Court Opinion

ID: 9951631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-18 16:11:15.290586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:41:51.263840
License: Public Domain

J-S07045-24

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  ALLEN L. WILKINS SR.                         :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 939 MDA 2023

             Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered May 18, 2023
    In the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County Criminal Division at
                      No(s): CP-22-CR-0001235-2015

BEFORE:      LAZARUS, P.J., KUNSELMAN, J., and COLINS, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY COLINS, J.:                               FILED MARCH 18, 2024

       Appellant, Allen L. Wilkins, Sr., appeals, pro se, from the May 18, 2023

order dismissing his serial petition filed under the Post Conviction Relief Act

(“PCRA”).1

       As this Court has previously explained,

       [Appellant] entered a plea of nolo contendere to barratry and on
       September 25, 2015, was sentenced to serve 12 months’
       probation consecutive to [his prior conviction for, inter alia,
       attempted murder at] Case No. CP-22-CR-3382-2002 [(“No.
       3382-2002”)]. He filed a direct appeal that this Court dismissed
       for filing a defective brief. See Commonwealth v. Wilkins, No.
       1877 MDA 2015 (Pa. Super. filed June 6, 2016). [Appellant] then
       filed a petition for allowance of appeal that our Supreme Court
       denied on March 14, 2017. See Commonwealth v. Wilkins,
       169 A.3d 6 (Pa. 2017). He did not seek discretionary review in

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546.
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     the United States Supreme Court. Consequently, the judgment of
     sentence became final on June 12, 2017.

     On February 1, 2019, [Appellant] filed a “plea agreement PCRA”
     that the PCRA court treated as a petition for relief under the PCRA.
     In the petition's caption, [Appellant] listed the docket numbers for
     both [the present matter, Case No. CP-22-CR-1235-2015 (“No.
     1235-2015”) and No. 3382-2002]. On May 16, 2019, the PCRA
     court issued notice of its intent to dismiss the petition under
     Pa.R.Crim.P. 907(a)(1) with an accompanying opinion explaining
     that Wilkins had failed to plead any timeliness exception to the
     PCRA time bar. After he responded, the PCRA court entered a
     June 28, 2019 order dismissing the petition.

See Commonwealth v. Wilkins, No. 1877 MDA 2015 (Pa. Super. filed Dec.

13, 2019), unpublished memorandum at 2-3.

     On appeal, we affirmed the denial of PCRA relief as to both No. 1235-

2015 and No. 3382-2002, finding that Appellant’s PCRA petition was untimely

as to both cases and Appellant did not plead or prove an exception to the

PCRA’s time bar in his petition. Id. at 3-4. Specifically related to No. 1235-

2015, we noted that Appellant’s judgment of sentence “became final on June

12, 2017, which means [Appellant] had until June 12, 2018, to timely file his

petition” under the PCRA. Id. at 4.

     Appellant filed a subsequent PCRA petition on December 24, 2019,

which listed the docket numbers for both No. 1235-2015 and No. 3382-2002.

The PCRA court gave notice of its intent to dismiss the petition on November

3, 2021. On February 17, 2022, the PCRA court entered an order dismissing

the second petition. Appellant appealed from the denial of relief on May 18,

2022, and this Court quashed the appeal as untimely. Order, No. 789 MDA

2022, 8/10/22.

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       Appellant filed the instant PCRA petition on August 18, 2022, listing both

No. 1235-2015 and No. 3382-2002 on the petition.2 On February 24, 2023,

the PCRA court issued notice of its intent to dismiss the petition pursuant to

Pa.R.Crim.P. 907(a)(1) based upon the reasons stated by the Commonwealth

in its answer to the petition, including that the petition is untimely. On May

18, 2023, the PCRA court entered an order dismissing the petition.

       Appellant filed a single, timely notice of appeal from the PCRA court’s

May 18, 2023 order, which was docketed in this Court at No. 790 MDA 2023.

This Court, having detected that Appellant’s singular notice of appeal

improperly listed both docket numbers, directed Appellant to file two amended

notices of appeal in the lower court, with each notice containing only one of

the lower court docket numbers.                Order, No. 790 MDA 2023, 6/23/23.

Appellant complied, and the amended notice at No. 3382-2002 remained

docketed in this Court at No. 790 MDA 2023, while the amended notice at No.

1235-2015 was docketed at the instant appellate docket No. 939 MDA 2023.

Briefing schedules were issued at both No. 790 MDA 2023 and No. 939 MDA

2023. Appellant filed a brief in the instant matter, but he neglected to file any

brief at No. 790 MDA 2023. Accordingly, Appellant’s appeal at No. 790 MDA

2023 was dismissed for failure to file a brief.         Order, No. 790 MDA 2023,

8/28/23. Therefore, we will address Appellant’s appeal from the denial of his

____________________________________________

2 The instant PCRA petition is Appellant’s third petition as to No. 1235-2015,

following the February 1, 2019 and December 24, 2019 petitions.

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August 18, 2022 PCRA petition solely to the extent it seeks relief as to his

judgment of sentence at No. 1235-2015.

       The PCRA court dismissed Appellant’s third PCRA petition as untimely.

The PCRA’s time limitations implicate our jurisdiction and may not be altered

or disregarded in order to address the underlying merits of a claim.

Commonwealth         v.   Hackett,    956    A.2d   978,    983   (Pa.   2008);

Commonwealth v. Laboy, 230 A.3d 1134, 1137 (Pa. Super. 2020).

       As noted above, absent an applicable PCRA time-bar exception,

Appellant was required to file any PCRA petition by June 12, 2018, which was

one year after the expiration of time for him to seek review in the United

States Supreme Court of our Supreme Court’s denial of his petition for

allowance of appeal. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1) (any PCRA petition must

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

petitioner pleads and proves one of the statutory exceptions); 42 Pa.C.S. §

9545(b)(3) (“For purposes of [the PCRA], a judgment becomes final at the

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.”); U.S.Sup.Ct.R. 13 (petition for writ

of certiorari must be filed within 90 days of judgment). Therefore, the instant

petition, filed on August 18, 2022, is untimely.

       The PCRA provides that a petition may be deemed timely if the petitioner

pleads and proves one of the following three exceptions to the one-year time

bar:

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      (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;

      (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). Any petition attempting to invoke these exceptions

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

presented.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2).

      Appellant does not argue in his appellate brief that the PCRA court erred

by dismissing his petition as untimely or that the petition satisfied any of the

exceptions to the statutory time bar. As no argument with respect to the

PCRA court’s dismissal for untimeliness is before us, we have no reason to

disturb the lower court’s jurisdictional ruling and thus may affirm the lower

court’s dismissal of Appellant’s petition without further analysis.              See

Commonwealth v. Pacheco, 263 A.3d 626, 649 n.23 (Pa. 2021) (stating

that, where an issue addressed by the trial court is not presented on appeal,

the appellant court “should not pass upon it[,] because failure to pursue an

issue on appeal is just as effective a forfeiture as is the failure to initially raise

the issue”). In any event, we note that, while Appellant raised each of the

three statutory exceptions to the PCRA’s one-year time bar in his petition,

                                        -5-
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none of the three grounds were adequately pled.3 Therefore, we would also

find that the PCRA court properly dismissed the petition as untimely without

conducting a hearing. Accordingly, we affirm the PCRA court’s May 18, 2023

order.

       Order affirmed.

____________________________________________

3 Appellant alleged that the governmental interference time bar exception was

satisfied by his “violated plea agreement,” PCRA Petition, 8/18/22, at 3, but
he did not plead which governmental officials interfered with him raising his
substantive claim, how the violation of his plea agreement would constitute
interference with his ability to file a PCRA petition, or that he acted with due
diligence in bringing his claim. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(i); Commonwealth
v. Bankhead, 217 A.3d 1245, 1248 (Pa. Super. 2019). Appellant’s similar
allegation that the “court’s intention to violate plea agreement,” PCRA Petition,
8/18/22, at 3, meets the newly discovered fact exception to the PCRA time
bar also fails as he did not allege the specific facts upon which his claim was
predicated, that these facts were previously unknown to him, or that such
facts could not have been ascertained by due diligence. 42 Pa.C.S. §
9545(b)(1)(ii); Commonwealth v. Brensinger, 218 A.3d 440, 448 (Pa.
Super. 2019) (en banc).
With respect to the retroactive constitutional right exception, Appellant cites
our Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Cosby, 252 A.3d 1092
(Pa. 2021); PCRA Petition, 8/18/22, at 3, yet this decision was issued on June
30, 2021, more than one year prior to the filing of the instant petition. See
Commonwealth v. Brandon, 51 A.3d 231, 235 (Pa. Super. 2012) (prisoner
is deemed to have knowledge of judicial decision that is alleged to recognize
a retroactive constitutional right on the date it was issued). Furthermore,
Cosby did not establish a retroactive constitutional right, nor has our Supreme
Court subsequently ruled that the rule in that case applies retroactively. 42
Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(iii).

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Judgment Entered.

Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 03/18/2024

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