Court Opinion

ID: 9912123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-21 17:09:45.764638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:52:00.442488
License: Public Domain

J-S32045-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                     :       IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                                   :            PENNSYLVANIA
                                                   :
                v.                                 :
                                                   :
                                                   :
  SIDNEY COOLBAUGH                                 :
                                                   :
                       Appellant                   :       No. 1668 MDA 2022

          Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered November 3, 2022
   In the Court of Common Pleas of Wyoming County Criminal Division at
                     No(s): CP-66-MD-0000072-2012

BEFORE: DUBOW, J., KUNSELMAN, J., and NICHOLS, J.

MEMORANDUM BY NICHOLS, J.:                                  FILED: DECEMBER 21, 2023

       Appellant Sidney Coolbaugh appeals from the order dismissing his serial

Post-Conviction Relief Act1 (PCRA) petition as untimely. Appellant argues that

he met the newly discovered fact exception to the PCRA time bar. We affirm.

       A prior panel of this Court set forth the relevant facts and procedural

history of this case as follows:

       On June 17, 1977, [Appellant], date of birth March 13, 1958[,]
       and then nineteen (19) years of age and Eugene McGuire
       (hereinafter “McGuire”), then seventeen (17) years of age, were
       charged with homicide, generally, robbery, theft, burglary and
       criminal conspiracy, together with Robert William Lobman. . . .
       [Appellant] and McGuire pled guilty on September 30, 1977 to an
       open count of homicide, with an agreement that the penalty would
       not rise above second-degree murder. All other charges were
       dismissed.

                                      *        *       *

____________________________________________

1 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546.
J-S32045-23

       Following [a] degree of guilt hearing the late Honorable Roy A.
       Gardner, noting that no mitigation evidence was presented, found
       McGuire and [Appellant] guilty of second-degree murder. McGuire
       and [Appellant] were sentenced on March 8, 1978 to the
       mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of
       parole.

Commonwealth v. Coolbaugh, 1542 MDA 2012, 2013 WL 11256528, at *1

(Pa. Super. filed Aug. 8, 2013) (unpublished mem.) (citation omitted).

       Appellant did not seek direct review. Rather, in the years that followed,

Appellant filed multiple petitions seeking collateral relief under both the Post

Conviction Hearing Act (PCHA)2 and the PCRA.

       On July 10, 2012, Appellant filed his seventh PCRA petition, which the

PCRA court dismissed as untimely on July 23, 2012. See id. at *1. On appeal,

Appellant claimed that “because [McGuire] was released as a result of a PCRA

petition, Appellant should also be granted an additional opportunity for PCRA

review.” Id. at *3. On August 8, 2013, this Court affirmed the dismissal of

Appellant’s PCRA petition. In doing so, this Court noted “that modification of

a co-defendant’s sentence is not a timeliness exception recognized by 42

Pa.C.S.[] § 9545(b)(1).” Id.

       Appellant filed the instant PCRA petition on January 19, 2017.        On

December 30, 2021, PCRA counsel filed an amended petition. On November

3, 2022, the PCRA court dismissed Appellant’s petition as both untimely and

on the basis of estoppel, having found that the issues raised in the current
____________________________________________

2 The PCHA, which was the predecessor to the PCRA, was repealed and
replaced by the PCRA for petitions filed on or after April 13, 1988. See 42
Pa.C.S. § 9542.

                                           -2-
J-S32045-23

PCRA petition were addressed by the PCRA court in Appellant’s 2012 PCRA

petition.   This timely appeal followed.   Both the PCRA court and Appellant

complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

      In the statement of questions involved section of his appellate brief,

Appellant raises seven issues covering nine pages. See Appellant’s Brief at

5-13. Essentially, Appellant argues that although he was nineteen years old

at the time of the crime, he had the mental capacity of a ten-year old, and

was entitled to counsel during his prior PCRA proceedings in 2012. Further,

Appellant contends that he was less culpable than McGuire, who was

seventeen years old at the time of the crime, and therefore should have

received the same consideration, analysis, and relief that McGuire received

when the trial court released McGuire because he was a juvenile, under its

reading of Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010). See id. at 54-55. The

PCRA court concluded that Appellant was not entitled to this relief because he

was not a juvenile at the time of the offense. See PCRA Ct. Op., 12/14/12,

at 6 (citing Graham and Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012)).

      In reviewing an order denying a PCRA petition, our standard of review

is well settled:

      [O]ur standard of review from the denial of a PCRA petition is
      limited to examining whether the PCRA court’s determination is
      supported by the evidence of record and whether it is free of legal
      error.    The PCRA court’s credibility determinations, when
      supported by the record, are binding on this Court; however, we
      apply a de novo standard of review to the PCRA court’s legal
      conclusions.

                                     -3-
J-S32045-23

Commonwealth v. Sandusky, 203 A.3d 1033, 1043 (Pa. Super. 2019)

(citations omitted and formatting altered).

      The timeliness of a PCRA petition is a threshold jurisdictional question.

See Commonwealth v. Miller, 102 A.3d 988, 992 (Pa. Super. 2014); see

also Commonwealth v. Ballance, 203 A.3d 1027, 1031 (Pa. Super. 2019)

(stating that “no court has jurisdiction to hear an untimely PCRA petition”

(citation omitted)). “A PCRA petition, including a second or subsequent one,

must be filed within one year of the date the petitioner’s judgment of sentence

became final, unless he pleads and proves one of the three exceptions outlined

in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1).” Commonwealth v. Jones, 54 A.3d 14, 16 (Pa.

2012) (citation and footnote omitted). A judgment of sentence becomes final

at the conclusion of direct review, or at the expiration of time for seeking such

review.   See id. at 17.    As our Supreme Court has explained, this time

requirement is mandatory and jurisdictional in nature and goes to a court’s

right or competency to adjudicate a controversy. See Commonwealth v.

Robinson, 837 A.2d 1157, 1161 (Pa. 2003).

      Courts may consider a PCRA petition filed more than one year after a

judgment of sentence becomes final only if the petitioner pleads and proves

one of the following three statutory exceptions:

      (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 United States;

                                      -4-
J-S32045-23

       (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 United States 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)(i)-(iii).        A PCRA petitioner invoking one of these

statutory exceptions must file a petition within the time constraints set forth

at 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2).3 It is the petitioner’s burden to plead and prove

that one of the timeliness exceptions applies. Commonwealth v. Blakeney,

193 A.3d 350, 361 (Pa. 2018).

       Here, as noted above, Appellant’s judgment became final in 1978, when

he did not take a direct appeal from his judgment of sentence. See 42 Pa.C.S.

§ 9545(b)(3); Pa.R.A.P. 903(a). Therefore, his instant PCRA petition, which

was filed on January 19, 2017, is facially untimely.           See 42 Pa.C.S. §

9545(b)(1).4
____________________________________________

3 On October 24, 2018, the General Assembly amended Section 9545(b)(2)

and extended the time for filing a PCRA petition from sixty days to one year
from the date the claim could have been presented.                See 2018
Pa.Legis.Serv.Act 2018-146 (S.B. 915), effective December 24, 2018. The
amendment applies only to claims arising one year before the effective date
of this section, December 24, 2017, or thereafter.

4 Effective January 16, 1996, the PCRA was amended to require petitioners to

file any PCRA petition within one year of the date their judgment of sentence
becomes final. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). Where a petitioner’s judgment of
sentence became final on or before the effective date of the amendment, a
special grace proviso allowed first PCRA petitions to be filed by January 16,
1997. See Commonwealth v. Alcorn, 703 A.2d 1054, 1056-57 (Pa. Super.
(Footnote Continued Next Page)

                                           -5-
J-S32045-23

       In his brief, Appellant attempts to invoke the newly discovered fact

exception at Section 9545(b)(1)(ii).             See Appellant’s Brief at 70, 82.   In

support, Appellant contends that the PCRA court’s determination and order

granting relief to McGuire “were new evidence, new facts, new law, new mixed

findings of fact and law, new findings of fact, and new findings of law upon

which [Appellant’s] claims set forth in the Amended Petition are predicated.”

Id. at 73 (emphasis omitted).            Therefore, Appellant concludes that the

decision granting McGuire relief constitutes a newly discovered fact and an

exception to the PCRA time bar.

       Our Supreme Court has held that

       judicial determinations do not satisfy the newly discovered fact
       exception because an in-court ruling or published judicial opinion
       is law, for it is simply the embodiment of abstract principles
       applied to actual events. The events that prompted the analysis,
       which must be established by presumption or evidence, are
       regarded as fact.

Commonwealth v. Reid, 235 A.3d 1124, 1146 (Pa. 2020) (citations omitted

and formatting altered). “[S]ubsequent decisional law does not amount to a

new fact under Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) of the PCRA.”             Id. at 1147 (citation

omitted and formatting altered).               In relying on a judicial determination
____________________________________________

1997) (explaining application of PCRA timeliness proviso). Even if the special
grace period provided in the amendments applied, Appellant’s instant PCRA
petition, which was filed on January 19, 2017, would still be twenty years late.
See Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 994 A.2d 1091, 1093 n.2 (Pa. 2010)
(explaining that the 1995 amendments to the PCRA provided that a petitioner
whose judgment of sentence became final on or before January 16, 1996, had
a one-year grace period or until January 16, 1997, to file a first PCRA petition).

                                           -6-
J-S32045-23

pertaining to McGuire, Appellant failed to demonstrate a fact that triggered

the newly-discovered facts exception set forth at 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii).

      Following our review of the record, we agree with the PCRA court’s

conclusion that Appellant’s instant PCRA petition was untimely, and that he

has failed to properly plead and prove an exception to the PCRA time bar. See

Blakeney, 193 A.3d at 361; see also Reid, 235 A.3d at 1146 (stating that a

judicial determination does not constitute a “new fact” for purposes of the

newly discovered fact exception at Section 9545(b)(1)(ii)). Therefore, this

Court has no jurisdiction to address the merits of Appellant’s claims. See

Robinson, 837 A.2d at 1161. Accordingly, we affirm.

      Order affirmed. Jurisdiction relinquished.

Judgment Entered.

Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 12/21/2023

                                    -7-