Court Opinion

ID: 9954567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-26 16:11:24.201769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:11:53.067144
License: Public Domain

J-S04003-24

 NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA            :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                         :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                         :
              v.                         :
                                         :
                                         :
 NATHANIEL MCFADDEN                      :
                                         :
                   Appellant             :   No. 1309 EDA 2023

                Appeal from the Order Entered May 1, 2023
 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
                    No(s): CP-51-CR-0012458-2011

BEFORE: BOWES, J., STABILE, J., and LANE, J.

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.:                          FILED MARCH 26, 2024

     Nathaniel McFadden appeals from the order that dismissed his petition

filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”). We affirm.

     Briefly, the history of this case is as follows.   Appellant stabbed his

sister, was charged with aggravated assault and possession of an instrument

of crime, and pled guilty. On January 31, 2012, he was sentenced to eleven

and one-half to twenty-three months of incarceration followed by ten years of

probation. He did not file an appeal. In 2016, while serving the probationary

tail of his sentence, Appellant murdered his grandmother. Consequently, his

probation was revoked and he was resentenced in 2018 to a term of one day

to fifteen years of imprisonment on the aggravated assault conviction.

     Appellant filed a PCRA petition on January 7, 2022, pleading an after-

discovered evidence claim based upon his plea counsel’s failure to obtain a
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mental health evaluation.      See PCRA Petition, 1/7/22, at 4.         Appellant

asserted that the fact that he needed to have a mental health professional

examine him in connection with the instant case was previously unknown to

him, and that he learned of it on an undisclosed date “through the assistance

of the law library and case law.” Id. at 3-4 (citing Williams v. Taylor, 529

U.S. 362 (2000) (holding capital defendant denied effective assistance of

counsel by failure to investigate and present mitigating evidence at penalty

phase of trial), and Commonwealth v. Martin, 5 A.3d 177 (Pa. 2010)

(regarding counsel’s effectiveness in deciding how to present mental health

mitigation evidence)). He additionally attached to his PCRA petition a mental

health evaluation report that was conducted in 2017 in connection with his

murder case. Id. at Exhibit A.

      The PCRA court appointed counsel who filed a motion to withdraw and

a no-merit letter pursuant to Commonwealth v. Turner, 544 A.2d 927 (Pa.

1988), and Commonwealth v. Finley, 550 A.2d 213 (Pa.Super. 1988) (en

banc), indicating that Appellant’s petition was untimely. Appellant submitted

a response reiterating that he “did not know that [he] was supposed to receive

a mental health evaluation until [he] was doing a PCRA for a case [he] was

convicted of after this case.” Response, 1/11/23, at unnumbered 1. The PCRA

court issued Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice of its intent to dismiss Appellant’s petition

as untimely. Appellant filed a pro se response indicating on the one hand that

he and his attorney could not have ascertained his mental state at the time of

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his plea because Appellant “did not know there was anything wrong with [him]

at the time,” and on the other hand that he had informed his attorney that he

took “medication for [his] mental illness which is schizophrenia.” Response,

3/9/23.

       By order of May 1, 2023, the court dismissed Appellant’s petition and

permitted counsel to withdraw. This timely appeal followed. The PCRA court

directed Appellant to file a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement, and Appellant

complied.1 Appellant presents the following question for our review: “[Were

Appellant]’s Fifth Amendment rights violated due to the fact that he did not

receive a mental health evaluation?” Appellant’s brief at unnumbered 2.

       We begin with a review of the pertinent legal precepts. “In general, we

review an order dismissing or denying a PCRA petition as to whether the

findings of the PCRA court are supported by the record and are free from legal

error.” Commonwealth v. Howard, 285 A.3d 652, 657 (Pa.Super. 2022)

(cleaned up).

             As to legal questions, we apply a de novo standard of review
       to the PCRA court’s legal conclusions, and this Court may affirm a
       PCRA court’s order on any legal basis. As to factual questions, our
       scope of review is limited to the findings of the PCRA court and
____________________________________________

1 In his 1925(b) statement, Appellant again represented that he had informed

plea counsel that he suffered from schizophrenia and was on medication for
it, but counsel never sought a mental health investigation. He attached to the
statement a 2012 chemical dependency evaluation which stated, inter alia,
that Appellant acknowledged his diagnosis of schizophrenia, that he took
prescription medication to treat it, and that he received monthly Supplemental
Security Income benefits for it. See Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) Statement, 6/2/23,
at Exhibit B.

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       the evidence of record, viewed in the light most favorable to the
       prevailing party in the lower court. Great deference is granted to
       the findings of the PCRA court, and these findings will not be
       disturbed unless they have no support in the certified record.

Id. (cleaned up). “It is an appellant’s burden to persuade us that the PCRA

court erred and that relief is due.” Commonwealth v. Stansbury, 219 A.3d

157, 161 (Pa.Super. 2019) (cleaned up).

       It is well-settled “that the timeliness of a PCRA petition is jurisdictional

and that if the petition is untimely, courts lack jurisdiction over the petition

and cannot grant relief.” Commonwealth v. Fantauzzi, 275 A.3d 986, 994

(Pa.Super. 2022). Any PCRA petition must be filed within one year of the date

that the underlying judgment of sentence became final unless the petitioner

pleads and offers to prove an enumerated timeliness exception.            See 42

Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1).        Further, a petition invoking a timeliness exception

“shall be filed within one year of the date the claim could have been

presented.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2).

       Here, since Appellant did not file an appeal from his January 31, 2012

judgment of sentence, it became final for purposes of challenges to his

underlying convictions on March 1, 2012.2         Accordingly, his January 2022

____________________________________________

2 Appellant’s subsequent probation revocation and resentencing in this case

started a new clock for PCRA claims related to the revocation proceeding and
the new sentence.       However, regarding challenges to his underlying
convictions, “the revocation of Appellant’s probation did not ‘reset the clock’
for PCRA purposes.” Commonwealth v. Garcia, 23 A.3d 1059, 1062 n.3
(Pa.Super. 2011).

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PCRA petition is facially untimely. In an attempt to obtain substantive review

of   his   petition,   Appellant   invoked   the   PCRA’s   newly-discovered-facts

exception. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii) (providing an exception where

“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”). As

we have summarized:

       A petitioner satisfies the newly discovered facts exception when
       the petitioner pleads and proves that (1) the facts upon which the
       claim is predicated were unknown and (2) could not have been
       ascertained by the exercise of due diligence. Due diligence
       requires reasonable efforts by a petitioner, based on the particular
       circumstances, to uncover facts that may support a claim for
       collateral relief, but does not require perfect vigilance or
       punctilious care.

Commonwealth v. Hart, 199 A.3d 475, 481 (Pa.Super. 2018) (cleaned up).

“[T]he due diligence inquiry is fact-sensitive and dependent upon the

circumstances presented. A petitioner must explain why he could not have

obtained the new facts earlier with the exercise of due diligence.”

Commonwealth v. Brensinger, 218 A.3d 440, 449 (Pa.Super. 2019) (en

banc).

       Here, the documents proffered by Appellant established that he was

aware of his schizophrenia diagnosis at least since 2013, and he underwent a

mental health evaluation concerning his mental illness in 2017. Plainly, the

fact of his illness was not newly discovered by Appellant in the year prior to

the filing of his petition, and he does not assert that his condition prevented

him from raising the claim earlier.          As such “[a]ll the facts regarding

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Appellant’s mental state, if not known, surely were ascertainable by the

exercise of due diligence before Appellant’s [conviction].” Commonwealth

v. Gamboa-Taylor, 753 A.2d 780, 787 (Pa. 2000).

      Further, neither Appellant’s discovery that his plea counsel may have

been ineffective in not seeking a mental health evaluation, nor his unearthing

of judicial decisions from 2000 and 2010 leading him to that discovery, could

be utilized as “newly-discovered facts” to satisfy the § 9545(b)(1)(ii)

exception, even if Appellant filed his petition within one year of ascertaining

them. See Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 141 A.3d 1277, 1285 (Pa. 2016)

(“[A] conclusion that previous counsel was ineffective is not a newly

discovered ‘fact’ entitling Appellant to the benefit of the exception for newly-

discovered facts.” (cleaned up)); Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 266 A.3d

1128, 1135 (Pa.Super. 2021) (“Our Supreme Court has consistently held that

judicial opinions do not amount to new ‘facts’ under [§] 9545(b)(1)(ii) of the

PCRA.”).

      In sum, Appellant failed to plead and offer to prove that the claim raised

in his PCRA petition was premised upon newly-discovered facts that he could

not have discovered earlier though the exercise of due diligence, and that he

brought the claim within one year of the date it could have first been

presented.   Accordingly, the PCRA court properly dismissed his petition as

untimely.

      Order affirmed.

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Date: 3/26/2024

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