Court Opinion

ID: 9898622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-14 20:11:01.857745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:23.543758
License: Public Domain

J-S38030-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  DANIEL A. BARNETT                            :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 1852 EDA 2022

            Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered June 22, 2022
    In the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County Criminal Division at
                      No(s): CP-15-CR-0000731-1990

BEFORE:      LAZARUS, J., KUNSELMAN, J., and PELLEGRINI, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY KUNSELMAN, J.:                       FILED NOVEMBER 14, 2023

       Daniel A. Barnett appeals pro se from the order denying his latest,

untimely-filed petition pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”). 42

Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-46. We affirm.

       This Court has previously summarized the pertinent facts as follows:

             On January 30, 1990, nineteen-year-old Barnett stabbed
       and killed 64-year-old Margaret Ann Woodward during a car-
       jacking. After driving for two days with the body stuffed into the
       trunk of the car, Barnett attempted to dispose of Mrs. Woodward’s
       body by setting it on fire at a construction site. Barnett was
       captured after he attempted to purchase gas for the car with Mrs.
       Woodward’s credit card. The police found the car a few hours later
       and discovered Barnett’s birth certificate and clothes stained with
       the blood of the victim in the vehicle. Barnett subsequently took
       the police to the wooded area where he had left Mrs. Woodward’s
       body.

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
J-S38030-23

Commonwealth v. Barnett, 718 A.2d 337 (Pa. Super. 1998), non-

precedential decision at 1-2.

      Barnett was arrested and charged. He entered a negotiated guilty plea

to first degree murder, kidnapping, and robbery on October 17, 1990. That

same day, the trial court imposed the negotiated sentence of an aggregate

term of life in prison. Barnett did not file a direct appeal.

      On August 16, 1995, Barnett filed a pro se PCRA petition and the PCRA

court appointed new counsel to represent him. Ultimately, the PCRA court

denied Barnett’s petition and PCRA counsel did not file an appeal. However,

Barnett filed a pro se appeal and this Court filed an order directing PCRA

counsel to enter his appearance and resume his representation of Barnett. On

April 3, 1998, we rejected Barnett’s appellate claims and affirmed the PCRA

court’s order denying him post-conviction relief. Barnett supra. Thereafter,

Barnett filed an application for reargument, which we dismissed as untimely

filed. On November 12, 1998, our Supreme Court denied Barnett’s allocatur

petition. Commonwealth v. Barnett, 732 A.2d 611 (Pa. 1998).

      Barnett filed a second PCRA petition on March 20, 1999, which the PCRA

court denied on August 2, 1999. Barnett appealed to this Court. On March

23, 2000, we affirmed the denial of post-conviction relief because it was

untimely filed, and Barnett failed to establish a time-bar exception.

Commonwealth v. Barnett, 757 A.2d 989 (Pa. Super. 2000). This Court

denied his petition for reargument on May 23, 2000. On October 11, 2000,

our Supreme Court denied his allocatur petition.            Commonwealth v.

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Barnett, 795 A.2d 971 (Pa. 2000). Thereafter, Barnett filed a third pro se

PCRA petition that was dismissed on October 9, 2012, and a fourth PCRA

petition that was dismissed on June 2, 2016.

      On June 1, 2022, Barnett filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus ad

subjiciendum and a motion for allowance to amend the petition, which the

PCRA court treated as his fifth PCRA petition. That same day, the PCRA court

issued a Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice of its intent to dismiss Barnett’s fifth petition

as untimely. Barnett filed a response. By order entered June 22, 2022, the

PCRA court denied Barnett’s fifth petition. This appeal followed. The PCRA

court did not require Barnett to comply with Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b), but the PCRA

court filed a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) statement.

      Barnett raises seven substantive issues on appeal. Before we consider

their merits, however, we first note that the PCRA court properly considered

his latest filing for post-conviction relief as a serial PCRA petition. See 42

Pa.C.S.A. § 9542 (providing that the PCRA “shall be the sole means of

obtaining collateral relief and encompasses all other common law and

statutory remedies for the same purpose . . . including habeas corpus”);

Commonwealth v. Descardes, 136 A.3d 493, 499 (Pa. 2016) (explaining

that “claims that could be brought under the PCRA must be brought under

that Act. . . . A claim is cognizable under the PCRA if the . . . conviction

resulted from one of seven enumerated errors set forth in 42 Pa.C.S. §

9543(a)(2)”).

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         Treating Barnett’s latest filing as a PCRA petition, we must next

determine whether the PCRA court correctly concluded that it was untimely

filed, and that Barnett failed to establish a time-bar exception. The timeliness

of   a    post-conviction   petition   is    jurisdictional.   Commonwealth      v.

Hernandez, 79 A.3d 649, 651 (Pa. Super. 2013). Generally, a petition for

relief under the PCRA, including a second or subsequent petition, must be filed

within one year of the date the judgment becomes final unless the petition

alleges, and the petitioner proves, that an exception to the time for filing the

petition is met.

         The three narrow statutory exceptions to the one-year time bar are as

follows: “(1) interference by government officials in the presentation of the

claim; (2) newly discovered facts; and (3) an after-recognized constitutional

right.” Commonwealth v. Brandon, 51 A.3d 231, 233-34 (Pa. Super. 2012)

(citing 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(i-iii)). In addition, exceptions to the PCRA’s

time bar must be pled in the petition and may not be raised for the first time

on appeal.      Commonwealth v. Burton, 936 A.2d 521, 525 (Pa. Super.

2007); see also Pa.R.A.P. 302(a) (providing that issues not raised before the

lower court are waived and cannot be raised for the first time on appeal).

Moreover, a PCRA petitioner must file his petition “within one year of date the

claim could have been presented.” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(2).

         Finally, if a PCRA petition is untimely and the petitioner has not pled and

proven an exception “neither this Court nor the [PCRA] court has jurisdiction

over the petition.      Without jurisdiction, we simply do not have the legal

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authority    to   address    the    substantive   claims.”   Commonwealth      v.

Derrickson, 923 A.2d 466, 468 (Pa. Super. 2007) (citation omitted).

       Here, Barnett’s judgment of sentence became final on November 16,

1990, thirty days after the time for filing a direct appeal to this Court expired.

See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3). Therefore, Barnett had until November 18,

1991, to file a timely petition.1 As Barnett filed the petition at issue in 2022,

it is patently untimely unless he has satisfied his burden of pleading and

proving that one of the enumerated exceptions applies.         See Hernandez,

supra.

       Barnett has failed to plead and prove any exception to the PCRA’s time

bar. Instead, he maintains that his request for habeas corpus relief exists

outside the parameters of the PCRA. In support of this claim, Barnett cites

this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Rouse, 191 A.3d 1, 7 (Pa. Super.

2018). In Rouse, a panel of this Court concluded that a petition for writ of

habeas corpus claiming that the second-degree murder sentencing statute, 18

Pa.C.S.A. § 1102(b), was unconstitutionally void for vagueness involved a

claim that was not cognizable under the PCRA.

       Initially, after reading Barnett’s lengthy brief we are uncertain whether

he raises this type of due process claim in challenging his first-degree murder

conviction. Nonetheless, we note that our Supreme Court in Commonwealth

____________________________________________

1 Because the one-year date fell on a Saturday, Barnett had until the following

Monday to file his direct appeal. See generally, 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1908.

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v. Moore, 247 A.3d 990, 998 (Pa. 2021), expressly “reject[ed] the Superior

Court’s ruling in Rouse.” In Moore, the High Court concluded that Moore’s

challenge to the sentencing statute for first-degree murder, 18 Pa.C.S.A. §

1102(a), as unconstitutionally “void for vagueness” was cognizable under the

PCRA. Id. Because Moore’s PCRA petition was untimely, and he had neither

pled nor proven a time-bar exception, our Supreme Court concluded that the

PCRA court lacked jurisdiction to consider the merits of Moore’s petition relief.

Barnett’s present appeal mandates the same conclusion; his petition is

cognizable under the PCRA, it is untimely, and we have no jurisdiction to

consider his claims.

      Order affirmed.

Date: 11/14/2023

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