Com. v. Saunders, T. ( 2018 )

J-S62005-18
NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
THADDEUS SAUNDERS :
:
Appellant : No. 2878 EDA 2017
Appeal from the PCRA Order August 22, 2017
In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-51-CR-1221151-1974
BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.
MEMORANDUM BY LAZARUS, J.: FILED NOVEMBER 19, 2018
Thaddeus Saunders appeals from the order, entered in the Court of
Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, denying his petition filed pursuant to
the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. After
review, we affirm.
On June 9, 1975, a jury convicted Saunders of murder of the second
degree, robbery, and conspiracy; the trial court sentenced him to life
imprisonment on September 16, 1975.1 Our Supreme Court affirmed
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1 Saunders was 19 years old at the time he committed murder, robbery and
conspiracy.
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Saunders’ judgment of sentence on December 1, 1977.2 Commonwealth v.
Saunders, 380 A.2d 361 (Pa. 1977).
On August 20, 2012, Saunders filed a PCRA petition alleging that his
sentence was unconstitutional under Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460
(2012). On April 3, 2017, Saunders amended his petition, asking the PCRA
court to afford People v. House, 72 N.E.3d 357 (Ill. App. Ct. 2015), full faith
and credit, and honor its judgment in his case. On May 11, 2017, the PCRA
court informed Saunders of its intention to dismiss his petition. On August
22, 2017, the PCRA court dismissed Saunders’ petition as untimely. On
appeal, Saunders raises one issue for our review:
Would the timeliness of [Saunders’ PCRA] petition have been a
moot point if the PCRA court had not erred by failing to apply the
[]full faith and credit clause[] of the [United States] Constitution
to grant [Saunders] relief pursuant to People v. House, [], which
extended the age of a juvenile to 19 under Miller v. Alabama,
567 U.S. 460 (2012), since Miller was deemed retroactive in
Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718 (2016)?
Brief of Appellant, at 7.
Any PCRA petition must be filed within one year of the date the judgment
of sentence becomes final. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1). A judgment of
sentence becomes final “at the conclusion of direct review, including
____________________________________________
2See Appellate Court Jurisdiction Act of 1970, Act of July 31, 1970, P.L. 673,
art. II, § 202(1), 17 P.S. § 211.202(1) (Supp. 1975), modified by Supreme
Court Rule 73 of 1975, reenacted at 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 722. Prior to the Act of
September 23, 1980, P.L. 686, No. 137, § 1, effective November 22, 1980
(Act 137 of 1980), section 722 of the Judicial Code included among the classes
of cases within the Supreme Court’s exclusive jurisdiction, under the former
version of its subsection (1), “Felonious homicide.”
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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.” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3). “[Our Supreme] Court has repeatedly
stated that the PCRA timeliness requirements are jurisdictional in nature and,
accordingly, a PCRA court cannot hear untimely PCRA petitions.”
Commonwealth v. Rienzi, 827 A.2d 369, 371 (Pa. 2003); see also
Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 994 A.2d 1091, 1093 (Pa. 2010) (stating that
PCRA petition cannot be addressed unless PCRA court has jurisdiction, and
jurisdiction does not exist if PCRA petition is untimely filed). In addition, “the
PCRA confers no authority upon this Court to fashion ad hoc equitable
exceptions to the PCRA time-bar in addition to those exceptions expressly
delineated in the Act.” Commonwealth v. Ligons, 971 A.2d 1125, 1164 (Pa.
2009) (citation and brackets omitted); see also Commonwealth v. Fahy,
737 A.2d 214, 222 (Pa. 1999) (“[A] court has no authority to extend filing
periods except as the [PCRA] statute permits”).
Saunders’ judgment of sentence became final on or about March 1,
1978, ninety days after our Supreme Court affirmed his judgment of sentence.
See U.S.Sup.Ct.R. 13 (“Unless otherwise provided by law, a petition for a writ
of certiorari to review a judgment in any case, civil or criminal, entered by a
state court of last resort or a United States court of appeals . . . is timely when
it is filed with the Clerk of this Court within 90 days after entry of the
judgment.”). Therefore, the present petition, filed on August 20, 2012, thirty-
four years after his judgment of sentence became final, is patently untimely.
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Because Saunders’ petition was untimely, he was required to plead and prove
any of the three statutory exceptions to the one-year time bar. See 42
Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii).
Here, the only issue addressed by the PCRA court was whether
Saunders’ petition satisfied the PCRA’s timeliness exception for a new
constitutional right of retroactive effect, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(iii), based
on the United States Supreme Court decision in Miller, supra. The PCRA
court concluded that this case does not establish a time-bar exception. Even
so, Saunders was 19 years old when he committed the offense, and therefore
Miller v. Alabama, which applies to “those under the age of 18 at the time
of their crimes,” id. at 460, would not have benefitted him.
In an effort to circumvent the PCRA’s time bar, Saunders has asked this
Court to apply the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States
Constitution to enforce People v. House, which he argues extends Miller v.
Alabama to defendants who, like him, were nineteen years old when they
committed their crimes. Saunders’ full faith and credit argument is meritless.
The United States Constitution requires that “Full Faith and Credit shall
be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and Judicial Proceedings of
every other State.” U.S. Const. art. IV, § 1. However, the full faith and credit
clause does not require Pennsylvania to follow judgments of lawsuits to which
it is not a party. Martin v. Wilks, 790 U.S. 755, 762 (1989) (“A judgment
or decree among parties to a lawsuit resolves issue among them, but it does
not conclude the rights of strangers to those proceedings.”).
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Moreover, the ruling in House does not extend to Miller v. Alabama,
which invalidated mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles under
the Eighth Amendment. Rather, it extended People v. Miller, 718 N.E.2d
300 (Ill. 2002), which held that mandatory life without parole sentences for
juveniles were unconstitutional under the proportionate penalties clause of the
Illinois Constitution. House, 72 N.E.3d at 384-85, 389. Notably, the
Commonwealth was not a party to that case. Therefore, House does not
apply to Saunders’ PCRA petition because it is not based on a Pennsylvania or
United States constitutional right. See Baker v. General Motors Corp., 522
U.S. 222, 238-39 (1998) (finding that Michigan had no authority to issue
decrees binding non-parties in other states). Accordingly, we affirm the PCRA
court’s dismissal of Saunders’ petition as untimely.
Order affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 11/19/18
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