Com. v. Maxwell, E. ( 2019 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
ERIC L. MAXWELL :
:
Appellant : No. 997 MDA 2018
Appeal from the PCRA Order May 23, 2018
In the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-22-CR-0001517-1984
BEFORE: OLSON, J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and PELLEGRINI*, J.
MEMORANDUM BY PELLEGRINI, J.: FILED APRIL 23, 2019
Eric L. Maxwell (Maxwell) appeals from an order of the Court of Common
Pleas of Dauphin County (PCRA court) dismissing his fourth petition filed
pursuant to the Post-Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546.
We vacate and remand.
As our resolution of this appeal is based on the procedural posture of
this case, we decline to set forth the factual background. In November 1984,
Maxwell was convicted of first-degree murder,1 robbery2 and simple assault.3
Although the venire included approximately 15 African-Americans, no African-
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1 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(a).
2 18 Pa.C.S. § 3701.
3 18 Pa.C.S. § 2701.
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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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Americans were selected for the jury. The trial court sentenced Maxwell to an
aggregate term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This
Court affirmed. See Commonwealth v. Maxwell, 513 A.2d 1382 (Pa.
Super. 1986). Although our Supreme Court granted allowance of appeal,
Maxwell escaped while the case was pending before the Supreme Court and it
dismissed the appeal. See Commonwealth v. Maxwell, 569 A.2d 328 (Pa.
1989) (per curiam).
On August 14, 1990, the PCRA court dismissed Maxwell’s first PCRA
petition. This Court affirmed and our Supreme Court denied allowance of
appeal. See Commonwealth v. Maxwell, 595 A.2d 192 (Pa. Super. 1991)
(unpublished memorandum), appeal denied, 600 A.2d 534 (Pa. 1991). On
August 10, 1993, the United States District Court for the Middle District of
Pennsylvania denied Maxwell’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus and the
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit dismissed his appeal. See
Maxwell v. Domovich, 2012 WL 383669, *1 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 6, 2012)
(describing the procedural posture of Maxwell’s habeas corpus case).
Thereafter, the PCRA court dismissed Maxwell’s second PCRA petition. This
Court affirmed that dismissal. See Commonwealth v. Maxwell, 832 A.2d
539 (Pa. Super. 2003) (unpublished memorandum). On March 4, 2004, the
PCRA court dismissed Maxwell’s third PCRA petition. This Court affirmed and
our Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal. See Commonwealth v.
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Maxwell, 864 A.2d 580 (Pa. Super. 2004) (unpublished memorandum),
appeal denied, 875 A.2d 1074 (Pa. 2005).
On August 20, 2016, Maxwell filed this, his fourth, pro se PCRA petition
contending that the prosecutor had purposely acted to remove all African-
American jurors from the jury violating his right to a fair and impartial jury.
See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). The PCRA requires, with few
exceptions, that a post-conviction petition, including a second or subsequent
petition, be filed within one year of the date a judgment becomes final. See
42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(b). Because this PCRA petition has been filed many years
after the judgment of sentence became final, Maxwell’s ability to pursue relief
is dependent on his satisfaction of an exception to that one-year rule.
Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) is the exception at issue in this appeal. Our
Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Cox, 146 A.3d 221, 227 (Pa. 2016),
stated that “the exception set forth in subsection (b)(1)(ii) does not require
any merit analysis of the underlying claim.” Rather, the exception only
requires a petitioner to “prove that the facts were unknown to him and that
he exercised due diligence in discovering those facts.” Id. (internal quotes
and citations omitted). Once jurisdiction has been properly invoked, the
relevant inquiry then becomes whether the claim is cognizable under 42
Pa.C.S. § 9543 of the PCRA. Maxwell ultimately sought to pursue a
substantive claim under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(i) pertaining to a
constitutional violation under Batson.
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The new facts alleged in Maxwell’s PCRA petition involved a July 9, 2016
meeting between Maxwell and his brother Brian Maxwell (Brian). This visit
occurred at SCI-Camp Hill and was their first one-on-one visit in 32 years.
During that visit, Maxwell told Brian that he was recently appointed an
attorney and explained the claims he wanted to raise. This discussion
apparently jogged Brian’s memory and he told Maxwell he remembered
overhearing the district attorney tell a police officer that he did not think there
would be any African-Americans on the jury. Counsel was appointed and filed
an amended petition.
Based on those allegations, the PCRA court ordered an evidentiary
hearing to address whether Maxwell was duly diligent in discovering these
facts.4 The parties agreed to bifurcate the proceedings, with a jurisdictional
hearing followed by a merits hearing in the event Maxwell successfully proved
the applicability of the exception.
On May 15, 2017, the Honorable Scott A. Evans held the jurisdictional
hearing where only Maxwell and Brian testified. Brian testified that he nearly
stopped talking to Maxwell after he was arrested on these crimes and did not
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4 A due diligence inquiry is fact-sensitive and dependent upon the totality of
the circumstances presented, and “due diligence requires neither perfect
vigilance nor punctilious care, but rather it requires reasonable efforts by a
petitioner, based on the particular circumstances, to uncover facts that may
support a claim for collateral relief.” Commonwealth v. Burton, 121 A.3d
1063, 1070–71 (Pa. Super. 2015), aff’d., 158 A.3d 618 (Pa. 2017) (citations
omitted).
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visit him in the Dauphin County Prison while awaiting trial. While Brian would
occasionally speak to his brother over the phone, the conversations were not
long. Maxwell didn’t call Brian directly and only spoke to Brian when Brian
was at their mother’s house. Brian testified that he visited his brother in
prison twice more than twenty years ago, both times with other family
members. Brian visited Maxwell one-on-one for the first time on July 9, 2016.
That visit is where the two spoke about the prosecutor’s comment. Brian did
not believe this statement had any relevance at the time he heard it. Maxwell
testified that he never heard this information before that meeting.
After accepting the testimony of Brian and Maxwell, Judge Evans found
jurisdiction because Maxwell had established the applicability of the newly-
discovered fact exception to the PCRA’s timeliness requirement. He issued
the following order:
AND NOW, this 26th day of September, 2017, following an
evidentiary hearing on the PCRA jurisdictional requirements held
on May 15, 2017, and upon consideration of the Commonwealth’s
memorandum opposing PCRA jurisdiction, and
Defendant’s/Petitioner’s response to the Commonwealth’s
memorandum, it is hereby ORDERED that the jurisdictional
requirements have been met. This Court shall make a
determination on the merits of the issues set forth in
Defendant’s/Petitioner’s PCRA petition.
However, due to the fact that the prosecutor in Maxwell’s case was
Richard Lewis, who was then the President Judge of Dauphin County, Judge
Evans recused himself as well as the rest of the Court of Common Pleas of
Dauphin County bench. An out-of-county judge, the Honorable John L.
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Braxton, Senior Judge, was appointed to hold the substantive PCRA
evidentiary hearing where Maxwell was to be given a chance to prove the
merits of his 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(i) claim.
At that hearing, President Judge Lewis, Brian Maxwell and Christine
Arnold (the widow of the victim) testified. Instead of explicitly ruling on the
merits of the claim, Judge Braxton issued a Notice of Intent to Dismiss on
jurisdictional grounds. Judge Braxton set forth his belief that the recusal of
Judge Evans and the bench of Dauphin County rendered Judge Evans’
jurisdictional order “void.” Judge Braxton then determined that Brian was not
credible and that Maxwell did not present a “fact” to support a claim of newly-
discovered evidence. Following a response from Maxwell, Judge Braxton
dismissed the PCRA petition on May 18, 2018, and this appeal followed.
Maxwell contends that the coordinate jurisdiction rule barred Judge
Braxton from revisiting Judge Evans’ holding that the court possessed
jurisdiction over the petition. This issue is important because in reviewing the
grant or denial of PCRA relief, the PCRA court’s credibility determinations are
binding on this Court, although we apply a de novo standard of review to the
PCRA court’s legal conclusions. See Commonwealth v. Burton, 158 A.3d
618, 627 (Pa. 2017). Judge Evans obviously found Maxwell and Brian
credible; otherwise, Judge Evans would have simply issued the same notice
of intent to dismiss as issued by Judge Braxton.
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Our Supreme Court has described the coordinate jurisdiction rule as
follows:
Generally, the coordinate jurisdiction rule commands that[,] upon
transfer of a matter between trial judges of coordinate jurisdiction,
a transferee trial judge may not alter resolution of a legal question
previously decided by a transferor trial judge. More simply stated,
judges of coordinate jurisdiction should not overrule each other’s
decisions.
The reason for this respect for an equal tribunal’s decision ... is
that the coordinate jurisdiction rule is based on a policy of
fostering the finality of pre-trial applications in an effort to
maintain judicial economy and efficiency. Furthermore, ... the
coordinate jurisdiction rule serves to protect the expectations of
the parties, to [e]nsure uniformity of decisions, to maintain
consistency in proceedings, to effectuate the administration of
justice, and to bring finality to the litigation.
Zane v. Friends Hospital, 836 A.2d 25, 29 (Pa. 2003) (citations modified;
internal quotation marks omitted). See also Mariner Chestnut Partners,
L.P. v. Lenfest, 152 A.3d 265 (Pa. Super. 2016).
While the coordinate jurisdiction rule does not normally preclude a later
judge from deciding jurisdiction based on settled facts, Cobbs v. SEPTA, 985
A.2d 249, 254 (Pa. Super. 2009), the doctrine does preclude a later judge
from making different credibility findings that led the first judge to find
jurisdiction. Judge Braxton had no license to revisit those findings and they
cannot be swept aside with a conclusion that the order was somehow “void.”
In this case, the parties agreed before Judge Evans that the matter was
to be bifurcated, first jurisdiction, and if jurisdiction was found, then the merits
of the PCRA claim. A hearing was held limited to the jurisdiction issue.
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Necessarily finding Maxwell and Brian credible, Judge Evans found that
Maxwell met the Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) standard because Brian only told him
about this information in July 2016 during their first one-on-one meeting, and
this petition was filed August 20, 2016, there was not a lack of due diligence
on Maxwell’s part in filing the petition.
Judge Braxton was not charged with determining jurisdiction because
Judge Evans had already made that determination. Judge Braxton was
charged with a completely different undertaking. He had to determine
whether Maxwell made out a claim under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(i). While
he was free to make a determination that no Batson claim was made out
because Brian was not credible in saying he heard then-District Attorney Lewis
make the comments at issue, he was not free to change the determination
made by Judge Evans in his separate inquiry that Maxwell credibly testified
that Brian did not tell him about those comments until 2016.
Because we have found that the coordinate jurisdiction rule precluded
Judge Braxton from reversing Judge Evans’ jurisdiction determination, we
vacate Judge Braxton’s order and remand to the PCRA court to make a
determination whether Maxwell has made out the substance of his claim.5
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5 We need not address whether Judge Evan’s order finding jurisdiction was
erroneous because it is not a final appealable order since it did not finally
dispose of Maxwell’s PCRA petition. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 910 (“An order granting,
denying, dismissing, or otherwise finally disposing of a petition for post-
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Order Vacated. Case Remanded. Jurisdiction relinquished.
Judge McLaughlin joins the memorandum.
Judge Olson files a dissenting memorandum.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 4/23/2019
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conviction collateral relief shall constitute a final order for purposes of
appeal.”).
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