Court Opinion

ID: 9909167
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-12 17:09:41.994413+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:50:09.822841
License: Public Domain

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  MICHAEL BARONI                               :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 595 EDA 2023

          Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered February 15, 2023
   In the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County Criminal Division at
                     No(s): CP-23-CR-0000845-1982

BEFORE:      NICHOLS, J., SULLIVAN, J., and COLINS, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY NICHOLS, J.:                          FILED DECEMBER 12, 2023

       Appellant Michael Baroni appeals pro se from the order dismissing his

petition for habeas corpus as an untimely serial petition under the Post-

Conviction Relief Act1 (PCRA). Appellant argues that his habeas petition is not

subject to the PCRA’s time limitations, and that he was entitled to relief on his

claims. We affirm.

       The underlying facts and procedural history of this matter are well

known to the parties. See Commonwealth v. Baroni, 3593 EDA 2018, 2019

WL 2323819, at *1 (Pa. Super. filed May 31, 2019) (unpublished mem.).

Briefly, on October 6, 1982, a jury convicted Appellant of two counts of

second-degree murder and related offenses involving the deaths of two young

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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546.
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children.2 On April 7, 1983, the trial court imposed an aggregate sentence of

life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.        This Court affirmed

Appellant’s judgment of sentence on March 22, 1985, and on October 4, 1985,

our Supreme Court denied Appellant’s petition for allowance of appeal. See

Commonwealth v. Baroni, 1233 Philadelphia 1983 (Pa. Super. filed Mar.

22, 1985) (unpublished mem.), appeal denied, 417 E.D. Allocatur Docket

1985 (Pa. filed Oct. 4, 1985). Appellant did not file a petition for a writ of

certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States.

       On August 3, 2022, Appellant filed the instant pro se petition seeking

habeas corpus relief. Therein, Appellant argued that the sentence for second-

degree murder imposed pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S. § 1102(b) is “a nullity in

violation of his due process rights.” Pro Se Pet. for Habeas Corpus, 8/3/22,

at 2-5. Further, Appellant claimed that “the PCRA does not afford him relief

from a nullity [sic] sentence, therefore he is entitled to relief as a matter [of]

right pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus.” Id. at 5; see also id. (reflecting

Appellant’s claim that “[a] writ of habeas corpus is properly brought when

there is no apparent remedy under the PCRA[,]” and because “[a] petition

raising the fact that a sentence is a nullity should not be barred on the grounds

that it is untimely or the error causing the vitiated sentence is waived”).

       On February 2, 2023, the PCRA court issued a Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice

of intent to dismiss Appellant’s petition without a hearing. Appellant filed a

____________________________________________

2 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(b).

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timely pro se response reiterating that his claims were not cognizable under

the PCRA. On February 15, 2023, the PCRA court issued an order dismissing

Appellant’s petition as an untimely PCRA petition.        See PCRA Ct. Order,

2/15/23, at 1-2.

      Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal and a court-ordered Pa.R.A.P.

1925(b) statement.     The PCRA court subsequently issued a Rule 1925(a)

opinion addressing Appellant’s claim.

      On appeal, the Appellant raises the following issue:

      Whether the trial court abused its discretion in dismissing
      Appellant’s petition for habeas corpus relief claiming he is illegally
      confined on the basis of a life sentence imposed following a
      second-degree murder conviction?

Appellant’s Brief at 3 (formatting altered).

      Appellant argues his sentence for second-degree murder is illegal. Id.

at 7-9. Specifically, Appellant claims that the statute authorizing his sentence,

18 Pa.C.S. § 1102(b), provides for a penalty that is not enumerated in 42

Pa.C.S. § 9721. Id. at 7-8. Appellant asserts that a writ of habeas corpus is

the only remedy available to him and that he does not have to plead and prove

any of the timeliness exceptions to the PCRA in a habeas proceeding. Id. at

10. Alternatively, Appellant claims that because his sentence under Section

1102(b) is illegal and void ab initio, it never became final and therefore, the

PCRA’s one-year time-bar does not apply. Id.

      Our review of the denial of PCRA relief is limited to “whether the record

supports the PCRA court’s determination and whether the PCRA court’s

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decision is free of legal error.” Commonwealth v. Lawson, 90 A.3d 1, 4

(Pa. Super. 2014) (citations omitted).

     Our Supreme Court has held that the PCRA statute subsumes the writ

of habeas corpus where a remedy is available under the PCRA.             See

Commonwealth v. Fahy, 737 A.2d 214, 223-24 (Pa. 1999); see also 42

Pa.C.S. § 9542 (stating that a PCRA petition “shall be the sole means of

obtaining collateral relief and encompasses all other common law and

statutory remedies . . . including habeas corpus and coram nobis”).

     A claim that the trial court lacked statutory authority to impose a

particular sentence is a challenge to the legality of the sentence.      See

Commonwealth v. Kelley, 136 A.3d 1007, 1013 (Pa. Super. 2016).             A

challenge to the “legality of sentence is always subject to review within the

PCRA,” however a PCRA petitioner “must still first satisfy the PCRA’s time

limits or one of the exceptions thereto.”   Fahy, 737 A.2d at 223 (citation

omitted); see also 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(vii). Therefore, we conclude that

the PCRA court properly construed Appellant’s habeas petition as a subsequent

PCRA petition.

     “[T]he timeliness of a PCRA petition is a jurisdictional requisite.”

Commonwealth v. Brown, 111 A.3d 171, 175 (Pa. Super. 2015) (citation

omitted). A PCRA petition, “including a second or subsequent petition, shall

be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final” unless the

petitioner pleads and proves one of three statutory exceptions. 42 Pa.C.S. §

9545(b)(1). A judgment of sentence becomes final for PCRA purposes “at the

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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.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(3).

       It is the PCRA petitioner’s “burden to allege and prove that one of the

timeliness exceptions applies.”         Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 994 A.2d

1091, 1094 (Pa. 2010) (citations omitted and some formatting altered). If a

PCRA petition is untimely, and none of the timeliness exceptions are met, our

courts lack jurisdiction to address the merits of a challenge to the legality of

the sentence. See Commonwealth v. Miller, 102 A.3d 988, 995-96 (Pa.

Super. 2014).

       Here, Appellant’s judgment of sentence became final on December 3,

1985, the date on which the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari with

the Supreme Court of the United States expired.                See 42 Pa.C.S. §

9545(b)(3); Pa.R.A.P. 903(a); U.S. Sup. Ct. R. 20.1 (effective August 1, 1984;

allowing 60 days to file petition for writ of certiorari), repealed and replaced

by U.S. Sup. Ct. R. 13.1 (effective Jan. 1, 1990).       Appellant’s instant PCRA

petition, filed on August 3, 2022, is facially untimely.3

____________________________________________

3 We note that due to amendments to the PCRA enacted in 1995, petitioners

had until January 16, 1997, to timely file his first PCRA petition.
Commonwealth v. Fairiror, 809 A.2d 396, 398 (Pa. Super. 2002).
However, that deadline did not apply to second or subsequent PCRA petitions,
regardless of when the first petition was filed. Id. Here, because Appellant
filed his first petition for state collateral relief under the former Post Conviction
Hearing Act on August 21, 1987, he was not entitled to the grace period
discussed in Fairiror. See id.

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      Further, as noted previously, Appellant did not plead and prove an

exception to the PCRA time bar in his pro se petition. Cf. Albrecht, 994 A.2d

at 1094.   Because Appellant’s petition is facially untimely and Appellant

neither pled nor proved a timeliness exception under the PCRA, he has failed

to meet the jurisdictional threshold for a court to consider the merits of his

claim and no relief is due. See Miller, 102 A.3d at 995-96; see also Brown,

111 A.3d at 175. For these reasons, the PCRA court correctly concluded that

it did not have jurisdiction to review the merits of Appellant’s petition. See

Lawson, 90 A.3d at 4. Accordingly, we affirm.

      Order affirmed.

Date: 12/12/2023

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