Court Opinion

ID: 9956276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-01 17:11:07.516812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:03.224404
License: Public Domain

J-A26014-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                      :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                                    :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                                    :
                v.                                  :
                                                    :
                                                    :
  ANTHONY GARDNER                                   :
                                                    :
                       Appellant                    :   No. 932 EDA 2023

           Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered February 8, 2023
  In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
                     No(s): CP-51-CR-0403831-1990

BEFORE: DUBOW, J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and KING, J.

MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.:                                       FILED APRIL 1, 2024

       Appellant, Anthony Gardner, appeals pro se from the order entered

February 8, 2023, in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas

dismissing as untimely his fourth petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction

Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-46.               Because Appellant’s petition

failed to satisfy an exception to the PCRA’s time-bar, we affirm the PCRA

court’s dismissal.

                                               A.

       We glean the following procedural history from the PCRA court opinion

and the certified record. On March 22, 1991, a jury convicted Appellant of

Third-Degree Murder and Possessing Instruments of Crime (“PIC”).1                 The

____________________________________________

1 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 2502(c) and 907, respectively.
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court sentenced Appellant to an aggregate term of life imprisonment.2        This

Court affirmed Appellant’s judgment of sentence, and on May 3, 1993, the

Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Appellant’s petition for allowance of

appeal. Commonwealth v. Gardner, 1366 PHL 1992 (Pa. Super. filed Nov.

16, 1992), appeal denied, 625 A.2d 1191 (Pa. 1993). Appellant’s judgment

of sentence became final 90 days later, on August 2, 1993, when the time to

file a petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court had

expired.3

       Appellant filed his first PCRA petition on January 9, 1997. The court

appointed counsel, who subsequently filed a Turner/ Finley no-merit letter.4

The PCRA court dismissed the petition on October 20, 1997, and Appellant did

not appeal. Appellant subsequently filed two unsuccessful PCRA petitions.5

       On July 30, 2020, Appellant filed his fourth PCRA Petition pro se, the

dismissal of which is now before us, asserting that he possessed newly-

discovered facts that three of the detectives involved in his case, Francis

Miller, Frank Jastrzembski, and Manuel Santiago, committed misconduct by

____________________________________________

2 Appellant had a prior homicide conviction, so the court imposed a mandatory

life sentence for his Third-Degree Murder conviction pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S.
§ 9715(a).

3 See Sup. Ct. R. 13 (allowing 90 days to file Petition for Writ of Certiorari).

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

5Appellant also filed an unsuccessful petition for writ of habeas corpus in
2014.

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vouching for untruthful witnesses, destroying evidence, and engaging in a

conspiracy. PCRA Petition, 7/30/2020, at 4, 6-7. Appellant subsequently filed

two pro se amended petitions alleging misconduct by the same detectives.6

       On January 6, 2023, the PCRA court issued a notice of intent to dismiss

without a hearing pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 907, concluding that it lacked

jurisdiction because Appellant’s petition was patently untimely and Appellant

failed to plead and prove the applicability of any of the PCRA’s timeliness

exceptions provided in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(i-iii).        Appellant filed a

response to the Court’s Rule 907 notice on January 27, 2023, which again

failed to plead and prove an exception to the PCRA’s time bar. On February

8, 2023, the PCRA court entered an order dismissing the petition.

       Appellant timely appealed. The PCRA court did not request a Pa.R.A.P.

1925(b) statement.
                                               B.

       Appellant raises the following issue for our review:

       Is the warrant of proble [sic] cause by the affiant’s defective
       showing, where he was an active participant in the poisonous tree,
       of corrupted cops and case manager?

Appellant’s Br. at 5 (capitalization omitted).

                                               C.

       We review the denial of a PCRA petition to determine whether the record

supports the PCRA court’s determination and whether its order is otherwise
____________________________________________

6 Appellant filed his first amended petition on August 5, 2021. He filed his
second amended petition on January 26, 2023, after the court issued its Rule
907 notice.

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free of legal error. Commonwealth v. Fears, 86 A.3d 795, 803 (Pa. 2014).

However, before we review the issues raised on appeal, we must determine

whether Appellant’s petition satisfies our courts’ jurisdictional requirements.

      It is well-established that the timeliness of a PCRA petition is

jurisdictional; if a PCRA petition is untimely, courts lack jurisdiction over the

claims and cannot grant relief. Commonwealth v. Wharton, 886 A.2d 1120,

1124 (Pa. 2005).      To be timely, a PCRA petition, including a second or

subsequent petition, must be filed within one year of the date that a

petitioner’s judgment of sentence becomes final. 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

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

the review.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(3). The PCRA’s jurisdictional time bar “is

constitutionally valid.”   Commonwealth v. Cruz, 852 A.2d 287, 292 (Pa.

2004).

      Here, Appellant's petition, filed 27 years after his judgment of sentence

became final, is facially untimely.    Pennsylvania courts may consider an

untimely PCRA petition, however, if the petitioner pleads and proves one of

the three exceptions to the time-bar set forth in Section 9545(b)(1).        Any

petition invoking a timeliness exception must be “filed within one year of the

date the claim could have been presented.” 42 Pa.C.S § 9545(b)(2).

      In his PCRA petitions, Appellant attempted to invoke the newly-

discovered facts exception provided in Section 9545(b)(1)(ii).       The newly-

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discovered facts exception requires a petitioner to plead and prove two

elements: “1) the facts upon which the claim was predicated were unknown

and 2) could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence.”

Commonwealth v. Bennett, 930 A.2d 1264, 1272 (Pa. 2007) (quoting 42

Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii)) (emphasis and internal quotation marks omitted).

Due diligence requires that a petitioner makes reasonable efforts to uncover

facts that may support a claim for relief. Commonwealth v. Brensinger,

218 A.3d 440, 449 (Pa. Super. 2019) (en banc).

     Relevant here, this Court has interpreted Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) as

mandating that there be some relationship between the newly-discovered

facts and the claims asserted by the petitioner.          Commonwealth v.

Robinson, 185 A.3d 1055, 1061-62 (Pa. Super. 2018) (en banc).

     Finally, judicial decisions do not constitute “facts” to support the newly-

discovered facts exception to the PCRA’s time bar. Commonwealth v. Reid,

235 A.3d 1124, 1138 (Pa. 2020).

     Here, the PCRA court determined that the unrelated complaint alleging

police misconduct and the unrelated court decision did not meet the newly-

discovered facts exception because the complaint only contained allegations,

and judicial decisions do not constitute “facts.”         Id. at 1-2 (citing

Commonwealth v. Cintora, 69 A.3d 759, 763 (Pa. Super. 2013) (abrogated

on other grounds)). It further found that the complaint and decision did not

“substantiate[] the alleged ‘fact’ that detectives committed misconduct in

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[Appellant’s] case.” Id. at 1. Based on the above authority, we agree that

Appellant’s petition fails to satisfy the newly-discovered facts exception.

      In his brief and reply brief, Appellant has not addressed the PCRA court’s

finding that he failed to meet the PCRA’s timeliness requirements. Instead,

he presents a nearly incomprehensible argument that re-hashes complaints

about his trial and corruption in the Philadelphia Police Department and

District Attorney’s Office. See Appellant’s Br. at 9-14. Because he has failed

to inform this Court how the PCRA court erred in finding that his petition was

not timely, any arguments he raises in his brief are waived. See Butler v.

Illes, 747 A.2d 943, 945 (Pa. Super. 2000) (finding waiver where the

appellant “failed to cogently explain or even tenuously assert why the trial

court . . .made an error of law.”).

                                      D.

      In sum, Appellant’s PCRA petition is patently untimely, and he has failed

to satisfy the timeliness exception provided in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii).

Accordingly, neither this Court nor the PCRA court has jurisdiction to address

the claims raised in his petition.    We, thus, affirm the PCRA court’s order

dismissing Appellant’s petition as untimely.

      Order affirmed.

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Date: 4/1/2024

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