Com. v. Dade, A. ( 2020 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37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. :
:
:
ANTONIO J. DADE :
:
Appellant : No. 363 EDA 2019
Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered January 2, 2019
In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-51-CR-0212731-1989
BEFORE: BOWES, J., KUNSELMAN, J., and STRASSBURGER, J.*
MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED FEBRUARY 11, 2020
Antonio J. Dade appeals from the January 2, 2019 order dismissing his
Post-Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”) petition as untimely. We affirm.
Following his conviction of first-degree murder, aggravated assault,
recklessly endangering another person, and possession of an instrument of
crime, Appellant was sentenced on March 5, 1990 to a mandatory term of life
imprisonment without possibility of parole (“LWOP”). This Court affirmed his
judgment of sentence on direct appeal, and the Supreme Court denied further
review. Commonwealth v. Dade, 599 A.2d 699 (Pa.Super. 1991)
(unpublished memorandum), appeal denied, 605 A.2d 332 (Pa. 1992).
Hence, Appellant’s judgment of sentence became final in 1992, ninety days
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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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after the Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal, when he did not seek
certiorari from the United States Supreme Court.
Thereafter, Appellant filed four PCRA petitions, all of which were denied
or dismissed, and we affirmed the dispositions on appeal. In this, his fifth
PCRA petition, Appellant maintained that his mandatory LWOP exceeded the
lawful maximum and sought correction of his sentence. He alleged that
although he was twenty years old when he committed the crimes for which he
received that sentence, the prohibition in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460(2012), against such a sentence for those under the age of eighteen should
apply to him.
Appellant conceded that his petition was facially untimely, as it was filed
almost twenty-five years after his judgment of sentence became final.
However, Appellant invoked the timeliness exception for a newly-recognized
constitutional right in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(iii), and maintained that he
filed his petition within sixty days of the Supreme Court’s decision in
Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S.Ct. 718 (2016), holding the new
constitutional right announced in Miller to be retroactive. See 42 Pa.C.S.
§ 9545(b)(2).
On September 17, 2018, the PCRA court served Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice
of its intent to dismiss Appellant’s petition without a hearing on timeliness
grounds. Appellant filed a timely response in which he advanced arguments
in support of the applicability of the newly-recognized constitutional right
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exception to the one-year time bar. The PCRA court found the exception
inapplicable to Appellant and dismissed his petition as untimely, holding that
the Miller holding was specifically limited to juveniles under the age of
eighteen years at the time of the offense who were sentenced to LWOP. See
Rule 907 Notice, 9/17/18, at 1. Since Appellant was over the age of eighteen
at the time of the offense, the court found that his sentence was outside the
reach of Miller. Id. Thus, the court concluded that Appellant had failed to
plead and prove the exception to the one-year time bar of the PCRA for newly-
recognized constitutional rights, and that it was without jurisdiction to
consider the merits of his claim or offer relief. Id.
After the PCRA court dismissed the petition as untimely, Appellant timely
appealed. He presents two issues for our review, the first of which implicates
the timeliness of his petition:
I. Did the PCRA court err in rejecting [Appellant]’s claim that
the right established in Miller v. Alabama applies to
[Appellant] who possessed those characteristics of youth
identified as constitutionally significant for sentencing
purposes by the U.S. Supreme Court and made retroactive
in Montgomery, which met the timeliness exception under
Title 42 Pa.C.S.A. 9545(b)(1)(iii).
II. The [Appellant] asserts that the mandatory life without
possibility of parole sentence imposed in the case at bar
violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel
and unusual punishment. Also, that a clear violation of
statute 1 Pa.C.S. [§]1901, which states “that a minor is
defined as an individual under 21” and the Statutory
Construction Act 1 Pa.C.S. [§]1501 which states the same
was ignored.
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Appellant’s brief at 4 (unnecessary capitalization omitted).1
The threshold issue before us is whether Appellant pled and offered to
prove the applicability of a timeliness exception. The law is well settled that
the PCRA’s time restrictions are jurisdictional. See Commonwealth v.
Williams, 105 A.3d 1234, 1239 (Pa. 2014). It is the petitioner’s burden to
allege and prove that a timeliness exception applies, and unless that burden
is met, we cannot consider the merits of his claim. Commonwealth v.
Edmiston, 65 A.3d 339, 346 (Pa. 2013). In reviewing the denial of PCRA
relief, we examine whether the PCRA court’s determination is supported by
the record and free of legal error. Commonwealth v. Robinson, 139 A.3d
178, 185 (Pa. 2016).
Appellant contends that his LWOP sentence was held to be
unconstitutional in Miller. He maintains that although he was twenty years
old at that time, he suffered from the same “transient immaturity of youth”
as those individuals under the age of eighteen granted sentencing relief in
Miller, and that he is entitled to similar relief. Appellant’s brief at 11.
The argument advanced by Appellant has been addressed and rejected
by this Court. In Commonwealth v. Furgess, 149 A.3d 90, 94 (Pa.Super.
2016), we held that the Miller decision expressly applied to only those
defendants who were “under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes.’”
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1 The Commonwealth did not file a brief.
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Miller, supra at 465. In Furgess, the nineteen-year-old appellant also
argued that he possessed the same characteristics of youth as an eighteen
year old, and that the Miller rationale should apply to him. We recognized,
however, that the appellant’s argument undercut any contention that he was
within the scope of the Miller decision, and was an attempt to seek “an
extension of Miller to persons convicted of murder who were older at the time
of their crimes than the class of defendants subject to the Miller holding.”
Furgess, supra at 94. We dismissed the notion that persons over the age of
eighteen when they committed their crimes could rely upon the expansion of
Miller to bring themselves within the ambit of the Miller decision, or to bring
themselves within the time-bar exception in § 9545(b)(1)(iii). See
Commonwealth. v. Cintora, 69 A.3d 759 (Pa.Super. 2013) (holding that a
contention that a newly-recognized constitutional right should be extended to
include others does not render a petition seeking such expansion timely
pursuant to § 9545(b)(1)(iii)).2
For the foregoing reasons, the PCRA court correctly concluded that
Appellant had failed to plead and prove that the newly-recognized
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2 Appellant asks us to overrule Commonwealth v. Furgess, 149 A.3d 90(Pa.Super. 2016), and Commonwealth v. Cintora, 69 A.3d 759 (Pa.Super.
2013). However, those decisions remain binding precedent until they are
overruled by an en banc panel of this Court, or overturned by our Supreme
Court. See Commonwealth v. Karash, 175 A.3d 306, 307 (Pa.Super. 2017)
(“a panel of this Court cannot overrule the decision by another panel”).
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constitutional right exception was applicable, and that it lacked jurisdiction to
consider Appellant's untimely PCRA petition. We therefore affirm.
Order affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 2/11/20
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