Court Opinion

ID: 9396803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-23 18:08:19.787297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:19.895104
License: Public Domain

J-A07023-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA            :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                         :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                         :
              v.                         :
                                         :
                                         :
 JOHN THOMAS                             :
                                         :
                   Appellant             :   No. 1075 EDA 2022

            Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered March 31, 2022
   In the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County Criminal Division at
                      No(s): CP-23-CR-0001372-2011

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

MEMORANDUM BY McLAUGHLIN, J.:                         FILED MAY 23, 2023

      John Thomas appeals pro se from the order dismissing as untimely his

Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”) petition. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546.

Thomas argues he was incompetent at the time he pleaded guilty but mentally

ill to third-degree murder, the court erred in failing to hold a mental health

hearing, and his counsel was ineffective for failing to pursue an insanity

defense. We affirm.

      In 2012, Thomas entered a negotiated plea of guilty but mentally ill to

third-degree murder for killing Murray Seidman. At the plea hearing, the court

considered the reports of Drs. Kenneth Weiss, Lee Silverman, and Arthur

Boxer. Dr. Weiss’s report referenced several of Thomas’s medical records,

including psychiatric records from Thomas’s two stays at Brooke Glen

Behavioral Health in 2010. See N.T., 2/24/12, at 4-8, 32, 40; Order, 2/24/12,

at 4. The parties stipulated that Thomas had been mentally ill at the time of
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the murder, pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 314, and was severely mentally

disabled and in need of treatment, pursuant to the Mental Health Treatment

Act, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9727. See N.T., 2/24/12, at 4-6, 40; Order, 2/24/12, at

1-2. The court accepted the stipulation and noted that it rendered a mental

health hearing unnecessary. N.T. at 7-8. The court also found Thomas

competent to enter the plea. Id. at 8-9; 11-28 (colloquy). The court sentenced

Thomas to 240 to 480 months’ incarceration, in accordance with the plea

agreement. Thomas did not file a direct appeal.

       Thomas filed his first PCRA petition in 2013, alleging his guilty plea was

not knowingly, voluntarily, or intelligently entered, and that he wished to

withdraw it and enter an open plea of guilty but mentally ill. The court

appointed PCRA counsel, who moved to withdraw from representation. The

court held an evidentiary hearing, at which Thomas and Thomas’s trial counsel

testified. The court thereafter dismissed the petition, and Thomas did not

appeal.

       Thomas filed a second PCRA petition in 2020, arguing he had never had

a competency hearing before pleading guilty but mentally ill, and that he

should be resentenced due to his past traumas. The court dismissed the

petition as untimely.1 Thomas did not appeal.

       Thomas filed the instant PCRA petition, pro se, on August 2, 2021. He

again argued he had not had a competency hearing before pleading guilty but
____________________________________________

1 The court did not give notice of its intent to dismiss the petition. See
Pa.R.Crim.P. 907(1).

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mentally ill, and added a claim that his counsel was ineffective for failing to

object when the court sentenced him without first holding a competency

hearing. PCRA Pet., 8/2/21, at 4 (marked as “3”), 5 (marked as “4”). He stated

he discovered via the prison law library that he had had a right to a hearing.

Id. at 5 (marked as “4”). Thomas attached medical records from Brooke Glen

Behavioral Hospital, where he had been committed twice in 2010.2

       While his petition was pending, Thomas wrote to the court and alleged

that the court’s failure to hold a competency hearing rendered his sentence

illegal. Letter, 9/16/21, at 1-4. He also argued that although Dr. Weiss’s report

had stated he was competent, Dr. Boxer had found him incompetent, and this

contradiction in the evidence presented at his plea hearing made a

competency hearing necessary. Id. at 4.

       The PCRA court issued notice of intent to dismiss the petition without a

hearing. It found that the petition was untimely, and that even if it were

timely, it was meritless because Thomas had not presented any evidence to

undermine the trial court’s determination that Thomas had been competent

at the time of the plea or had been mentally ill at the time of the offense.

       Thomas responded. He argued that the Brooke Glen medical records

prove he was insane at the time of the murder and that defense counsel had

____________________________________________

2 Like his previous petition, Thomas also asked the court to modify his
sentence based on mitigating factors. However, as Thomas does not pursue
this issue on appeal, we will not address it further.

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been ineffective for advising him to plead guilty but mentally ill, instead of

pursuing an insanity defense.

      The court dismissed the petition. Thomas appealed, and presents the

following issues:

      I.    PCRA Court erred as a matter of law, when it denied
            [Thomas’s] PCRA petition without an evidentiary hearing as
            untimely, where upon discovery of New Evidence, the
            Mental Health Records that revealed [Thomas] did not met
            the minimal mental capacity that must be possessed to be
            held criminal[ly] responsible for my criminal act.

      II.   Plea Counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and
            use the Mental Health Evidence of Insanity.

Thomas’s Br. at 4 (answers below omitted).

      Thomas argues that the court was legally required by the Mental Health

Procedures Act to hold a competency hearing, and that the court’s failure to

colloquy him regarding waiver of this hearing violated his right to due process.

He also argues that a hearing would have uncovered the Brooke Glen medical

records he attached to his PCRA petition, and that these records establish that

he was not competent at the time of his plea and that he was insane at the

time of the murder. Thomas claims that had he been competent, he would

have opted to defend himself before a jury rather than plead guilty but

mentally ill. Thomas relatedly argues his trial counsel was ineffective for

allowing the court to find him competent and for failing to pursue a defense

of not guilty by reason of insanity.

      We review the denial of PCRA relief to determine whether the decision

of the PCRA court “is supported by the evidence and free of legal error.”

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Commonwealth v. Midgley, 289 A.3d 1111, 1118 (Pa.Super. 2023) (citation

omitted). We will not disturb the findings of the PCRA court unless they lack

support in the certified record. Id.

      As the PCRA court explains in its Rule 1925(a) opinion, we may not

consider the merits of an untimely PCRA petition. PCRA Court Opinion, filed

6/21/22, at 2; see also Commonwealth v. Anderson, 234 A.3d 735, 737

(Pa.Super. 2020). A PCRA petition must be filed within one year of the date

the judgment of sentence became final — i.e., within one year of the

conclusion of direct review, or of the time to seek such review — unless at

least one of the three statutory exceptions applies. See Anderson, 234 A.3d

at 737-38 (citing 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1), (b)(3)). Those exceptions are:

      (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.A. § 9545(b)(1)(i-iii). The petitioner bears the burden to plead and

prove one of these exceptions applies, and that he presented his claim within

the first year it could have been presented. Id. at (b)(1), (b)(2).

      Here, Thomas’s judgment of sentence became final in 2012, when he

did not appeal his sentence. Thomas did not file the instant petition within one

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year of that date, nor has he pleaded that any of the statutory exceptions

applies. Although he alleges he discovered via the prison law library that he

had had an alleged right to a mental health hearing, he does not explain when

he made this discovery, that he acted with due diligence in discovering it, or

that he submitted his petition within a year of that date. 42 Pa.C.S.A. §

9545(b)(1)(ii), (b)(2). Regardless, gaining an understanding of the law does

not qualify as newly discovering a “fact” for PCRA timeliness purposes.

Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 266 A.3d 1128, 1135 (Pa.Super. 2021).3

       Furthermore, although Thomas alleges the Brooke Glen medical records

undermine the validity of his plea and prove counsel’s ineffectiveness, he does

not allege the elements of the “unknown facts” exception. He does not allege

when he discovered those documents, assert that he acted with due diligence

in not discovering them sooner, or claim that he filed his petition within the

year after he first learned of them. Notably, Dr. Weiss referenced the Brooke

Glen medical records in the report that the court considered during Thomas’s

plea and sentencing hearing. Thomas’s petition is untimely under the terms

of the PCRA, and the PCRA court properly dismissed it as such.

       Order affirmed.

____________________________________________

3 Thomas does not assert that he recovered his competency within the year
preceding the filing of his instant PCRA petition, and the record would not
support such an assertion.

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Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 5/23/2023

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