Court Opinion

ID: 9380986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-21 18:07:02.937292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:28.869608
License: Public Domain

J-S03005-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA             :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                          :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                          :
              v.                          :
                                          :
                                          :
 MICHAEL PAUL KIN                         :
                                          :
                     Appellant            :   No. 2337 EDA 2022

              Appeal from the Order Entered August 23, 2022
  In the Court of Common Pleas of Pike County Criminal Division at No(s):
                         CP-52-CR-0000350-2017

BEFORE: BOWES, J., McCAFFERY, J., and SULLIVAN, J.

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.:                            FILED MARCH 21, 2023

      Michael Paul Kin appeals from the order that denied his petition seeking

to have the transportation costs for his Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”)

proceedings explained, reduced, or vacated entirely. We affirm.

      In 2018, Appellant pled guilty to crimes related to sexual abuse of a

child and was sentenced to ten to twenty years of imprisonment plus fines,

costs, and restitution. Appellant paid the monetary portion of his sentence in

full that year.    Appellant did not file a direct appeal, but filed a timely,

counseled PCRA petition.

      An evidentiary hearing on the PCRA petition was scheduled for

December 20, 2019.       The trial court entered an order for Appellant to be

released from the State Correctional Institution at (“SCI-Fayette”) into the

custody of the Pike County Sheriff’s Department to be transported to the Pike
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County Courthouse for the hearing, to be housed at the Pike County jail as

necessary, and to be returned as soon as practicable after the hearing. See

Order, 11/5/22. Accordingly, Appellant appeared at the December 20 hearing,

where his witness offered some testimony in support of his claim, but counsel

requested a continuance in order to obtain additional documents. See N.T.

PCRA Hearing, 12/20/19, at 17. The PCRA court granted the request and

continued the hearing until January 10, 2020. The court further indicated that

Appellant was to

      be returned by the Pike County Sheriff’s Office . . . to SCI–
      Waymart, and then where he is placed within the state system[,
      Appellant’s counsel,] you could determine that, but the Sheriff’s
      Office has indicated that it will make sure he will be transported
      from wherever he may be back for that hearing so we can
      conclude the hearing record on that day.

Id. at 18 (cleaned up).

      On January 10, 2020, Appellant presented the remaining evidence in

support of his PCRA claims. The PCRA court took the matter under advisement

at the conclusion of the proceeding and ultimately entered an order denying

the petition. On appeal, this Court affirmed the PCRA court’s ruling. See

Commonwealth v. Kin, 256 A.3d 14 (Pa.Super. 2021) (non-precedential

decision).

      At a time or times not apparent from the docket or certified record

before us, the clerk of courts, in accordance with 42 Pa.C.S. § 9728(g),

assessed Appellant $2,875.80 for the costs of transporting him to and from

the PCRA hearings. On August 3, 2022, Appellant filed a pro se motion to

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have the costs vacated, complaining that the negligence of his PCRA counsel

was “to blame for the obsured [sic] costs.” Motion, 8/3/22, at unnumbered

1. The court promptly denied the motion on procedural bases. See Order,

8/4/22.

      On August 17, 2022, Appellant filed a new petition to have the costs

vacated, complaining that the markedly dissimilar amounts for transporting

him the same distance was unreasonable, that they were not all legitimately

assessed to him because some were beyond his control as being the result of

the lack of readiness of “the [c]ourt and the [c]ourt’s officers,” and that those

costs were not “costs of prosecution” within the meaning of § 9728(g). See

Petition, 8/17/22, at ¶¶ 4-9.     Appellant requested “one or more” of the

following:

      a)     That the cost of transportation in the total amount of
             $2875.80 be dismissed without payment.

      b)     That a detailed itemized statement of the amount owed to
             the Sheriff’s Department for transportation be ordered to be
             presented to [Appellant] and the court.

      c)     That the cost of transportation by the Pike County Sheriff’s
             Office be readjusted to a lower amount that meets the cost
             of actual transportation that falls within the range of the
             other 66 counties in the Commonwealth.

Id. at unnumbered 3 (unnecessary capitalization omitted).

      The trial court denied Appellant’s petition by order of August 23, 2022.

Therein, the court specified that the authority upon which Appellant relied to

support his claim that transportation costs were not costs of prosecution was

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no longer good law. See Order, 8/23/22 (citing Commonwealth v. Morales-

Rivera, 67 A.3d 1290, 1294 (Pa.Cmwlth. 2013) (holding that transportation

costs for a PCRA hearing are authorized by § 9728(g)). However, in denying

the petition, the trial court did not address Appellant’s alternative requests for

an itemized statement of the costs of transportation or an adjustment to

reflect actual costs.

       This timely appeal followed.1 Appellant presents this Court with the

following question:

____________________________________________

1 By order of September 12, 2022, the trial court directed Appellant to file a
Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) concise statement of errors complained of on appeal, but,
although Appellant asserted in this Court that he timely complied with the
order, no statement from Appellant was docketed or included in the certified
record. The trial court suggests that Appellant’s issues are therefore waived.
See Trial Court Opinion, 11/2/22, at 3.

This Court will not find waiver pursuant to Rule 1925(b)(4)(vii) unless the trial
court’s Rule 1925(b) order complied strictly with the requirements of Pa.R.A.P.
1925(b)(3). See, e.g., Rahn v. Consol. Rail Corp., 254 A.3d 738, 745-46
(Pa.Super. 2021); Boyle v. Main Line Health, Inc., 272 A.3d 466 (Pa.Super.
2022) (non-precedential decision at 11 n.8) (“It would be fundamentally unfair
to require appellants to strictly comply with the requirements of Rule 1925,
but not require the same diligence from the trial court requesting a Rule
1925(b) statement.”).

Our review of the certified record reveals that the trial court’s order failed to
specify “that the Statement shall be served on the judge pursuant to
paragraph (b)(1) and both the place the appellant can serve the Statement in
person and the address to which the appellant can mail the Statement.”
Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b)(3)(iii). Therefore, rather than remand for a determination
of whether Appellant timely submitted a Rule 1925(b) statement to prison
authorities for mailing, we proceed to the questions raised on appeal. See
Pa.R.A.P. 1925(c)(1) (“An appellate court may remand in either a civil or
criminal case for a determination as to whether a Statement had been filed
(Footnote Continued Next Page)

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       Was the court in error for its denial of the Appellant’s [petition]
       when it failed to address the issue[s] raised that the cost of the
       Sheriff’s Department charged to the Appellant for transportation
       to and from court kept changing and were not consistent and that
       the court failed to request an itemized statement from the
       Sheriff’s Department along with a reasoning for the ever changing
       cost of transportation?

Appellant’s brief at 4 (some punctuation altered).

       Before we consider the substance of Appellant’s appeal, we must first

determine whether we have jurisdiction to do so.        Appellant identified the

petition sub judice as one pursuant to the PCRA. See Appellant’s brief at 3-

4. The trial court construed it as one for a writ of mandamus. See Trial Court

Opinion, 11/2/22, at 3. The question Appellant presents, namely the amount

of costs assessed as a result of his conviction, is one that has in other cases

been litigated as a challenge to the initial imposition of a judgment of sentence

or through filing for a writ of mandamus seeking a refund of costs deducted

from an inmate account. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Williams, 909 A.2d

419, 420 (Pa.Cmwlth. 2006) (appealing denial of petition for writ of

mandamus seeking the return of transportation costs); Commonwealth v.

Gill, 432 A.2d 1001, 1003 (Pa.Super. 1981) (reviewing challenge to the

amount of costs on direct appeal from the judgment of sentence).

____________________________________________

and/or served or timely filed and/or served.”); Commonwealth v.
DiClaudio, 210 A.3d 1070, 1074 (Pa.Super. 2019) (“The prisoner mailbox
rule provides that a pro se prisoner’s document is deemed filed on the date
he delivers it to prison authorities for mailing.” (cleaned up)).

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       In this appeal, however, Appellant is not seeking mandamus relief or

challenging the legality of his judgment of sentence through the PCRA. See

Appellant’s brief at 7 (indicating expressly that Appellant is not challenging

the collection of costs by the Department of Corrections or arguing that he is

not required to pay reasonable costs for transportation). Rather, Appellant

asked the trial court to modify the amount of costs of prosecution assessed

after his judgment of sentence had become final upon the belief that the costs

were unreasonable. In this context, where costs are added after the original

sentence, we have viewed the imposition of costs not as a separate penalty

to the defendant, but rather a statutorily-mandated incident of the underlying

judgment. See Commonwealth v. Bollinger, 418 A.2d 320, 327 (Pa.Super.

1979); Commonwealth v. Denson, 40 A.2d 895, 896 (Pa.Super. 1945). It

is further settled that “[n]on-punitive, administrative requirements [that] are

merely collateral consequences of a criminal conviction” do “not fall within the

purview of the PCRA.”          Commonwealth v. Smith, 240 A.3d 654, 658

(Pa.Super. 2020).       Accordingly, we conclude that we have jurisdiction to

consider the merits of Appellant’s claims without considering the time-

limitations of the PCRA.2

____________________________________________

2See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b) (providing all PCRA petitions must be filed within
one year of the judgment of sentence becoming final or establish a statutory
exception).

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      We thus turn to the substance of this appeal, beginning with a review of

the applicable legal principles.    “The District Attorney must provide a

defendant, who is charged with costs, a reasonably specific bill of costs and

show how such costs were necessary to the prosecution.” Commonwealth

v. Coder, 415 A.2d 406, 410 (Pa. 1980). “Costs must not be assessed except

as authorized by law, and the Commonwealth bears the burden of justifying

such costs by the preponderance of evidence.” Commonwealth v. Williams,

909 A.2d 419, 420–21 (Pa.Cmwlth. 2006).

      Our legislature has authorized the assessment of costs in criminal cases

as follows:

      Any sheriff’s costs, filing fees and costs of the county probation
      department, clerk of courts or other appropriate governmental
      agency, including, but not limited to, any reasonable
      administrative costs associated with the collection of restitution,
      transportation costs and other costs associated with the
      prosecution, shall be borne by the defendant and shall be collected
      by the county probation department or other appropriate
      governmental agency along with the total amount of the judgment
      and remitted to the appropriate agencies at the time of or prior to
      satisfaction of judgment.

42 Pa.C.S. § 9728(g). These “costs associated with the prosecution” include

post-conviction costs such as transportation for PCRA hearings.             See

Morales-Rivera, supra at 1294.

      The trial court opined that, because § 9728(g) expressly permitted the

assessment of the sheriff’s transportation costs, the court properly denied

Appellant’s petition.   See Trial Court Opinion, 11/2/22, at 4-5.     Appellant

concedes that the trial court correctly ruled that Appellant was responsible for

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the transportation costs associated with his PCRA proceeding. See Appellant’s

brief at 6 (“[U]nder [the prevailing law,” the[ trial court’s] argument is correct.

This argument is not being raised here”).

      However, Appellant notes that he also challenged in his petition “the

multiple amounts of inconsistent charges for transportation to and from court

by the Pike County Sheriff's Department forced upon the Appellant.”            Id.

Specifically, Appellant asserts that the three trips produced the following

inexplicably-inconsistent costs:

      a)    Transported from SCI Fayette (Fayette County) to SCI
            Waymart (Pike County) by transport bus with other inmates.

            Fayette County to Pike County: $ 168.26
            Pike County to Fayette County: $ 60.34

      b)    SCI Fayette (Fayette County) to SCI Waymart (Pike County)
            by Sheriff's Car, Hearing was postponed).

            Fayette County to Pike County: $ 253.58
            Pike County to Fayette County: $ 1,222.43

      c)    SCI Fayette (Fayette County) to SCI Waymart (Pike County)

            Fayette County to Pike County: $ 1,031.14
            Pike County to Fayette County: $ 140.05

Id. Given these disparate amounts for the same route, Appellant argues “that

the charges for transportation by the Pike County Sheriff's Department [are]

not reasonable, not equal and way overboard, and do not meet the

reasonableness of § 9728(g).” Id. at 7.

      The trial court opinion does not acknowledge or address Appellant’s

challenge to the amount of the costs imposed or lack of explanation therefor.

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Likewise, the Commonwealth ignores the arguments Appellant raises on

appeal in favor of the issue that Appellant expressly has abandoned.        See

Commonwealth’s brief at 3-4.         Consequently, we are left without an

explanation from the trial court to support a conclusion that Appellant received

the reasonably itemized statement of assessable costs.

      However, we need not remand for the trial court to take further action

because we are able to discern the lack of merit of Appellant’s claims from the

record before us. See Commonwealth v. Smith, 17 A.3d 873, 884 (Pa.

2011) (“Where a petitioner has presented a claim to [a lower] court and that

court has not addressed it, a remand is appropriate where the claim cannot

be resolved on the record. Where, however, we may resolve the claim on the

record, we will proceed to decide it.”). As our following discussion details, it

is plain from the certified record that Appellant’s arguments misstate the of-

record itemization of the costs incurred by the Sheriff’s Office delineated in

the inmate transfer cost forms filed by the Pike County Sheriff’s Office.

      For the first hearing on December 20, 2019, Appellant apparently was

assessed no costs for the multi-inmate bus ride from SCI-Fayette to SCI-

Waymart. He was assessed $168.26 for transportation from SCI-Waymart to

the Pike County Jail on December 18, 2019, which included of three hours of

pay for two deputies at $19.73 per hour per deputy, and $0.58 per mile for a

total of eighty-six miles.    See Inmate Transfer Cost Form, 12/20/19.

Appellant also was assessed $60.34 for the two hours, one of which was

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overtime for each, it took two deputies on December 20, 2019, to take him

the thirty-six miles from the Pike County Jail to the hearing, and then $253.58

for two deputies to take him the ninety-seven miles from the Pike County

Courthouse back to SCI-Waymart. See Inmate Transfer Cost Forms, 1/15/20

(docket entries 47 and 48). It appears that Appellant was then not charged

with any costs for the transport from SCI-Waymart to SCI-Fayette.

      On January 8 and 9, 2020, two deputies drove from Pike County to

Fayette County, spent $104.34 on lodging and $79.42 on meals, and drove

Appellant from SCI-Fayette to the Pike County Jail, logging 777 miles at

$0.575 per mile and fifteen hours for each deputy, still at $19.73 per hour,

for a grand total of $1,222.43.    See Inmate Transfer Cost Form, 1/17/20

(docket entry 51). On the day of the hearing, two deputies spent a total time

of two and one-half hours on the seventy-two-mile round trip from the jail to

the courthouse for a total cost of $140.05. See Inmate Transfer Cost Form,

1/17/20 (docket entry 49).

      Finally, after the hearing, two deputies were on the clock for a total of

twelve hours for driving Appellant from the Pike County Jail back to SCI-

Fayette on January 14, 2020, spending $106.56 and $38.59, respectively on

lodging and meals, then returning the following day to Pike County, a round

trip of 762 miles. See Inmate Transfer Cost Form, 1/17/20 (docket entry 50).

The total assessment for these costs, charged at the same rates as the

January 8-9, 2020 trip, was $1,031.14. Id.

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      Hence, the record in this case available to Appellant contains a detailed

explanation for the $2,875.80 that he was assessed for the transportation

costs necessitated by his PCRA hearings, costs that he concedes are taxable

to him pursuant to § 9728(g). Further, the stark contrast in costs between

the first hearing and the second one plainly resulted from the fact that the

Pike County Sheriff’s Office did not have to transport him from Fayette County

to Pike County, or return him to Fayette County, for the first PCRA hearing.

Finally, we discern nothing “overboard” about the amount of the costs

assessed.   Accord Morales-Rivera, supra at 1294 (affirming denial of

challenge to $4,353.91 for transportation costs in connection with PCRA

hearing).

      Therefore, because Appellant has not demonstrated that he was denied

a properly itemized bill of the transportation costs or that the costs were not

necessary, we have no cause to disturb the trial court’s order denying his

petition.

      Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 3/21/2023

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