Com. v. Williams, A. ( 2023 )


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  • J-A07011-23
    NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37
    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA             :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
    :        PENNSYLVANIA
    :
    v.                          :
    :
    :
    ANTHONY WILLIAMS                         :
    :
    Appellant             :   No. 1264 EDA 2022
    Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered April 28, 2022
    In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
    No(s): CP-51-CR-0007651-2009
    BEFORE: DUBOW, J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and McCAFFERY, J.
    MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.:                              FILED JUNE 12, 2023
    Appellant, Anthony Williams, appeals from the April 28, 2022 Order
    entered in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas dismissing his
    second petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42
    Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-46. After careful review, we affirm the trial court’s denial of
    the petition on Appellant’s first claim and remand to the trial court for a
    hearing on Appellant’s second and third claims.
    The relevant facts and procedural history are, briefly, as follows. On
    November 5, 2008, a Philadelphia police officer noticed three males, later
    identified as Bruce Holloman (“Victim”), Taylor James, and Harum Ulmer,
    standing near a Buick.    The officer saw another male, later identified as
    Appellant, standing across the street from the Buick. Soon after, he witnessed
    Appellant chasing and fatally shooting Victim.
    J-A07011-23
    Immediately after the shooting, the officer observed Gerard Butler move
    from the backseat of the Buick to the driver’s seat and attempt to drive away
    before police officers stopped him. Mr. Butler subsequently testified that he
    saw Appellant shoot Victim.
    Officers also stopped Mr. James near the shooting. Mr. James initially
    signed a statement identifying Appellant as the shooter but, at trial, he
    recanted the statement, claiming that detectives had coerced his statement
    that Appellant was the shooter.
    In March 2011, a jury found Appellant guilty of Murder of the Third
    Degree and Possession of an Instrument of Crime (“PIC”).1            The court
    sentenced Appellant to 18 to 36 years of incarceration for the Murder
    conviction and a consecutive term of 2½ to 5 years for the PIC conviction.
    This Court affirmed Appellant’s judgment of sentence in April 2013, and the
    Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal on November 13, 2013.2
    Appellant timely filed his first PCRA petition, which the PCRA court
    dismissed. This Court affirmed, and the Supreme Court denied review.3
    In July 2019, Appellant filed the current PCRA Petition, alleging he was
    entitled to a new trial based on newly discovered facts that would support his
    ____________________________________________
    1   18 Pa.C.S. §§ 2502(c) and 907, respectively.
    2Commonwealth v. Williams, No. 1308 EDA 2011 (Pa. Super. filed April
    16, 2013), appeal denied, 
    80 A.3d 777
     (Pa. 2013).
    3Commonwealth v. Williams, No. 411 EDA 2016 (Pa. Super. filed Feb. 14,
    2017), appeal denied, 
    170 A.3d 1053
     (Pa. 2017).
    -2-
    J-A07011-23
    claim of innocence. Counsel entered her appearance in January 2020 and filed
    an amended PCRA petition reiterating Appellant’s claims.
    For Appellant’s first claim, he alleged that in March 2019, he received
    information that Khayree Reid was an eyewitness to the murder and that in
    November 2008, Philadelphia Homicide Detective James Pitts had interrogated
    Mr. Reid and Mr. Reid had told Detective Pitts that Appellant was not the
    shooter.     According to Appellant, Detective Pitts failed to document this
    exculpatory information.         Appellant further alleged that Detective Pitts
    “gripped [Mr. Reid] up a few times” to coerce Mr. Reid to make a statement
    identifying Appellant as the shooter, which Mr. Reid claimed he resisted.4
    Appellant’s next two claims are based on the allegation that in other
    cases, courts have found that Detective Pitts and other members of the
    Philadelphia Police Homicide Division (“Homicide Division”) engaged in a
    pattern and practice of unlawful interrogations of witnesses and the
    Commonwealth has stipulated in other cases to Detective Pitts’ misconduct.5
    He also alleged that the Commonwealth failed to disclose additional
    misconduct by Detective Pitts, which he asserted constituted “governmental
    interference.”6
    ____________________________________________
    4   PCRA Petition, 7/22/19, Appendix A (Affidavit of Reid, 6/6/19, at ¶ 11-12).
    5 Amended Motion for Post Conviction Relief Pursuant to the [PCRA],
    8/5/2020, at 14.
    6   Id. at 33.
    -3-
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    On March 10, 2022, the PCRA court held an evidentiary hearing at which
    only Appellant testified.   That same day, the court issued a Pa.R.A.P. 907
    Notice of Intent to Dismiss providing Appellant twenty days to respond.
    In response, Appellant noted that the PCRA court had not addressed his
    second and third claims relating to the pattern and practice of unlawful
    interrogation of the Homicide Division and Detective Pitts. To remedy this
    deficiency, the court held another hearing on April 28, 2022. The PCRA court,
    however, merely announced its decision to dismiss Appellant’s second and
    third claims and failed to hear any evidence regarding Appellant’s due
    diligence to ascertain this claim or facts supporting the alleged pattern and
    practice of unlawful interrogations.
    On May 4, 2022, Appellant filed a timely Notice of Appeal.            Both
    Appellant and the PCRA court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.
    Appellant raises the following questions for our review:
    1. Did the PCRA [c]ourt err when it found that [] Appellant did not
    use reasonable diligence in presenting the testimony of newly
    discovered witness Khayree Reid and did not hear testimony from
    Reid?
    2. Did the PCRA [c]ourt err when it failed to consider, without a
    hearing, newly discovered evidence of an unconstitutional
    interrogation pattern and practice within the Homicide Division
    that was used in the instant case which was not disclosed by the
    Commonwealth[?] This claim was properly before the PCRA
    [c]ourt but not discussed in the [c]ourt’s 907 Notice[.]
    3. Did the PCRA [c]ourt err when it failed to consider, without a
    hearing, newly discovered evidence of a history of misconduct by
    Det. Pitts was not disclosed by the Commonwealth due to
    governmental interference[?] This claim was properly before the
    PCRA [c]ourt but not discussed in the [c]ourt’s 907 Notice[.]
    -4-
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    Appellant’s Br. at 2.
    A.
    In reviewing a PCRA court’s denial of relief, we determine “whether the
    PCRA court’s findings of fact are supported by the record, and whether its
    conclusions of law are free from legal error.” Commonwealth v. Small, 
    238 A.3d 1267
    , 1280 (Pa. 2020). “The scope of our review is limited to the findings
    of the PCRA court and the evidence of record, which we view in the light most
    favorable to the party who prevailed before that court.” 
    Id.
     While we are
    bound by the PCRA court’s credibility determinations and the factual findings
    if supported by the record, we review legal conclusions de novo. 
    Id.
    For a PCRA court to have jurisdiction to address the merits of the claims
    raised in a PCRA petition, the petitioner must file the petition within one year
    of when his or her sentence becomes final or satisfy one of the three
    exceptions to the jurisdictional time bar. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). For claims
    arising after December 24, 2017, “[a]ny petition invoking an exception . . .
    shall be filed within one year of the date the claim could have been presented.”
    Id. § 9545(b)(2). The petitioner bears the burden of pleading and proving
    the applicability of an exception.   Commonwealth v. Beasley, 
    741 A.2d 1258
    , 1261 (Pa. 1999).
    In this case, Appellant admits that his petition is facially untimely. He
    maintains, however, that the PCRA court has jurisdiction for several reasons.
    First, Appellant argues that Mr. Reid’s information that Mr. Reid told Detective
    Pitts that Appellant was not the shooter meets the “newly discovered fact”
    -5-
    J-A07011-23
    exception to the jurisdictional bar. Appellant also argues that his claim that
    the Homicide Division and Detective Pitts engaged in a pattern and practice of
    unconstitutional interrogations meets the newly discovered fact or the
    governmental interference exceptions provided in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(i)
    and (ii). We will address the three claims seriatim.
    B.
    Appellant first contends that the PCRA court erred when it found that
    Appellant did not use due diligence in ascertaining the “newly discovered fact”
    regarding Detective Pitts’ interrogation of Mr. Reid. We highlight the fact that
    Detective Pitts interrogated Mr. Reid in 2008 and Appellant claims that he did
    not discover this fact until 2019.
    To overcome the PCRA jurisdictional bar for “newly discovered facts,”
    the burden is on the petitioner to prove that “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.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii).
    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has “explained that the exception set forth
    in subsection (b)(1)(ii) does not require any merits 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.”   Commonwealth v. Cox, 
    146 A.3d 221
    , 227 (Pa. 2016) (internal
    citations and quotation marks omitted). “A petitioner must explain why he
    could not have learned the new fact(s) earlier with the exercise of due
    diligence.” Commonwealth v. Brown, 
    111 A.3d 171
    , 176 (Pa. Super. 2015).
    -6-
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    Due diligence demands “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. Shiloh, 
    170 A.3d 553
    , 558 (Pa. Super. 2017) (citation
    omitted).
    The trial court concluded that Appellant failed to establish that he
    exercised due diligence to ascertain the facts of Detective Pitts’ alleged 2008
    interrogation of Mr. Reid. As an initial matter, the trial court found Appellant’s
    testimony at the PCRA hearing that Appellant did not learn about Mr. Reid
    until 2019 not credible.7 PCRA Ct. Op., 7/1/22, at 5. The PCRA court instead
    relied upon Mr. Reid’s affidavit where Mr. Reid stated that he and Appellant
    were together moments before the shooting and had been lifelong friends. 
    Id.
    The trial court concluded that if Mr. Reid and Appellant were together
    moments before the shooting and they had been lifelong friends, Appellant
    knew that Mr. Reid was a potential witness of the 2008 shooting and, thus,
    failed to show that he used due diligence to ascertain Mr. Reid’s information
    about Detective Pitts’ alleged 2008 interrogation of Mr. Reid. 
    Id.
    Since we must accept the trial court’s credibility determination regarding
    Appellant’s testimony and the weight the PCRA court placed on the affidavit,
    we must affirm the trial court’s finding that Appellant failed to establish that
    ____________________________________________
    7 At the second hearing on this matter, the PCRA court further opined that
    “this witness [Kyree Reid] was really not a real witness. It was conjured and
    []he never had any contact with Detective Pitts in the first place based on the
    testimony presented at the [first] hearing.” N.T. Hr’g, 4/28/2022, at 9-10.
    -7-
    J-A07011-23
    he used due diligence to ascertain the assertions regarding Detective Pitts’
    2008 interrogation of Mr. Reid.          Thus, the trial court properly found that
    Appellant failed to meet the jurisdictional bar for his first claim, and we affirm
    the trial court’s dismissal of the PCRA petition on this claim.
    C.
    In his next two issues, Appellant asserts that he is entitled to a new trial
    based on “newly discovered evidence of an unconstitutional interrogation
    pattern and practice within the Homicide Division” as well as “a history of
    misconduct by [Detective] Pitts that was not disclosed by the Commonwealth
    due to governmental interference[.]” Appellant’s Br. at 2. Appellant bases
    his claims regarding the Homicide Division’s unconstitutional pattern and
    practice of interrogation and Detective Pitts’ additional misconduct on the
    findings of other courts and the Commonwealth’s stipulations in other cases.8
    He maintains that this new information about the pattern and practice of the
    Homicide Division and Detective Pitts is relevant and entitles him to a new
    trial because it bolsters Mr. James’ recantation testimony at trial and supports
    ____________________________________________
    8 Specifically, he cites to a 2018 unpublished decision of the Philadelphia Court
    of Common Pleas finding in an unrelated case that the Homicide Division
    engaged in a pattern and practice of unconstitutional interrogation techniques
    and other misconduct. Appellant’s Br. at 24-25 (citing Commonwealth v.
    Dwayne Thorpe, CP-51-CR-0011433-2008). Appellant also relies on other
    cases in which the Commonwealth stipulated that Homicide Division detectives
    engaged in aspects of the identified pattern and practice. Id. at 26-29. He
    additionally observes that, in March 2018, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s
    Office disclosed that Detective Pitts had been placed on a “Do Not Call” list,
    which identified officers whom the Commonwealth would not call at trial due
    to their past investigatory misconduct and that Detective Pitts is facing
    charges for misconduct. Id. at 45-47.
    -8-
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    Mr. Reid’s averments regarding his alleged interrogation by Detective Pitts.
    Id. at 34-35.
    Although the PCRA court scheduled a “hearing” on April 28, 2022, to
    address these two other claims of unlawful interrogations and misconduct, the
    court merely announced its decision, finding that Appellant was not entitled
    to any relief.    The PCRA court reasoned that since the court did not find
    Appellant credible at the first hearing on the first claim and Appellant
    presented no other witnesses at that hearing, “then it logically follows that
    any   evidence     regarding     Detective     Pitts’   misconduct   or   the   alleged
    unconstitutional pattern and practice of the Philadelphia Police Homicide Unit
    is not relevant to this claim.” PCRA Ct. Op. at 7. The PCRA court concluded
    that Appellant has “failed to present evidence and meet his burden to establish
    that Detective Pitts’ misconduct satisfies the new fact exception in this case.”
    Id.
    Since the PCRA court heard no evidence at the second hearing regarding
    the factual basis for the allegations of unconstitutional interrogations, when
    Appellant learned of them, and Appellant’s due diligence in ascertaining the
    factual basis for the allegations, the record is devoid of facts to support the
    trial court’s conclusion. We are, thus, constrained to reverse the PCRA court’s
    decision to dismiss these two claims and remand for a hearing on both.9
    ____________________________________________
    9We note that the trial court will have to address whether the evidence of
    misconduct set forth in the opinion in Thorpe, supra and the various
    (Footnote Continued Next Page)
    -9-
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    Order denying PCRA Petition affirmed in part and reversed in part. Case
    remanded with instructions. Jurisdiction relinquished.
    Judgment Entered.
    Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
    Prothonotary
    Date: 6/12/2023
    ____________________________________________
    stipulations are admissible under the hearsay rule and other rules of evidence.
    Additionally, even if admissible, we take no position regarding the relevancy
    of that information to Appellant’s two claims or Appellant’s due diligence to
    ascertain these claims. We leave it to the PCRA court to determine these
    evidentiary issues.
    - 10 -
    

Document Info

Docket Number: 1264 EDA 2022

Judges: Dubow, J.

Filed Date: 6/12/2023

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 6/12/2023