Court Opinion

ID: 9351774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-03 17:06:37.674794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:02:45.051338
License: Public Domain

J-A22041-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA               :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
    TERRENCE JOHNSON                           :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 385 WDA 2021

             Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered February 24, 2021
               In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County
              Criminal Division at No(s): CP-02-CR-0011193-2007

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

MEMORANDUM BY COLINS, J.:                           FILED: JANUARY 03, 2023

        Terrence Johnson, pro se, appeals from the order dismissing, as

untimely, his second petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act.

See 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. We affirm.

        Adopting the summary of the case, as written by the lower court:

              On May 10, 2007, India Worlds … accused Johnson of raping
        her. In the days following Worlds’s rape allegation, tensions
        increased between friends and relatives of Johnson and Worlds.
        At some point, Lamar George, a friend of Worlds’s mother,
        confronted Johnson over the rape allegation. Animosity quickly
        began to grow between the two men. At approximately 2:40 a.m.
        on May 16, 2007, Johnson was searching for George to confront
        him about the rape allegation. Johnson went to George’s
        apartment complex with two of his friends and, when the men
        arrived, they attempted to convince George to come outside.
        However, when George saw that Johnson and his friends were
        carrying firearms, he refused to exit his apartment. In an effort to
        get George out of his residence, Johnson went to the residence of
____________________________________________

   Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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      James Windsor, who was a close friend of both Worlds and
      George. Johnson persuaded Windsor to leave his residence and go
      to George’s residence and ask him to come outside, assuring him
      that it was safe to do so. When George refused to exit the
      residence, Johnson shot Windsor in the back of his head, killing
      him instantly.

             Johnson was ultimately found guilty of first[-]degree
      murder, firearms not to be carried without a license, and person
      not to possess firearms. On June 11, 2009, [Johnson] appeared
      before [the lower court] for sentencing and received a sentence
      of life imprisonment in relation to his first[-]degree murder
      conviction. [The lower court] imposed a term of incarceration of
      not less than three and one half … and not more than seven years
      as a result of his conviction for carrying a firearm without a
      license. Johnson received no further penalty in relation to the
      remaining count.

Trial Court Opinion, at 1-2 (undated and unpaginated) (footnotes omitted).

      After sentencing, Johnson filed post-sentence motions that were denied.

Then, he filed a notice of appeal to this Court, which resulted in an affirmance

of his judgment of sentence. Following our disposition, Johnson filed a petition

for allowance of appeal with our Supreme Court, which was correspondingly

denied on August 15, 2012. No further review was sought.

      Approximately ten months later, Johnson filed his first PCRA petition.

After the appointment of counsel and an evidentiary hearing, Johnson’s

petition was dismissed. We affirmed Johnson’s appeal from this determination,

and our Supreme Court denied his petition for allowance of appeal from our

decision.

      On July 24, 2019, Johnson filed the present PCRA petition. Attached to

that petition was a one-page letter, marked as Exhibit A, from the

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Pennsylvania Innocence Project, dated June 4, 2019, which served to “update

[Johnson] on the status of [the Innocence Project’s] investigation into [his]

case.” PCRA Petition, dated 7/24/19, Ex. A. Of note, the letter identified two

individuals, Raneisha Hall and Lauren Thomas, as having indicated that “they

witnessed someone else commit the murder.” Id. Eventually, and in an

apparent attempt to supplement his petition, Johnson filed a signed statement

from Raneisha Hall reinforcing, in part, what was stated in the Innocence

Project letter: that Hall saw another shoot Windsor. See Petitioner’s Affidavits

in Support of Objections to the PCRA Court[’]s Notice of Intent to Dismiss

Pursuant   to   Pa.R.Crim.P.    907,   dated   10/15/20    (the   exclusive,   yet

unenumerated, affidavit attached to this filing).

      The lower court determined that Johnson’s second PCRA petition was

time barred and without exception, which resulted in its dismissal. Johnson

timely appealed from this determination, and the relevant parties have

complied with their obligations under Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate

Procedure 1925. As such, this matter is ripe for review.

      On appeal, Johnson asks:

      1. Did the lower court err and abuse its discretion by dismissing
         his second PCRA petition without appointing counsel and
         providing an evidentiary hearing, as he timely presented newly
         discovered evidence from the Pennsylvania Innocence Project
         that serves to demonstrate his innocence?

See Appellant’s Brief, at 10.

      “Our standard of review of a PCRA court’s dismissal of a PCRA petition

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is limited to examining whether the PCRA court’s determination is supported

by the evidence of record and free of legal error.” Commonwealth v. Wilson,

824 A.2d 331, 333 (Pa. Super. 2003) (citation omitted). Before delving into

the thrust of Johnson’s argument, however, we must first ascertain whether

we have jurisdiction to consider his underlying petition. See Commonwealth

v. Fahy, 737 A.2d 214, 223 (Pa. 1999). Normally, to be considered timely, a

PCRA petition must be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes

final. See Commonwealth v. Copenhefer, 941 A.2d 646, 648 (Pa. 2007);

see also 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3) (“[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 time for seeking the review.”). An untimely PCRA petition renders

the court without jurisdiction to consider its merits. See Commonwealth v.

Ali, 86 A.3d 173, 177 (Pa. 2014).

      To circumvent the PCRA’s time bar, a petitioner can avail himself of one

of the PCRA’s three statutorily enumerated exceptions. See Commonwealth

v. Smallwood, 155 A.3d 1054, 1059-60 (Pa. Super. 2017). Of exclusive

relevance to the present case is exception number two, which requires the

petition to allege and the petitioner to prove that “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[.]” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(ii).

If the claim arose on December 24, 2017, or thereafter, the petitioner has one

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year from the date the claim could have been presented to file the petition.

See id., at § 9545(b)(2) (amended in 2018) (establishing by implication that

any claim arising prior to December 24, 2017, is subject to the old “within

sixty days of the date the claim could have been presented” rule).

       As Johnson, on direct appeal, did not file a petition for a writ of certiorari

with the United States Supreme Court, his judgment of sentence became final

ninety days after our Supreme Court denied his petition for allowance of

appeal. See U.S.Sup.Ct. Rule 13(1) (allowing for a filing window of ninety

days after the entry of an order denying discretionary review). Therefore,

Johnson’s judgment of sentence became final in November 2012, and,

pursuant to the PCRA’s Section 9545(b)(1), he had until November 2013 to

file a timely PCRA petition. With these precepts in mind, Johnson’s 2019

petition is facially untimely.

       Johnson asserts that he first learned of four witnesses who could provide

“exculpatory and impeachment evidence” helpful to his case on June 4, 2019,

when he “received a correspondence from John Robert Butler[,] Staff

Investigator for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project[.]” Appellant’s Brief, at

14.1 In that letter, Butler “informed [Johnson] that on April 25, 2019, [Butler]

____________________________________________

1 We note that, despite attaching four affidavits to his brief before this Court,
it appears that only one of those affidavits, authored by Raneisha Hall, is part
of the record that was before the lower court. Moreover, Johnson’s concise
statement of matters complained of on appeal solely discusses Hall’s affidavit,
to the exclusion of the three other apparent witnesses.

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interviewed Courtney Jeter, Asia Allen, Raneisha Hall, and Lauren Thomas.”

Id.

      As outlined, supra, Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) requires a petitioner to allege

and prove that: (1) there is a “fact” that was unknown to him; and (2) that

the same fact could not have been determined through the exercise of due

diligence. We emphasize that “[t]he focus of the exception is on the newly

discovered facts, not on a newly discovered or newly willing source for

previously known facts.” Commonwealth v. Marshall, 947 A.2d 714, 720

(Pa. 2008) (citation and brackets omitted). Moreover, “[d]ue diligence

demands that the petitioner take reasonable steps to protect his own

interests. A petitioner must explain why he could not have learned of the new

fact(s) earlier with the exercise of due diligence.” Commonwealth v.

Williams, 35 A.3d 44, 53 (Pa. Super. 2011) (emphasis added) (citations

omitted).

      Assuming, arguendo, that the contents of Hall’s affidavit establish, in its

entirety, a new fact that was previously unknown to him, Johnson makes no

attempt to provide any background information serving to demonstrate what

led to its discovery. Other than baldly suggesting that “all the witnesses

admitted to intentionally withholding [allegedly exculpatory information] from

everyone[,] including law enforcement, prior to their April 25, 2019[]

interview with … Butler because they were fearful[,]” Appellant’s Brief, at 15,

Johnson has not identified how or why these meetings between the

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Pennsylvania Innocence Project and four witnesses came to fruition. It strains

credulity to assume that the Innocence Project would have some sort of innate

knowledge of witnesses that could possibly be relevant to Johnson’s case

without Johnson knowing the same (or Johnson, himself, being the genesis of

that information). In fact, the Innocence Project’s letter, by its very wording,

appears to show some sort of existing relationship between Johnson and that

organization. See Appellant’s Brief, Appendix 3, Pennsylvania Innocence

Project letter dated June 4, 2019 (unpaginated) (identifying that its author

“wanted to write to [Johnson] to update [him] on the status of [the Innocence

Project’s] investigation into [his] case[]”) (emphasis added). However,

Johnson has not even provided a scintilla of information relevant to anything

that transpired prior to the Innocence Project’s interviews. Instead, Johnson

assumes that the letter’s language, facially, is sufficient to demonstrate that

he engaged in due diligence.

      In Hall’s affidavit, which is dated October 2, 2019 (almost six months

after the interviews described in the Innocence Project’s letter), she

specifically mentions that she knew Johnson and “spoke with him occasionally

on the phone after he was convicted.” Appellant’s Brief, Appendix 8,

Certification of Raneisha Hall (unpaginated). Hall also indicates that she has

“now decided to tell the truth about what [she] witnessed because [she]

moved away from [the area after Windsor was murdered.]” Id. Juxtaposed

against the precise language of the Innocence Project’s letter, though, Hall’s

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decision to provide this information had already been made by April, or

possibly earlier, of that same year. See Appellant’s Brief, Appendix 3,

Pennsylvania Innocence Project letter dated June 4, 2019 (unpaginated)

(writing that the Innocence Project spoke to Hall on April 25, 2019, but no

indication as to what had been discussed or known prior to that date).

      Simply     put,   Johnson   has   not,   with   any   degree   of   certainty,

demonstrated what happened or what was known prior to the Innocence

Project’s interviews. Despite it being his burden to plead and prove, without

any clear timeline of events, we cannot tell when he gleaned some notion that

Hall’s statement could provide him with information possibly beneficial to him

in a collateral appeal. Such information could have been garnered months, if

not years, prior, and without any clarity on the issue, we are left with pure

speculation in pinpointing a precise date. With this ambiguity inherent in the

record, we agree with the lower court’s determination that Johnson has not

demonstrated due diligence. Accordingly, having failed to plead and prove an

exception to the PCRA’s time bar, we without jurisdiction to consider his

underlying claim. Correspondingly, we affirm the order dismissing his second

PCRA petition.

      Order affirmed.

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Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 01/03/2023

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