Com. v. Woodard ( 2015 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION – SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
Appellee :
:
v. :
:
ROBERT WOODARD, :
:
Appellant : No. 968 EDA 2015
Appeal from the PCRA Order March 9, 2015,
Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County,
Criminal Division at No. CP-51-CR-0220171-1992
BEFORE: DONOHUE, LAZARUS and PLATT*, JJ.
MEMORANDUM BY DONOHUE, J.: FILED DECEMBER 14, 2015
Robert Woodard (“Woodard”) appeals from the order of court
dismissing his petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act, 42
Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-46 (“PCRA”). We affirm.
The record reveals that on December 10, 1992, Woodard was
convicted of multiple counts of robbery, burglary, rape and possessing an
instrument of crime. The trial court imposed an aggregate sentence of
forty-eight to ninety-six years of incarceration. This Court affirmed his
judgment of sentence on May 5, 1994. Woodard did not seek review of our
determination with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Accordingly, his
judgment of sentence became final on June 4, 1994, which marked the
expiration of the period of time in which Woodard could have sought such
review. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3).
*Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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On February 2, 2015, Woodard filed the petition at issue in this appeal,
which he classified as a petition for writ of habeas corpus. In this petition,
Woodard alleged that he was entitled to relief based upon the United States
Supreme Court decision in Alleyne v. United States, __ U.S. __, 133 S. Ct.
2151 (2013), and this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Newman, 99
A.3d 86 (Pa. Super. 2014). Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, 2/9/15, at 2-
3, 8-11. Despite Woodard’s classification of his filing, the PCRA court
elected to treat it as a PCRA petition. It concluded that the petition was
untimely and that Woodard had failed to plead or prove an exception to the
PCRA’s time-bar, thereby depriving the PCRA court of jurisdiction to consider
the petition. On this basis, it dismissed Woodard’s petition. PCRA Court
Opinion, 3/9/15, at 1-3.
This timely appeal followed, in which Woodard presents eight issues
for our review. See Woodard’s Brief at 2-3. “Our standard of review of the
denial of a PCRA petition is limited to examining whether the evidence of
record supports the court's determination and whether its decision is free of
legal error.” Commonwealth v. Smith, 121 A.3d 1049, 1052 (Pa. Super.
2015).
We begin with the PCRA court’s decision to treat Woodard’s petition as
a petition filed under the PCRA. Woodard does not explicitly challenge this
determination; in his sixth issue on appeal, Woodard stops short of arguing
that his claims are not cognizable under the PCRA, claiming only that his
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claims can “also” be reviewed under Pennsylvania’s habeas corpus statute.
Woodard’s Brief at 13. However, because the PCRA court’s disposition was
premised entirely on that classification, we will begin by reviewing it.
“[B]oth the PCRA and the state habeas corpus statute contemplate
that the PCRA subsumes the writ of habeas corpus in circumstances where
the PCRA provides a remedy for the claim.” Commonwealth v. Hackett,
956 A.2d 978, 985 (Pa. 2008) (citation omitted). Section 9543 of the PCRA
addresses eligibility for relief under its provisions. Of relevance, it provides
as follows:
§ 9543. Eligibility for relief
(a) General rule.--To be eligible for relief under this
subchapter, the petitioner must plead and prove by a
preponderance of the evidence all of the following:
***
(2) That the conviction or sentence resulted from
one or more of the following:
(i) A violation of the Constitution of this
Commonwealth or the Constitution or laws of the
United States which, in the circumstances of the
particular case, so undermined the truth-determining
process that no reliable adjudication of guilt or
innocence could have taken place.
42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9543(a)(2)(i).
In his petition, Woodard alleges that his sentence is unconstitutional
based upon the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Alleyne and this
Court’s decision in Newman. Although Woodard’s claim does not implicate
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the truth determining process, as required by § 9543(a)(2)(i), the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court has called for an expansive, not restrictive,
application of these PCRA’s eligibility requirements, such that there need not
be a strict adherence to the “truth determining process” language:
[W]e have held that the scope of the PCRA eligibility
requirements should not be narrowly confined to its
specifically enumerated areas of review.
Commonwealth v. Judge, 591 Pa. 126, 916 A.2d
511, 520 (2007). Such narrow construction would be
inconsistent with the legislative intent to channel
post-conviction claims into the PCRA's framework,
id., and would instead create a bifurcated system of
post-conviction review where some post-conviction
claims are cognizable under the PCRA while others
are not. Commonwealth v. Lantzy, 558 Pa. 214,
736 A.2d 564, 569–70 (1999).
Instead, this Court has broadly interpreted the
PCRA eligibility requirements … regardless of the
‘truth-determining process’ language … from Section
9543(a)(2)(i).
Hackett, 956 A.2d at 986.
At its heart, Woodard’s claim challenges his sentence as illegal, which
is a claim that the PCRA is intended to address. Commonwealth v.
Burkett, 5 A.3d 1260, 1275 (Pa. Super. 2010) (“PCRA review is limited to
defendants who claim that they were wrongfully convicted and/or are
serving an illegal sentence.”). Accordingly, in light of the expansive view we
must take with regard to the PCRA’s eligibility requirements, see Hackett,
956 A.2d at 986, we find no abuse of discretion in the PCRA court’s
determination that Woodard’s claim is cognizable under the PCRA.
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Having so concluded, we turn our attention to whether the trial court
erred in its determination that it was without jurisdiction to entertain
Woodard’s petition. It is well established that “[t]he PCRA’s timeliness
requirements are jurisdictional in nature, and a court may not address the
merits of the issues raised if the PCRA petition was not timely filed.”
Commonwealth v. Copenhefer, 941 A.2d 646, 648-49 (Pa. 2007). The
PCRA provides, in relevant part, as follows:
(1) Any petition under this subchapter, including a
second or subsequent petition, shall be filed within
one year of the date the judgment becomes final,
unless the petition alleges and the petitioner proves
that:
(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.
(2) Any petition invoking an exception provided in
paragraph (1) shall be filed within 60 days of the
date the claim could have been presented.
42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b).
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As explained above, Woodard’s judgment of sentence became final on
or about June 4, 1994. The present petition was filed on February 9, 2015,
and so it is clearly untimely on its face. As such, Woodard was required to
plead and prove one of the exceptions to the one-year time bar contained in
§ 9545(b)(1), and establish that he filed his petition within sixty days of the
date the claim could have first been presented, as required by § 9545(b)(2).
In his PCRA petition, Woodard does not explicitly attempt to establish
any of the timeliness exceptions in his petition; he alleges only that the
Alleyne and Newman decisions render his sentence unconstitutional and
therefore illegal. Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, 2/9/15, at 7-11. To the
extent that the substance of Woodard’s claim can be interpreted as an
attempt to raise the exception for “after discovered facts” of subsection
(b)(1)(ii), this attempt must fail. First, it is well established that recently
published case law does not qualify as “after discovered facts” for purposes
of establishing an exception to the PCRA’s time-bar. Commonwealth v.
Brandon, 51 A.3d 231, 235 (Pa. Super. 2012). To the extent that
Woodard’s claim can be construed as an attempt to argue that Alleyne
recognized a new constitutional right as contemplated in subsection
(b)(1)(iii), this attempt must also fail. This Court recently considered
whether Alleyne applies retroactively to cases on collateral appeal and
concluded that it does not. Commonwealth v. Riggle, 119 A.3d 1056,
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1067 (Pa. Super. 2015). Accordingly, he cannot be entitled to relief on this
basis.
Because Woodard’s petition was facially untimely and he has failed to
satisfy the requirements for an exception to the PCRA’s time-bar, the PCRA
court was correct in its conclusion that it was without jurisdiction to consider
the merits of the claim raised therein. Finding no error by the PCRA court,
we affirm.
Order affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 12/14/2015
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