Court Opinion

ID: 9401280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-12 17:10:11.415982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:51.748902
License: Public Domain

J-A07011-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA             :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                          :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                          :
              v.                          :
                                          :
                                          :
 ANTHONY WILLIAMS                         :
                                          :
                    Appellant             :   No. 1264 EDA 2022

            Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered April 28, 2022
  In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
                     No(s): CP-51-CR-0007651-2009

BEFORE: DUBOW, J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and McCAFFERY, J.

MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.:                              FILED JUNE 12, 2023

      Appellant, Anthony Williams, appeals from the April 28, 2022 Order

entered in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas dismissing his

second petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42

Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-46. After careful review, we affirm the trial court’s denial of

the petition on Appellant’s first claim and remand to the trial court for a

hearing on Appellant’s second and third claims.

      The relevant facts and procedural history are, briefly, as follows. On

November 5, 2008, a Philadelphia police officer noticed three males, later

identified as Bruce Holloman (“Victim”), Taylor James, and Harum Ulmer,

standing near a Buick.    The officer saw another male, later identified as

Appellant, standing across the street from the Buick. Soon after, he witnessed

Appellant chasing and fatally shooting Victim.
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        Immediately after the shooting, the officer observed Gerard Butler move

from the backseat of the Buick to the driver’s seat and attempt to drive away

before police officers stopped him. Mr. Butler subsequently testified that he

saw Appellant shoot Victim.

        Officers also stopped Mr. James near the shooting. Mr. James initially

signed a statement identifying Appellant as the shooter but, at trial, he

recanted the statement, claiming that detectives had coerced his statement

that Appellant was the shooter.

        In March 2011, a jury found Appellant guilty of Murder of the Third

Degree and Possession of an Instrument of Crime (“PIC”).1            The court

sentenced Appellant to 18 to 36 years of incarceration for the Murder

conviction and a consecutive term of 2½ to 5 years for the PIC conviction.

This Court affirmed Appellant’s judgment of sentence in April 2013, and the

Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal on November 13, 2013.2

        Appellant timely filed his first PCRA petition, which the PCRA court

dismissed. This Court affirmed, and the Supreme Court denied review.3

        In July 2019, Appellant filed the current PCRA Petition, alleging he was

entitled to a new trial based on newly discovered facts that would support his

____________________________________________

1   18 Pa.C.S. §§ 2502(c) and 907, respectively.

2Commonwealth v. Williams, No. 1308 EDA 2011 (Pa. Super. filed April
16, 2013), appeal denied, 80 A.3d 777 (Pa. 2013).

3Commonwealth v. Williams, No. 411 EDA 2016 (Pa. Super. filed Feb. 14,
2017), appeal denied, 170 A.3d 1053 (Pa. 2017).

                                           -2-
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claim of innocence. Counsel entered her appearance in January 2020 and filed

an amended PCRA petition reiterating Appellant’s claims.

        For Appellant’s first claim, he alleged that in March 2019, he received

information that Khayree Reid was an eyewitness to the murder and that in

November 2008, Philadelphia Homicide Detective James Pitts had interrogated

Mr. Reid and Mr. Reid had told Detective Pitts that Appellant was not the

shooter.     According to Appellant, Detective Pitts failed to document this

exculpatory information.         Appellant further alleged that Detective Pitts

“gripped [Mr. Reid] up a few times” to coerce Mr. Reid to make a statement

identifying Appellant as the shooter, which Mr. Reid claimed he resisted.4

        Appellant’s next two claims are based on the allegation that in other

cases, courts have found that Detective Pitts and other members of the

Philadelphia Police Homicide Division (“Homicide Division”) engaged in a

pattern and practice of unlawful interrogations of witnesses and the

Commonwealth has stipulated in other cases to Detective Pitts’ misconduct.5

He also alleged that the Commonwealth failed to disclose additional

misconduct by Detective Pitts, which he asserted constituted “governmental

interference.”6

____________________________________________

4   PCRA Petition, 7/22/19, Appendix A (Affidavit of Reid, 6/6/19, at ¶ 11-12).

5 Amended Motion for Post Conviction Relief Pursuant to the [PCRA],
8/5/2020, at 14.

6   Id. at 33.

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      On March 10, 2022, the PCRA court held an evidentiary hearing at which

only Appellant testified.   That same day, the court issued a Pa.R.A.P. 907

Notice of Intent to Dismiss providing Appellant twenty days to respond.

      In response, Appellant noted that the PCRA court had not addressed his

second and third claims relating to the pattern and practice of unlawful

interrogation of the Homicide Division and Detective Pitts. To remedy this

deficiency, the court held another hearing on April 28, 2022. The PCRA court,

however, merely announced its decision to dismiss Appellant’s second and

third claims and failed to hear any evidence regarding Appellant’s due

diligence to ascertain this claim or facts supporting the alleged pattern and

practice of unlawful interrogations.

      On May 4, 2022, Appellant filed a timely Notice of Appeal.            Both

Appellant and the PCRA court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

      Appellant raises the following questions for our review:

      1. Did the PCRA [c]ourt err when it found that [] Appellant did not
      use reasonable diligence in presenting the testimony of newly
      discovered witness Khayree Reid and did not hear testimony from
      Reid?

      2. Did the PCRA [c]ourt err when it failed to consider, without a
      hearing, newly discovered evidence of an unconstitutional
      interrogation pattern and practice within the Homicide Division
      that was used in the instant case which was not disclosed by the
      Commonwealth[?] This claim was properly before the PCRA
      [c]ourt but not discussed in the [c]ourt’s 907 Notice[.]

      3. Did the PCRA [c]ourt err when it failed to consider, without a
      hearing, newly discovered evidence of a history of misconduct by
      Det. Pitts was not disclosed by the Commonwealth due to
      governmental interference[?] This claim was properly before the
      PCRA [c]ourt but not discussed in the [c]ourt’s 907 Notice[.]

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Appellant’s Br. at 2.

                                      A.

      In reviewing a PCRA court’s denial of relief, we determine “whether the

PCRA court’s findings of fact are supported by the record, and whether its

conclusions of law are free from legal error.” Commonwealth v. Small, 238

A.3d 1267, 1280 (Pa. 2020). “The scope of our review is limited to the findings

of the PCRA court and the evidence of record, which we view in the light most

favorable to the party who prevailed before that court.” Id. While we are

bound by the PCRA court’s credibility determinations and the factual findings

if supported by the record, we review legal conclusions de novo. Id.

      For a PCRA court to have jurisdiction to address the merits of the claims

raised in a PCRA petition, the petitioner must file the petition within one year

of when his or her sentence becomes final or satisfy one of the three

exceptions to the jurisdictional time bar. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). For claims

arising after December 24, 2017, “[a]ny petition invoking an exception . . .

shall be filed within one year of the date the claim could have been presented.”

Id. § 9545(b)(2). The petitioner bears the burden of pleading and proving

the applicability of an exception.   Commonwealth v. Beasley, 741 A.2d

1258, 1261 (Pa. 1999).

      In this case, Appellant admits that his petition is facially untimely. He

maintains, however, that the PCRA court has jurisdiction for several reasons.

First, Appellant argues that Mr. Reid’s information that Mr. Reid told Detective

Pitts that Appellant was not the shooter meets the “newly discovered fact”

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exception to the jurisdictional bar. Appellant also argues that his claim that

the Homicide Division and Detective Pitts engaged in a pattern and practice of

unconstitutional interrogations meets the newly discovered fact or the

governmental interference exceptions provided in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(i)

and (ii). We will address the three claims seriatim.

                                     B.

      Appellant first contends that the PCRA court erred when it found that

Appellant did not use due diligence in ascertaining the “newly discovered fact”

regarding Detective Pitts’ interrogation of Mr. Reid. We highlight the fact that

Detective Pitts interrogated Mr. Reid in 2008 and Appellant claims that he did

not discover this fact until 2019.

      To overcome the PCRA jurisdictional bar for “newly discovered facts,”

the burden is on the petitioner to prove that “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.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii).

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has “explained that the exception set forth

in subsection (b)(1)(ii) does not require any merits analysis of the underlying

claim. Rather, the exception only requires a petitioner to prove that the facts

were unknown to him and that he exercised due diligence in discovering those

facts.”   Commonwealth v. Cox, 146 A.3d 221, 227 (Pa. 2016) (internal

citations and quotation marks omitted). “A petitioner must explain why he

could not have learned the new fact(s) earlier with the exercise of due

diligence.” Commonwealth v. Brown, 111 A.3d 171, 176 (Pa. Super. 2015).

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Due diligence demands “neither perfect vigilance nor punctilious care, but

rather it requires reasonable efforts by a petitioner, based on the particular

circumstances, to uncover facts that may support a claim for collateral relief.”

Commonwealth v. Shiloh, 170 A.3d 553, 558 (Pa. Super. 2017) (citation

omitted).

       The trial court concluded that Appellant failed to establish that he

exercised due diligence to ascertain the facts of Detective Pitts’ alleged 2008

interrogation of Mr. Reid. As an initial matter, the trial court found Appellant’s

testimony at the PCRA hearing that Appellant did not learn about Mr. Reid

until 2019 not credible.7 PCRA Ct. Op., 7/1/22, at 5. The PCRA court instead

relied upon Mr. Reid’s affidavit where Mr. Reid stated that he and Appellant

were together moments before the shooting and had been lifelong friends. Id.

The trial court concluded that if Mr. Reid and Appellant were together

moments before the shooting and they had been lifelong friends, Appellant

knew that Mr. Reid was a potential witness of the 2008 shooting and, thus,

failed to show that he used due diligence to ascertain Mr. Reid’s information

about Detective Pitts’ alleged 2008 interrogation of Mr. Reid. Id.

       Since we must accept the trial court’s credibility determination regarding

Appellant’s testimony and the weight the PCRA court placed on the affidavit,

we must affirm the trial court’s finding that Appellant failed to establish that
____________________________________________

7 At the second hearing on this matter, the PCRA court further opined that
“this witness [Kyree Reid] was really not a real witness. It was conjured and
[]he never had any contact with Detective Pitts in the first place based on the
testimony presented at the [first] hearing.” N.T. Hr’g, 4/28/2022, at 9-10.

                                           -7-
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he used due diligence to ascertain the assertions regarding Detective Pitts’

2008 interrogation of Mr. Reid.          Thus, the trial court properly found that

Appellant failed to meet the jurisdictional bar for his first claim, and we affirm

the trial court’s dismissal of the PCRA petition on this claim.

                                               C.

       In his next two issues, Appellant asserts that he is entitled to a new trial

based on “newly discovered evidence of an unconstitutional interrogation

pattern and practice within the Homicide Division” as well as “a history of

misconduct by [Detective] Pitts that was not disclosed by the Commonwealth

due to governmental interference[.]” Appellant’s Br. at 2. Appellant bases

his claims regarding the Homicide Division’s unconstitutional pattern and

practice of interrogation and Detective Pitts’ additional misconduct on the

findings of other courts and the Commonwealth’s stipulations in other cases.8

He maintains that this new information about the pattern and practice of the

Homicide Division and Detective Pitts is relevant and entitles him to a new

trial because it bolsters Mr. James’ recantation testimony at trial and supports
____________________________________________

8 Specifically, he cites to a 2018 unpublished decision of the Philadelphia Court
of Common Pleas finding in an unrelated case that the Homicide Division
engaged in a pattern and practice of unconstitutional interrogation techniques
and other misconduct. Appellant’s Br. at 24-25 (citing Commonwealth v.
Dwayne Thorpe, CP-51-CR-0011433-2008). Appellant also relies on other
cases in which the Commonwealth stipulated that Homicide Division detectives
engaged in aspects of the identified pattern and practice. Id. at 26-29. He
additionally observes that, in March 2018, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s
Office disclosed that Detective Pitts had been placed on a “Do Not Call” list,
which identified officers whom the Commonwealth would not call at trial due
to their past investigatory misconduct and that Detective Pitts is facing
charges for misconduct. Id. at 45-47.

                                           -8-
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Mr. Reid’s averments regarding his alleged interrogation by Detective Pitts.

Id. at 34-35.

       Although the PCRA court scheduled a “hearing” on April 28, 2022, to

address these two other claims of unlawful interrogations and misconduct, the

court merely announced its decision, finding that Appellant was not entitled

to any relief.    The PCRA court reasoned that since the court did not find

Appellant credible at the first hearing on the first claim and Appellant

presented no other witnesses at that hearing, “then it logically follows that

any   evidence     regarding     Detective     Pitts’   misconduct   or   the   alleged

unconstitutional pattern and practice of the Philadelphia Police Homicide Unit

is not relevant to this claim.” PCRA Ct. Op. at 7. The PCRA court concluded

that Appellant has “failed to present evidence and meet his burden to establish

that Detective Pitts’ misconduct satisfies the new fact exception in this case.”

Id.

       Since the PCRA court heard no evidence at the second hearing regarding

the factual basis for the allegations of unconstitutional interrogations, when

Appellant learned of them, and Appellant’s due diligence in ascertaining the

factual basis for the allegations, the record is devoid of facts to support the

trial court’s conclusion. We are, thus, constrained to reverse the PCRA court’s

decision to dismiss these two claims and remand for a hearing on both.9

____________________________________________

9We note that the trial court will have to address whether the evidence of
misconduct set forth in the opinion in Thorpe, supra and the various
(Footnote Continued Next Page)

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       Order denying PCRA Petition affirmed in part and reversed in part. Case

remanded with instructions. Jurisdiction relinquished.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 6/12/2023

____________________________________________

stipulations are admissible under the hearsay rule and other rules of evidence.
Additionally, even if admissible, we take no position regarding the relevancy
of that information to Appellant’s two claims or Appellant’s due diligence to
ascertain these claims. We leave it to the PCRA court to determine these
evidentiary issues.

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