Court Opinion

ID: 9375738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-28 18:06:49.038395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:01.332995
License: Public Domain

J-S40018-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA             :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                          :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                          :
              v.                          :
                                          :
                                          :
 MATTHEW ALFRED GALEOTO                   :
                                          :
                    Appellant             :   No. 2049 EDA 2021

           Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered August 23, 2021
             In the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County
            Criminal Division at No: CP-15-CR-0003664-2017

BEFORE: PANELLA, P.J., STABILE, J., and KING, J.

MEMORANDUM BY STABILE, J.:                      FILED FEBRUARY 28, 2023

      Appellant, Matthew Alfred Galeoto, appeals from the August 23, 2021

order entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County, dismissing his

petition for collateral relief filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act

(“PRCA”), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. Because Appellant’s PCRA petition was

untimely filed and he did not plead and prove any exception to the PCRA’s

time bar, we affirm.

      By way of background, as the PCRA court explained, Appellant was

arrested on October 2, 2017 and was charged with disarming a law

enforcement officer, recklessly endangering another person, and simple

assault. “The charges grew out of an incident in the emergency room of Paoli

Hospital where the Appellant engaged in a physical confrontation with a guard,
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attempted to grab the officer’s weapon from its holster, and injured one

nurse.” Rule 1925(a) Opinion, 11/5/21, at 1.

      On August 8, 2018, Appellant entered an open guilty plea to the above

charges and was sentenced to two to four years in prison followed by two

years of reporting probation. Appellant filed a timely motion to reconsider his

sentence.   On December 5, 2018, the trial court granted the motion and

imposed a reduced sentence of 11½ to 23 months in prison followed by two

years of reporting probation. Id.

      Appellant violated his probation by using drugs and was sentenced to a

state intermediate punishment sentence that allowed him to enter a drug

treatment program. However, following additional violations and a March 3,

2021 hearing, the trial court imposed a state sentence of 18 to 36 months

followed by one year of reporting probation. Id. at 1-2. Appellant did not file

an appeal with this Court from any sentence imposed. Id. at 2.

      On July 21, 2021, Appellant filed a counseled PCRA petition in which he

acknowledged the judgment of sentence imposed on August 8, 2018. PCRA

Petition, 7/12/21, at ¶ 4. Appellant also acknowledged that his PCRA petition

was facially untimely. However, he asserted that counsel received numerous

medical records in March 2021 that called into question whether Appellant

entered a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary guilty plea in August 2018. Id.

at ¶ 8. Counsel averred “that this material is after discovered evidence that

[Appellant] would have relied upon his prior counsel to procure during the

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investigation of this matter that should have taken place leading up to what

ultimately became a plea.”     Id. at ¶ 9.    As such, he suggests, Appellant

satisfied the Section 9545(b)(ii) exception to the PCRA’s time bar, i.e., 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.” Id. at

¶ 13. In addition, he asserts that the petition was filed within one year of the

date the claim could have been presented, satisfying Section 9545(b)(2). Id.

at ¶ 14.

      On July 27, 2021, the PCRA court issued a Notice pursuant to

Pa.R.Crim.P. 907(1) of its intention to dismiss the petition without a hearing,

citing Appellant’s late filing of his petition and failure to plead and prove any

exception to the PCRA’s time bar. Counsel responded by letter dated August

13, 2021, arguing, inter alia, that plea counsel “failed his client in not fully

investigating the seriousness of his mental health struggles, his suicidal

ideations, and his efforts to self medicate.” Response to Rule 907 Notice,

8/13/21, at 2. PCRA counsel contended that the “copious medical records

[counsel’s] office acquired during preparation for [Appellant’s] most recent

violation hearing” established Appellant’s lengthy history of mental health and

addiction issues, and that if plea counsel had investigated the mental health

condition, he “should have seen clearly that there was at least a defense to

be mounted.” Id.

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       By order entered August 23, 2021, the PCRA court denied Appellant’s

petition, remarking in a footnote, “[I]t is clear that the timeliness exception

upon which [Appellant] relies is that he was unaware of the material contained

within his own medical records. This does not satisfy any of the exceptions

and therefore this court is constrained to deny the petition for relief.” Order,

8/23/21, at n. 1.        In its order, the court directed that “[p]ursuant to

Pa.R.Crim.P. 907(4) the Clerk of Court of Chester County is directed to send

a copy of this Order to [Appellant] and his attorney by certified mail, return

receipt requested.” Id. at 1.

       Appellant filed a notice of appeal on September 24, 2021, leading to the

issuance of a Rule by this Court to show cause why the appeal from the August

23, 2021 order should not be quashed as untimely filed. In response, counsel

represented that he prepared a notice of appeal on September 22 but was

unable to file it, and further that the notice he filed on September 23 was

rejected.1 Response to Rule to Show Cause, 12/9/21, at 1-2 (unnumbered).

____________________________________________

1 Counsel attached an email dated September 23 at 3:03 p.m. addressed to
him from administrator@pacourts.us indicating that a filing had been rejected,
along with a second email dated September 24 at 8:33 a.m., also indicating
that a filing was rejected. Counsel did not submit any evidence of any attempt
to file an appeal on September 22, the deadline for filing.

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       By order entered January 26, 2022, the rule was discharged and the

issue was referred to this merits panel. In the meantime, Appellant and the

PCRA court complied with Rule 1925.2

       While a notice of appeal filed on September 24, 2021 from an August

23, 2021 order is facially untimely, we decline to quash the appeal on that

basis. The PCRA court’s order provided, “Pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 907(4),

the Clerk of Courts of Chester County is directed to send a copy of this Order

to the defendant and his attorney by certified mail, return receipt

requested.” Order, 8/23/21, at 1 (emphasis added). Despite that directive,

the docket does not reflect service on Appellant by certified mail, but rather

reflects only “eService” on Appellant’s counsel.      In light of the lack of

compliance with Rule 907(4) and the court’s order, we decline to quash.

       Appellant asks us to consider one issue on appeal:

       1. Whether the court erred in dismissing the PCRA petition and
          whether the effort put forth by trial counsel’s conduct was so
          deficient as to make the Appellant’s guilty plea not knowing,
          intelligent, or voluntary.

Appellant’s Brief at 6.

____________________________________________

2 We remind counsel for Appellant that a copy of the Rule 1925(b) statement
is to be appended to an appellant’s brief. See Rule 2111(a)(11) and (d).
Further, Rule 2111(a)(3) directs the appellant to set forth a statement of both
the scope and standard of review. Appellant’s Brief, while nominally including
the statement of the scope and standard of review, merely provides a
statement of the issue raised on appeal. Appellant’s Brief at 5.

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      As our Supreme Court has recognized, “[A]n appellate court reviews the

PCRA court’s findings of fact to determine whether they are supported by the

record, and reviews its conclusions of law to determine whether they are free

from legal error.” Commonwealth v. Spotz, 84 A.3d 294, 311 (Pa. 2014).

Here, the PCRA court dismissed Appellant’s petition, concluding it was

untimely filed.

      Because timeliness is separate and distinct from the merits of

Appellant’s underlying claim, we first determine whether his PCRA petition was

timely filed. See Commonwealth v. Stokes, 959 A.2d 306, 310 (Pa. 2008).

If it was not timely, we cannot entertain the review of the substantive claim

raised in the petition. Id.

      All PCRA petitions, “including a second or subsequent petition, shall be

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

exception to timeliness applies. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1). “The PCRA’s time

restrictions are jurisdictional in nature. Thus, if a PCRA petition is untimely,

neither this Court nor the PCRA court has jurisdiction over the petition.

Without jurisdiction, we simply do not have the legal authority to address the

substantive claims.” Commonwealth v. Chester, 895 A.2d 520, 522 (Pa.

2006) (cleaned up) (overruled on other grounds by Commonwealth v.

Small, 238 A.3d 1267 (Pa. 2020)).

      Here, Appellant’s sentence was imposed in 2018 and he did not file an

appeal to this Court. He did not file a PCRA petition until July 2021. He admits

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his petition is facially untimely but contends that his medical records, obtained

by counsel in March of 2021, constitute newly-discovered evidence, satisfying

Section 9545(b)(ii)’s exception to the time bar. As noted above, the PCRA

court rejected Appellant’s contention, noting that Appellant cannot claim that

his unawareness of material set forth in his own medical records satisfies the

after-discovered evidence exception. See Order, 8/23/21, at n. 1. In its Rule

1925(a) opinion, the court elaborated, stating:

      In order to overcome the time-bar, Appellant must invoke one of
      the exceptions that are set forth in the Act. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545.
      In his PCRA petition, the Appellant asserts that the newly-
      discovered facts were his own medical records. The Petition fails
      to plead why he could not have obtained his own medical records.
      The Petition does not show that he attempted to exercise due
      diligence to obtain the records. In this particular case, Appellant
      alleges that he had a medical condition and that there were
      medical records documenting his condition which was not known
      to him at the time of the entry of his guilty plea. But the Appellant
      fails to note that the incident leading to his arrest occurred in a
      hospital. It cannot be overstated that the medical records that
      the Appellant now seeks to use as an exception to the timeliness
      limitation are his own medical records, the existence of which
      were presumably known to the Appellant in 2018 and the time of
      his guilty plea. Such a claim does not rise to the level that
      overcomes the time limitations in that Act.

Rule 1925(a) Opinion, 11/5/21, at 2-3.

      We agree. We find the PCRA court’s findings of fact are supported by

the record and its determination that Appellant has failed to establish an

exception to the PCRA’s time bar is free of legal error. Therefore, we shall not

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consider the merits, if any, of Appellant’s claim and we shall not disturb the

PCRA court’s ruling.3

       Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 2/28/2023

____________________________________________

3 We note that Appellant has failed to provide any citation to authority in the
argument section of his brief. As this Court has stated, “When an appellant
cites no authority supporting an argument, this Court is inclined to believe
there is none.” Commonwealth v. Reyes-Rodriguez, 111 A.3d 775, 781
(Pa. Super. 2015) (citing, inter alia, Pa.R.A.P. 2119(a) and (b) (requiring an
appellant to discuss and cite pertinent authorities)).

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