Court Opinion

ID: 9727163
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:22:39.721333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:34.299060
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice CAPPY
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion in all respects save for its treatment of the study by the National Academies of Science (“NAS”). It was improper for the Majority to engage in a merits analysis of the NAS study in order to dismiss it as untimely. Upon my review of the Appellant’s brief, the Tobin affidavit, and the NAS study, I cannot accept Appellant’s position that the NAS study constitutes “newly-discovered” evidence. Information upon which the NAS study relies had been in existence far in advance of Appellant’s instant PCRA petition and therefore, the NAS study does not constitute after-discovered evidence. Cf Commonwealth v. Whitney, 572 Pa. 468, 817 A.2d 473, 476 (2003)(finding study of the Philadelphia criminal justice system by Professors David Baldus and George Woodworth was not newly-discovered evidence because the information upon which it relied existed at the time for Appellant to file a timely PCRA petition).
Consequently, because Appellants PCRA petition was untimely on its face and does not qualify for the newly-discovered evidence exception to the timing requirement of the PCRA, *291we are without jurisdiction to consider the merits of either the study or Appellants claims. Commonwealth v. Crews, 863 A.2d 498, 501 (Pa.2004)(stating that a PCRA court lacks jurisdiction to address claims in an untimely petition). The Majority Opinion’s views on the NAS study (Op. at 286-89, 870 A.2d at 870-71) and whether Appellant could be entitled to relief (Op. at 287-90, 870 A.2d at 871-72), in the absence of jurisdiction to do so, render these statements mere dicta. In these respects, I respectfully cannot join the Majority Opinion.
Justice N1GRO and Justice NEWMAN join this concurring opinion.