Court Opinion

ID: 9941330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-16 15:19:20.46102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:32.503207
License: Public Domain

IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Francis Boyd and David Bradley,      :
                  Petitioners        :
                                     :
            v.                       :
                                     :
Pennsylvania’s Sentencing Scheme for :
Sentencing 18 Year Old’s to          :
Mandatory Life without Parole        :
Attorney General,                    :                No. 543 M.D. 2022
                  Respondent         :                Submitted: December 4, 2023

BEFORE:          HONORABLE ANNE E. COVEY, Judge
                 HONORABLE STACY WALLACE, Judge
                 HONORABLE MARY HANNAH LEAVITT, Senior Judge

OPINION BY
JUDGE COVEY                                                    FILED: February 16, 2024

                 Before this Court are the Office of Attorney General’s (AG)
preliminary objections (Preliminary Objections) to Francis Boyd’s (Boyd) and
David Bradley’s (Bradley) (collectively, Petitioners) pro se petition for review filed
in this Court’s original jurisdiction (Petition). After review, this Court sustains the
AG’s Preliminary Objection1 and dismisses the Petition with prejudice.
                 Petitioners are inmates currently incarcerated at the State Correctional
Institution at Chester.2 Boyd was convicted, inter alia, of second-degree murder, an

        1
            The AG asserted five Preliminary Objections; however, this Court sustains only one of
them.
        2
          www.inmatelocator.cor.pa.gov/#/Result (last visited Feb. 15, 2024). Boyd’s Inmate No.
is AF6974. Bradley’s Inmate No. is GS4862.
        Although Bradley’s name appears in the caption, he signed the Petition (see Petition at 41),
and the Petition occasionally references Petitioners (see Petition at 1, 40), the Petition most often
refers to Boyd and Petitioner, and does not offer any facts or claims specific to Bradley.
offense he committed when he was 18 years old.3 See Petition at 11; see also
Commonwealth v. Boyd (Pa. Super. No. 2104 EDA 2017, filed July 30, 2018) (Boyd
I). As a result of his conviction, Boyd is serving a mandatory sentence of life without
parole (LWOP). See Petition at 11; see also Boyd I.
               On June 25, 2012, the United States (U.S.) Supreme Court ruled in
Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), that “mandatory [LWOP] for those under
the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment [to the U.S.
Constitution’s (Eighth Amendment)4] prohibition on cruel and unusual
punishments.”5 Id. at 465 (quotation marks omitted). On January 7, 2016, in

       3
               [O]n December 1, 1976, a jury found [Boyd] guilty of second-
               degree murder, robbery, and related offenses stemming from a
               shooting and robbery at a Philadelphia bar on June 3-4, 1976. On
               February 9, 1977, [Boyd] received a sentence of life imprisonment
               for second-degree murder, plus an aggregate, consecutive term of
               15-30 years’ imprisonment for the remaining offenses. Th[e
               Pennsylvania Superior] Court affirmed [Boyd’s] judgment of
               sentence on October 19, 1979, and [Boyd] did not pursue any further
               appeals. See Commonwealth v. Boyd, . . . 412 A.2d 588 (Pa. Super.
               1979). [Boyd’s judgment of sentence became final on November
               19, 1979.] We note that [Boyd] was [at least] 18 years old at the
               time he committed his offenses in June of 1976.
Commonwealth v. Boyd (Pa. Super. No. 2104 EDA 2017, filed July 30, 2018) (Boyd I), slip op. at
1-2 (internal citations and emphasis omitted).
        “[A] court may not ordinarily take judicial notice in one case of the records of another case,
whether in another court or its own, even though the contents of those records may be known to
the court.” Styers v. Bedford Grange Mut. Ins. Co., 900 A.2d 895, 899 (Pa. Super. 2006) (quoting
220 P’ship v. Phila. Elec. Co., 650 A.2d 1094, 1097 (Pa. Super. 1994)). However, a limited
exception to that general rule allows “a court [considering preliminary objections] to take notice
of a fact which the parties have admitted[,] or which is incorporated into the [petition] by reference
to a prior court action.” Guarrasi v. Scott, 25 A.3d 394, 398 n.3 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2011) (quoting
Styers, 900 A.2d at 899). Here, Boyd referenced and incorporated Boyd I in his Petition. See
Petition at 1, 6-7.
        4
          U.S. CONST. amend. VIII (“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”).
        5
          The Pennsylvania Superior Court aptly described:

                                                  2
              The Miller Court applied the scientific studies and principles set
              forth in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 . . . (2005) [(wherein the
              U.S. Supreme Court barred capital punishment for offenders under
              18 years of age)], and Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 . . . (2010)
              [(wherein the U.S. Supreme Court barred LWOP for offenders
              under 18 who committed non-homicide offenses)], and concluded
              the prohibition against mandatory life sentences pertained to
              juveniles, in particular, in the case of Miller, to two [14-]year[-]olds.
              The Miller Court noted the difficulty in distinguishing “at this early
              age between ‘the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate
              yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime
              reflects irreparable corruption.’” Miller, 567 U.S. at 479 . . . [(]citing
              Roper, 543 U.S. at 573 . . . and Graham, 560 U.S. at 68 . . . [)]. The
              [U.S. Supreme] Court reasoned: “By making youth (and all that
              accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that harshest prison
              sentence, such a scheme poses too great a risk of disproportionate
              punishment.” Miller, 567 U.S. at 479 . . . .
Commonwealth v. Lee, 206 A.3d 1, 9 (Pa. Super. 2019) (emphasis omitted).
     The Miller Court expressly concluded:
              [A] judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating
              circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for
              juveniles. By requiring that all children convicted of homicide
              receive lifetime incarceration without possibility of parole,
              regardless of their age and age-related characteristics and the nature
              of their crimes, the mandatory[]sentencing schemes before us
              violate this principle of proportionality, and so the Eighth
              Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Miller, 567 U.S. at 489.
        Notably, in response to Miller, the Pennsylvania General Assembly enacted Section
1102.1(c) of the Crimes Code, which excepted persons under the age of 18 convicted of second-
degree murder after June 24, 2012, from the mandate that all persons convicted of second-degree
murder shall be sentenced to LWOP. See 18 Pa.C.S. § 1102.1(c). Further, the Pennsylvania
Superior Court held that
              a mandatory sentence of a term of [LWOP] for a juvenile offender
              in Pennsylvania is a violation of the Eighth Amendment . . . , as well
              as [a]rticle I, [s]ection 13 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, PA.
              CONST. art. I, § 13. [If a juvenile offender] was sentenced to a
              mandatory sentence of [LWOP] for the commission of a second-
              degree murder as a juvenile, [Pennsylvania] courts are constrained

                                                  3
Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190 (2016), the U.S. Supreme Court held that
Miller was a new substantive constitutional rule that was retroactive on state
collateral review. See Commonwealth v. Cobbs, 256 A.3d 1192 (Pa. 2021).
              Among various amended filings Boyd made between May 2012 and
August 2016 in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas (trial court/PCRA
court), he sought relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA)6 pursuant to
Miller.7 See Boyd I. However, on May 30, 2017, the trial court denied Boyd’s PCRA
filings as untimely and, on July 30, 2018, the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed
the trial court’s denials on appeal. See Boyd I. On August 28, 2018, Boyd filed a
petition for allowance of appeal in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which the
Supreme Court denied on July 2, 2019. See Commonwealth v. Boyd, 216 A.3d 227
(Pa. 2019). Thereafter,8 according to the Petition, Boyd filed an Application for
Permission to File a Second or Successive Petition Pursuant to Section 2254(b) of
the U.S. Code, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b) (relating to federal habeas corpus applications)
(Application), in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which that court
denied on January 14, 2022.9 See Petition at 2.
              On November 14, 2022, Petitioners filed the Petition in this Court,
asserting that Pennsylvania’s scheme under which 18-year-olds may be sentenced to
mandatory LWOP for second-degree murder violates the Eighth Amendment and

              to vacate the judgment of sentence and remand the case to the trial
              court for resentencing.
Commonwealth v. Knox, 50 A.3d 732, 745 (Pa. Super. 2012).
        6
          42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546.
        7
          The specific dates on which Boyd filed the relevant PCRA claims are not evident in the
Petition.
        8
          The filing date is not apparent in the Petition.
        9
          The content of the Application is not clear in the Petition.
                                               4
article I, section 13 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.10 Petitioners represent in the
Petition:

               [Boyd] is not claiming that he falls within the holding of
               Miller. He concedes that the [U.S.] Constitution does not
               protect 18-year[-]olds from receiving a mandatory
               sentence of [LWOP] and that under the current federal
               precedent, the Eighth Amendment . . . does not prohibit
               such sentences.       [Boyd] is claiming that under
               Pennsylvania [s]tate [s]tatutes and the Pennsylvania
               Constitution, he was not considered an “adult” during the
               time that he committed his crime, and therefore fall[s]
               within the ambit of the rationale of Miller [(i.e., the
               immature brain theory)] . . . . Every Court in the land is
               bound by the Supremacy Clause [of the U.S. Constitution,
               U.S. CONST. art. VI, cl. 2].

Petition at 13 (italic emphasis added). Petitioners specifically contend that since an
adult is defined under Pennsylvania law as “[a]n individual 21 years of age or
over[,]” Section 1991 of the Statutory Construction Act of 1972, 1 Pa.C.S. § 1991,
an 18-year-old is a minor to whom the Miller rationale should apply. See Petition at
11-12. Petitioners add that Miller and Montgomery do not preclude Pennsylvania
from establishing its own standards to LWOP sentences, see Jones v. Mississippi,

       10
          Article I, section 13 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides: “Excessive bail shall not
be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel punishments inflicted.” PA. CONST. art. I, §
13.
               “Pennsylvania courts have repeatedly and unanimously held that the
               Pennsylvania prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment is
               coextensive with the Eighth [Amendment] and [the] Fourteenth
               Amendment[] to the [U.S.] Constitution[, U.S. CONST. amend. XIV
               (relating to due process and equal protection)], and that the
               Pennsylvania Constitution affords no broader protection against
               excessive sentences than that provided by the Eighth
               Amendment . . . .” Commonwealth v. Elia, 83 A.3d 254, 267 (Pa.
               Super. 2013) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
               Accordingly, we only need to review [Petitioners’] claim under the
               Eighth Amendment.
Commonwealth v. Ishankulov, 275 A.3d 498, 505 (Pa. Super. 2022).
                                                 5
593 U.S. 98 (2021), and they urge this Court to “draw its own line” for persons who
were 18 years old when they committed their crimes. Petition at 2.
               On January 12, 2023, the AG filed its Preliminary Objections and a
brief in support thereof, asserting: (1) Petitioners failed to effectuate proper service
on the AG pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure (Rule) 1514(c);
(2) this Court lacks jurisdiction to hear a collateral challenge to Petitioners’ criminal
sentences because Petitioners’ claims fall outside Section 761 of the Judicial Code,
42 Pa.C.S. § 761; (3) the AG is not a proper party to this action because the AG
cannot set the date on which Petitioners would be eligible for parole; (4) Petitioners
failed to exhaust their administrative remedies under the PCRA; and (5) Petitioners
failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted (demurrer). On February
15, 2023, Petitioners filed an answer opposing the AG’s Preliminary Objections.
Petitioners did not file a brief opposing the Preliminary Objections.11
               Initially, Rule 1516(b) authorizes the filing of preliminary objections to
an original jurisdiction petition for review. See Pa.R.A.P. 1516(b).

               In ruling on preliminary objections, [this Court] must
               accept as true all well-pleaded material allegations in the
               petition for review, as well as all inferences reasonably
               deduced therefrom. The Court need not accept as true
               conclusions of law, unwarranted inferences from facts,
               argumentative allegations, or expressions of opinion. In
               order to sustain preliminary objections, it must appear with
               certainty that the law will not permit recovery, and any
               doubt should be resolved by a refusal to sustain them.
               A preliminary objection in the nature of a demurrer admits
               every well-pleaded fact in the [petition for review] and all
               inferences reasonably deducible therefrom. It tests the

       11
          By March 3, 2023 Order, this Court directed Petitioners to file their opposing brief on or
before April 3, 2023. By May 9, 2023 Order, this Court directed Petitioners to file their opposing
brief on or before May 23, 2023, or the Court would proceed to decide the matter without it.
Because Petitioners did not timely file an opposing brief, this Court will proceed to decide the
matter without it.
                                                 6
             legal sufficiency of the challenged pleadings and will be
             sustained only in cases where the pleader has clearly failed
             to state a claim for which relief can be granted. When
             ruling on a demurrer, a court must confine its analysis to
             the [petition for review].

Torres v. Beard, 997 A.2d 1242, 1245 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2010) (citations omitted).
Nonetheless, “[c]ourts reviewing preliminary objections may not only consider the
facts pled in the [petition for review], but also any documents or exhibits attached to
it.” Foxe v. Pa. Dep’t of Corr., 214 A.3d 308, 310 n.1 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2019) (quoting
Allen v. Dep’t of Corr., 103 A.3d 365, 369 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2014)).
             Because it is dispositive, this Court first addresses whether this Court
lacks jurisdiction over this matter (Second Preliminary Objection).               The
Pennsylvania Supreme Court has articulated:

             Article V, [s]ection 4 of the Pennsylvania Constitution,
             adopted April 23, 1968, created the Commonwealth Court
             and stated that [it] shall “have such jurisdiction as shall be
             provided by law.” [PA. CONST. art. V, § 4.] The General
             Assembly enacted Section 761 of the Judicial Code, which
             conferred the Commonwealth Court with original and
             exclusive jurisdiction over certain cases, including civil
             actions or proceedings against government agencies and
             officials.   The conferral of original and exclusive
             jurisdiction creates subject[ ]matter jurisdiction in the
             Commonwealth Court for the specified classes of claims.

Scott v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole, 284 A.3d 178, 186 (Pa. 2022). Section 761(a) of
the Judicial Code provides, in relevant part:

             The Commonwealth Court shall have original
             jurisdiction of all civil actions or proceedings:
             (1) Against the Commonwealth government, including
             any officer thereof, acting in his official capacity, except:
                 (i) actions or proceedings in the nature of
                 applications for a writ of habeas corpus or post-

                                           7
                   conviction relief not ancillary to proceedings
                   within the appellate jurisdiction of the court[.12]

42 Pa.C.S. § 761(a) (bold and underline emphasis added).
               Correspondingly, the General Assembly created the PCRA as “the sole
means of obtaining collateral relief and encompasses all other common law and
statutory remedies for the same purpose that exist when this subchapter takes effect,
including habeas corpus and coram nobis.” Section 9542 of the PCRA, 42 Pa.C.S.
§ 9542. Moreover, Section 9545(a) of the PCRA specifies, in pertinent part:
“Original jurisdiction over a proceeding under [the PCRA] shall be in the court
of common pleas.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(a) (emphasis added). Accordingly, this Court
lacks jurisdiction to decide this matter and may transfer it to the proper trial court.
See Dockery v. Wolf, 259 A.3d 566 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2021).
               However, Section 9545(b)(1) of the PCRA provides that petitions filed
pursuant to the PCRA, including a second or subsequent petition, generally “shall
be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final.” 42 Pa.C.S. §
9545(b)(1). Section 9545(b)(1) of the PCRA offers exceptions to the PCRA petition
filing deadline only when

               the petition alleges and the petitioner proves that:
               (i) the failure to raise the claim previously was the result
               of interference by government officials with the
               presentation of the claim in violation of the Constitution
               or laws of this Commonwealth or the Constitution or laws
               of the [U.S.];
               (ii) 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; or
               (iii) the right asserted is a constitutional right that was
               recognized by the Supreme Court of the [U.S.] or the

       12
         “Postconviction relief . . . is not part of the criminal proceeding itself, and it is . . .
considered to be civil in nature.” Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U.S. 551, 556-57 (1987).
                                                 8
               Supreme Court of Pennsylvania after the time period
               provided in this section and has been held by that court to
               apply retroactively.

42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). Thus, in those three limited circumstances, “[a]ny petition
invoking an exception provided in [Section 9545(b)(1) of the PCRA] . . . shall be
filed within one year of the date the claim could have been presented.”13 Section
9545(b)(2) of the PCRA, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2).
               Regardless of which limitations period applies (one year after final
judgment or one year after the U.S. or Pennsylvania Supreme Court recognizes a
new, retroactive constitutional right), “[i]t is well settled that ‘[t]he PCRA’s
timeliness requirements are jurisdictional in nature and must be strictly
construed; courts may not address the merits of the issues raised in a petition if
it is not timely filed.’” Commonwealth v. Towles, 300 A.3d 400, 415 (Pa. 2023)
(quoting Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal, 941 A.2d 1263, 1267-68 (Pa. 2008)
(emphasis added)); see also Commonwealth v. McGee, 302 A.3d 659, 667 (Pa. 2023)
(quoting Commonwealth v. Jackson, 30 A.3d 516, 523 (Pa. Super. 2011) (“[W]hen
the one-year filing deadline of [S]ection 9545 [of the PCRA] has expired, and no
statutory exception has been pled or proven, a PCRA court cannot invoke inherent
jurisdiction to correct orders, judgments and decrees, even if the error is patent and
obvious.”)); Commonwealth v. Lee, 206 A.3d 1, 11 (Pa. Super. 2019) (“It is not [a]
[c]ourt’s role to override the gatekeeping function of the PCRA time-bar and create
jurisdiction where it does not exist.”). “The PCRA’s strict one-year limit on filing a
petition reflects the General Assembly’s intent to accord finality to the criminal
process.” Scott, 284 A.3d at 187.

       13
          Until October 24, 2018, when the General Assembly amended Section 9545(b)(2) of the
PCRA, the time for filing a petition was 60 days from the date the claim could have been presented.
See 2018 Pa. Legis. Serv. Act 2018-146 (S.B. 915), effective as of December 24, 2018. The
amendment applies only to claims arising one year before the December 24, 2018 effective date
or thereafter.
                                                9
             In the instant matter, Boyd’s judgment of sentence became final on
November 19, 1979. Boyd could not have filed a PCRA petition based on Miller
until Miller was decided on June 25, 2012. The Boyd I Court clearly reviewed
Boyd’s claim under the newly-recognized constitutional right exception in Section
9545(b)(1)(iii) of the PCRA, based on Miller, at some point after the Montgomery
Court ruled in 2016 that Miller applied retroactively. The Boyd I Court declared
that, although Miller applied retroactively,

             [Boyd] has not demonstrated that the rule created in Miller
             applies to him. . . . [Boyd] was - at best - nearly [18½]
             years old at the time of the underlying crimes. Th[e
             Pennsylvania Superior] Court has explained that
             “petitioners who were older than 18 at the time they
             committed murder are not within the ambit of the Miller
             decision and therefore may not rely on that decision to
             bring themselves within the time-bar exception in Section
             9545(b)(1)(iii) [of the PCRA].” See Commonwealth v.
             Furgess, 149 A.3d 90, 94 (Pa. Super. 2016); see also
             Commonwealth v. Woods, 179 A.3d 37, 38, 44 (Pa. Super.
             2017) (determining that Miller did not apply to the
             appellant’s case where the appellant was 18 years and 36
             days old when he committed his crime). Thus, [Boyd]
             cannot establish a timeliness exception on this basis.

Boyd I, slip op. at 8-9. The Boyd I Court concluded that since Boyd’s claim did not
fall under the exception in Section 9545(b)(1)(iii) of the PCRA, it was untimely and,
thus, the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction to proceed to decide the merits of Boyd’s
PCRA claims.
             In the current PCRA Petition, relying on Lee, Petitioners assert that
because their brains were underdeveloped when they committed their crimes, they
could not form the requisite intent for second-degree murder and, applying Miller’s
rationale (rather than its holding), they were less culpable and, therefore, entitled to

                                          10
relief.14 According to Petitioners, “this Court can do what the [Lee C]ourt couldn’t
do, which is hear [P]etitioner[s’] claims.” Petition at 17.
              Although it is not clear in the Petition precisely when Boyd amended
his 2012 PCRA petition to invoke Miller, the Boyd I Court clearly determined in
2018 that Boyd’s claim was late-filed. It is no less late-filed now. Eleven years have
passed since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Miller. Seven years have passed since
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Miller applied retroactively. Lee cannot satisfy
Section 9545(b)(1)(iii) of the PCRA because it did not present “a constitutional right
that was recognized by the Supreme Court of the [U.S.] or the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania after the time period provided in this section and has been held by that
court to apply retroactively.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(iii). However, even if this
Court was to consider that Petitioners based their new claim on Lee’s immature brain
theory, Lee was decided on March 1, 2019, and Petitioners filed the subject Petition
more than three and one-half years later, on November 14, 2022.15

       14
              Lee ask[ed] th[e Pennsylvania Superior] Court to expand the
              holding in Miller to apply to her, as one over the age of 18 at the
              time of her offense who allege[d] “characteristics of youth” that
              render[ed] her categorically less culpable under Miller. Miller, 567
              U.S. at 472-73 . . . . Lee characterize[d] this argument as “rationale
              versus holding.” She argue[d] that Miller must be construed to
              include not only the narrow holding identified in [Commonwealth
              v.] Cintora[, 69 A.3d 759 (Pa. Super. 2013), abrogation on other
              grounds recognized in Furgess] and Furgess, and more recently,
              th[e] [Superior] Court’s en banc decision in . . . Montgomery, but
              also the underlying reasoning, scientific principles, and well-
              established rationale upon which the [U.S. Supreme] Court in Miller
              and Montgomery relied.
Lee, 206 A.3d at 7 (emphasis omitted).
       15
          Lee also fails to wholly support Petitioners’ claim on the merits. The Lee Court
concluded that Miller’s prohibition on mandatory LWOP sentences for juvenile offenders as cruel
and unusual punishment did not extend to Lee who, despite her argument that her brain was

                                               11
              Moreover, the Lee Court observed:

              In Commonwealth v. Chambers, 35 A.3d 34 (Pa. Super.
              2011), . . . Chambers filed an untimely PCRA petition and
              sought to establish that he had satisfied the exception
              contained in [S]ection 9545(b)(1)(iii) [of the PCRA] by
              arguing that the rationale utilized by the [U.S.] Supreme
              Court establishing a new constitutional right in Graham
              [v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010)], entitled him to relief. . . .

underdeveloped at time of her crime, like Petitioners, was over the age of 18 when she committed
second-degree murder. The Lee Court reasoned:
              The express age limit, however, though arguably not critical to the
              Miller holding, is, in our opinion, essential to an orderly and
              practical application of the law. Conceptually, there may not be any
              statistically significant difference between the mental maturity of a
              17-year-old and an 18-year-old, or an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old,
              and so the question becomes, where do we draw the line?
                   Drawing the line at 18 years of age is subject, of course, to
                   the objections always raised against categorical rules. The
                   qualities that distinguish juveniles from adults do not
                   disappear when an individual turns 18. By the same token,
                   some under 18 have already attained a level of maturity
                   some adults will never reach. [H]owever, a line must be
                   drawn. . . . The age of 18 is the point where society draws
                   the line for many purposes between childhood and
                   adulthood. It is, we conclude, the age at which the line for
                   death eligibility ought to rest.
              Roper . . . , 543 U.S. at 574 . . . (holding Eighth Amendment . . .
              prohibits imposition of death penalty for crime committed by
              juvenile).
              We recognize that the principles underlying the Miller holding are
              more general; who qualifies as a “juvenile” and whether Miller
              applies to Lee are better characterized as questions on the merits,
              not as preliminary jurisdictional questions under [S]ection
              9545(b)(1)(iii) [of the PCRA]. As compelling as the “rationale”
              argument is, we find it untenable to extend Miller to one who is over
              the age of 18 at the time of his or her offense for purposes of
              satisfying the newly-recognized constitutional right exception in
              [S]ection 9545(b)(1)(iii) [of the PCRA].
Lee, 206 A.3d at 9-10 (emphasis omitted).
                                               12
            ....
            Concluding Chambers misapprehended the scope of the
            timeliness exception embodied in [Section] 9545(b)(1)(iii)
            [of the PCRA], [the Pennsylvania Superior Court] stated:
                For purposes of deciding whether the timeliness
                exception to the PCRA based on the creation of a
                new constitutional right is applicable, the
                distinction between the holding of a case and its
                rationale is crucial since only a precise creation
                of a constitutional right can afford a petitioner
                relief. . . . [T]he rationale used by the [U.S.]
                Supreme Court is irrelevant to the evaluation of a
                [Section] 9545(b)(1)(iii) [of the PCRA] timeliness
                exception to the PCRA, as the right must be one
                that has been expressly recognized by either the
                Pennsylvania or [U.S.] Supreme Court. Thus, for
                the purpose of the timeliness exception to the
                PCRA, only the holding of the case is relevant.
            Chambers, 35 A.3d at 40-43 ([italic] emphasis added).
            Here, as in Chambers, Lee is not basing her argument on
            any     newly-recognized          constitutional     right    as
            contemplated by the PCRA. For this reason, we find Lee’s
            reliance on . . . the principle that stare decisis directs courts
            to adhere not only to holdings of prior cases, but also to
            explications of the governing rules of law, is misplaced.
            “While rationales that support holdings are used by
            courts to recognize new rights, this judicial tool is not
            available to PCRA petitioners.” Chambers, [35 A.3d] at
            42. See also Seminole Tribe [of Fl. v. Florida], 517 U.S.
            [44,] 67 [(1996)] (“When an opinion issues for the Court,
            it is not only the result but also those portions of the
            opinion necessary to that result by which we are bound.”).
            Simply put, that principle is not applicable in the context
            of collateral review.

Lee, 206 A.3d at 10-11 (bold citation emphasis omitted; bold text emphasis added).
Petitioners’ same arguments are similarly unavailing here.
            Because the Petition is late-filed and in the absence of an applicable
exception under Section 9545(b)(1) of the PCRA, even if this Court transferred the

                                           13
matter to the trial court, the trial court “cannot invoke inherent jurisdiction” to rule
on the Petition. McGee, 302 A.3d at 667 (quoting Jackson, 30 A.3d at 523).
Accordingly, notwithstanding that this Court could transfer this matter to the trial
court, see Dockery, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that transfer of a case
to the trial court/PCRA court is not warranted where a PCRA petition would be
dismissed as untimely. See Scott. “As there is no possibility that the result would
be any different, judicial economy dictates that” this Court sustain the Second
Preliminary Objection and dismiss the Petition. Id. at 198.
             Based on the foregoing, the AG’s Second Preliminary Objection is
sustained, and the Petition is dismissed with prejudice.

                                        _________________________________
                                        ANNE E. COVEY, Judge

                                          14
         IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Francis Boyd and David Bradley,      :
                  Petitioners        :
                                     :
            v.                       :
                                     :
Pennsylvania’s Sentencing Scheme for :
Sentencing 18 Year Old’s to          :
Mandatory Life without Parole        :
Attorney General,                    :    No. 543 M.D. 2022
                  Respondent         :

                                  ORDER

            AND NOW, this 16th day of February, 2024, the Office of Attorney
General’s second preliminary objection is SUSTAINED, and Francis Boyd’s and
David Bradley’s petition for review is DISMISSED with prejudice.

                                    _________________________________
                                    ANNE E. COVEY, Judge