Court Opinion

ID: 9385390
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-06 16:07:22.420434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:01.276483
License: Public Domain

J-S44028-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA               :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
    CHRISTOPHER PATRICK MCGOWAN                :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 784 MDA 2022

               Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered May 2, 2022
      In the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County Criminal Division at
                        No(s): CP-28-CR-0001505-2016

BEFORE:      PANELLA, P.J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and PELLEGRINI, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY McLAUGHLIN, J.:                            FILED: APRIL 6, 2023

        Christopher Patrick McGowan appeals from the order denying his Post

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

9546. We affirm.

        A jury convicted McGowan of conspiracy to commit theft by deception.

The court sentenced him to 30 to 60 months’ incarceration. We affirmed the

judgment of sentence, and our Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal in

September 2020. See Commonwealth v. McGowan, No. 896 MDA 2019,

2020 WL 524847 (Pa.Super. filed Jan. 31, 2020) (unpublished memorandum),

appeal denied, 239 A.3d 8 (Pa. filed Sept. 15, 2020).1

____________________________________________

*   Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
1McGowan’s PCRA petition asserted that the Supreme Court denied allowance
of appeal on September 15, 2021. The dockets show that is incorrect. The
Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal on September 15, 2020.
J-S44028-22

        On December 22, 2021, McGowan filed the instant counseled PCRA

petition raising claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. He asserted that

his PCRA petition was timely because “a final ‘Memorandum and Order’ of the

Trial Court was filed on October 21st, 2021.” Petition, filed 12/22/21, at 4.

        The PCRA court issued Rule 907 notice of its intent to dismiss the

petition without a hearing. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 907(1). In the notice, the court

explained that McGowan’s petition was patently untimely. The court also

reasoned that no time-bar exception applied to overcome the timeliness

requirement. It noted that McGowan did “not allege anything regarding any of

the timeliness exceptions nor make any attempt to prove one of them” but

instead alleged that his petition was timely filed. Order of Court, filed 4/1/22,

at 2 (unpaginated).

        Regarding the final “Memorandum and Order” to which McGowan

referred, the court stated that it had reviewed it and determined that it was

an order of the Commonwealth Court in “an entirely different case[.]” Id. at

2 n.1. It bore the caption, “Jeffrey Miles v. Clerk of Courts for the Court of

Common Pleas in Franklin County and Inmate Accounts Department at the

State Correction Institution in Forest, Pennsylvania[.]”2 The court stated that

“[a] simple inquiry into the filing would have made it readily apparent that it

bears no relation to [McGowan’s] case” and that “the docket sheet entry

____________________________________________

2   See 90 M.D. 2018 (Pa.Cmwlth. filed Oct. 19, 2020).

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attached to the Petition plainly indicates it was filed by the Commonwealth

Court[.]” Id.

      McGowan did not respond to the Rule 907 notice. The court dismissed

his petition, and he appealed. On appeal, he challenges the dismissal for

untimeliness and raises three other claims that go to the merits of his PCRA

petition.

      In his first issue, McGowan maintains that the PCRA court erred in

dismissing his PCRA petition as untimely. He argues that the date the

judgment of sentence became final is “disturbed given clerical errors by the

Lower Court, namely the misdating of higher court orders.” McGowan’s Br. at

11. He states that denial of allowance of appeal is listed in the electronic filing

system, with a date of October 8, 2022. However, he concedes that “we now

know it to be September 15th, 2020.” Id. He also notes that the lower court

listed an entry on the docket titled “Memorandum and Order,” although he

concedes that the entry was “erroneous.” Id. He maintains that because

nothing in the docket entry “signal[ed]” that it was unrelated to McGowan’s

case, and he could not access the filing electronically, “it was reasonable to

rely on the Lower Court’s administration and believe that they had entered

the final judgment of the Higher Courts on October 8th, 2021 or October 22nd,

2021.” Id.

      When reviewing the denial of relief under the PCRA, our review is limited

to determining “whether the PCRA court’s ruling supported by the record and

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free of legal error.” Commonwealth v. Presley, 193 A.3d 436, 442

(Pa.Super. 2018) (citation omitted).

      Under the PCRA, a petition for relief must “be filed within one year of

the date the judgment becomes final[.]” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1). A

judgment of sentence 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.” Id. at § 9545(b)(3). A petition filed more than one year after the

one-year deadline may only be entertained where the petition pleads and

proves at least one of the time-bar exceptions:

         (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.

Id. at § 9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii). A petition raising one of the exceptions “shall be

filed within one year of the date the claim could have been presented.” Id. at

§ 9545(b)(2). Because the PCRA’s time limit is jurisdictional in nature, a court

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may   not   address   the    merits   of   an   untimely   PCRA   petition.   See

Commonwealth v. Smith, 194 A.3d 126, 132 (Pa.Super. 2018).

      Here, McGowan’s judgment of sentence became final on December 14,

2020, when his time to file a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme

Court expired. See U.S. Sup. Ct. R. 13(1) (a petition for writ of certiorari must

be filed with 90 days from the order denying discretionary review). The one-

year deadline therefore expired on December 14, 2021. McGowan filed the

instant petition on December 22, 2021; it is facially untimely. McGowan

therefore had to plead and prove at least one time-bar exception. McGowan

did not plead any of the exceptions in his PCRA petition. As he failed to do so,

the court committed no error in dismissing his petition as untimely.

      On appeal, McGowan for the first time lays claim to the governmental

interference exception. However, he waived this exception by not pleading it

below. See Pa.R.A.P. 302(a). Moreover, his claim is based on the

“Memorandum and Order.” This erroneous filing and notation in no way

interfered with McGowan’s ability to assert his PCRA claims. It therefore is not

a basis on which to assert the governmental interference exception. See 42

Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(i).

      To the extent McGowan claims docket entries that he admits were

erroneous changed the date his judgment became final, he is incorrect. Under

the PCRA, the date of finality does not turn on a party’s reasonable belief

about when the judgment became final. It turns on the actual date on which

direct review has concluded, or on which the time to seek such review ended.

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See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1), (b)(3). As we affirm the dismissal for

untimeliness, we do not address McGowan’s remaining claims, which go to the

merits of his petition.

      Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 4/6/2023

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