550 A.2d 213 (Pa. Super. 1988) (en banc).

3 In Miller, the United States   Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional
for state courts to impose an automatic life sentence without possibility of
parole upon a homicide defendant for a murder committed while the defendant
was a juvenile. The United States Supreme Court later held in Montgomery
that its decision in Miller applies retroactively. Giddings was 19 years old at
the time of the murder.

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PCRA    court    dismissed     that   petition,   and   this   Court   affirmed.   See

Commonwealth v. Giddings, 1092 EDA 2017 (Pa. Super. filed May 16,

2018) (unpublished memorandum decision).

       On August 20, 2021, Giddings filed the instant pro se PCRA petition,4

his fifth. In his petition, Giddings alleges appointed counsel’s 2002 “no-merit”

letter “perpetrated a fraud on the court by alleging the claims [of trial

counsel’s ineffectiveness made in his 2002 PCRA petition] had no merit.” See

PCRA Petition, 8/20/21, at 2; Appellant’s Brief, at 7.

       We review the dismissal of a PCRA petition to determine “whether the

PCRA court’s findings of fact are supported by the record, and whether its

conclusions of law are free from legal error.” Commonwealth v. Busanet,

54 A.3d 35, 45 (Pa. 2012). A PCRA petition must be filed within one year of

the date that the petitioner’s judgment of sentence becoming final. 42

Pa.C.S.A. § 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 Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, or at the expiration of the time

for seeking the review.” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3). The timeliness of a PCRA

petition is jurisdictional. If a PCRA petition is untimely, a court lacks

____________________________________________

4 Giddings’ submission was captioned as a motion to reconsider the order
dismissing his 2002 PCRA petition. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9542 (stating PCRA
petition “shall be the sole means of obtaining collateral relief and encompasses
all other common law and statutory remedies”). We agree with the PCRA
court that Giddings’ claim is cognizable under the PCRA. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. §
9543(a)(2)(ii) (encompassing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel).

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jurisdiction to address its substantive claims. Commonwealth v. Wharton,

886 A.2d 1120, 1124 (Pa. 2005).

       Here, Giddings’ judgment of sentence became final in 1994.             His

petition, filed on August 20, 2021, is facially untimely.        Giddings avers

appointed counsel should not have been permitted to withdraw and counsel’s

failure to file a petition for allowance of appeal in 2002 amounted to ineffective

assistance of counsel. See PCRA Petition, 8/20/21, at 1.       As such, Giddings

neither pleads nor proves any exception to the one-year timeliness

requirement. See Commonwealth v. Gamboa-Taylor, 753 A.2d 780, 785

(Pa. 2000); see also Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal, 833 A.2d 719, 725-

726 (Pa. 2003) (PCRA petitioner cannot establish “new fact” exception merely

by alleging possible ineffective assistance of counsel claims were unknown to

petitioner and could not have been discovered until after present counsel

reviewed petitioner’s file). Thus, as Giddings’ ineffectiveness claim did not

constitute a “new fact” for purposes of section 9545(b)(1)(ii), the PCRA court

lacked jurisdiction to consider its merits.

       Because Giddings has not shown that any statutory exception to the

PCRA’s one-year time limit applies to the claims of ineffective assistance of

PCRA counsel that he asserted in his 2002 PCRA petition, the trial court

correctly held that Giddings’ 2021 PCRA petition was untimely.5         Giddings,

____________________________________________

5 We note that our Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Bradley,

261 A.3d 381 (Pa. 2021), which held a PCRA petitioner may, after PCRA court
(Footnote Continued Next Page)

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therefore, is ineligible for relief.           See 42 Pa.C.SA. § 9545(b)(1)(i-iii).

Accordingly, we affirm the PCRA court’s order dismissing Giddings’ petition.

       Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 9/12/2023

____________________________________________

denies relief, and after obtaining new counsel or acting pro se, raise claims of
PCRA counsel’s ineffectiveness at the first opportunity to do so, even if on
appeal, does not provide an exception to the PCRA’s time bar. The Bradley
Court stated that “allowing a petitioner to raise claims of ineffective PCRA
counsel at the first opportunity, even if on appeal[,] . . . best recognizes a
petitioner’s right to effective PCRA counsel while advancing equally legitimate
concerns that criminal matters be efficiently and timely concluded.” Id. at
405.

We note that several, non-precedential decisions of this Court have repeatedly
determined that Bradley does not permit the filing of a subsequent untimely
PCRA petition as a method of raising claims of ineffectiveness of PCRA counsel.
See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Bingaman, 123 WDA 2022, (Pa. Super. filed
Oct. 21, 2022) (unpublished memorandum decision); Commonwealth v.
Bernal, 974 MDA 2021 (Pa. Super. filed Sept. 13, 2022) (unpublished
memorandum decision); Commonwealth v. Dennis, 1926 EDA 2021 (Pa.
Super. filed Aug. 29, 2022) (unpublished memorandum decision). See also
Commonwealth v. Dixon, 1145 EDA 2022 (Pa. Super. filed Dec. 28, 2022)
(unpublished memorandum decision (holding Bradley does not trigger the
timeliness exception of Section 9545(b)(1)(iii)); Commonwealth v.
Parkinson, 1286 EDA 2022 (Pa. Super. filed Oct. 6, 2022) (unpublished
memorandum decision) (holding Bradley did not create new, non-statutory
exception to PCRA time bar).

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