Com. v. Yeager, F. ( 2023 )

J-S20041-23
NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT OP 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
FRANK ADAM YEAGER :
:
Appellant : No. 93 EDA 2023
Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered December 19, 2022
In the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County
Criminal Division at No(s): CP-39-CR-0000377-2013
BEFORE: DUBOW, J., KUNSELMAN, J., and COLINS, J.
MEMORANDUM BY COLINS, J.: FILED SEPTEMBER 14, 2023
Frank Adam Yeager, pro se, appeals from the order dismissing as
untimely his November 28, 2022 filing, which was construed by the lower
court as Post Conviction Relief Action (“PCRA”) petition. See 42 Pa.C.S. §§
9541-9546. We agree that Yeager’s filing was properly adjudicated as a PCRA
petition. Resultantly, because Yeager failed to plead and prove an exception
to the PCRA’s time bar, neither we nor the lower court have jurisdiction to
consider the claims raised therein. As such, we affirm the order dismissing his
petition.
While the facts underpinning Yeager’s convictions are not inherently
relevant to this appeal, we adopt the lower court’s factual and procedural
summaries leading to the present matter:
____________________________________________
 Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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The victim was a saleswoman for Pulte Homes at its new
development in Upper Macungie Township, Lehigh County. On
November 25, 2012, just before closing time at 7:00 p.m., she
was alone in the office at the development. [Yeager] entered the
office and asked the victim if she would show him one of the model
homes[;] the victim became suspicious because of the way
[Yeager] was acting and because he did not ask for information
about the home. She told him to look at the home himself. He
went to the model home and was there for about 45 minutes. It
was [Yeager’s] plan to get the woman alone in an upstairs
bedroom of the model home and to rape her there. When he was
upstairs in the model home, he looked from the windows to see if
the victim was [coming]. To prepare for the rape, he closed the
curtains in a bedroom and turned off the lights.
When the victim did not come to the model home, [Yeager]
returned to the office and told her that there was a water leak in
the home and he wanted to show it to her. She was still suspicious
and she refused to go with him. [Yeager] continued to ask her to
inspect the leak. A male co-worker of the victim then entered the
office at which point [Yeager] quickly left. [Yeager] went to his
pickup truck and waited for the male co-worker to leave. After a
while, [Yeager] got tired of waiting and drove off.
In various statements, [Yeager] admitted that it was his
plan to lure the victim into a bedroom on the second floor of the
model home and to rape her there. He stated that he chose the
office closing time because of the likelihood that the woman would
be alone.
Police obtained a search warrant and found, inter alia, a
handwritten note by [Yeager] describing his fantasy about raping
a female realtor and a suicide note detailing plans to rape other
women that had been unsuccessful and expressing an intent to
kill himself and set the model home on fire after raping the victim.
Additionally, a search performed on [Yeager’s] pickup truck
revealed numerous tools consistent with the plans [Yeager]
detailed, including matches, a lighter, knives, binoculars, a ski
mask, gloves, rope, two handguns, several magazines and
ammunition, a chain, padlocks, duct tape and realty brochures.
[Yeager] entered a guilty plea to one count of [a]ttempted
[r]ape on April 29, 2013. In exchange for his plea, the
Commonwealth withdrew two firearms and possession of
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instruments of crime charges. [Yeager was sentenced to ten to
twenty years’ imprisonment.] On his direct appeal, [Yeager] did
not claim he was innocent. He also did not [make that allegation]
in his counseled PCRA.
[Yeager] filed a timely PCRA [p]etition on September 9,
[2015]. The PCRA court conducted an evidentiary hearing and
denied the petition on April 4, 2016. The Superior Court affirmed
the denial of the PCRA [petition] on June 13, 2017.
[Yeager] filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus[, the
document controlling the present case,] on November 28, 2022
and captioned it as a civil matter. The Clerk of Judicial Records
forwarded it to the [lower court] for review. After reviewing the
petition, [it] determined that [Yeager’s submission was] a petition
for post-conviction relief. . . . On November 30, 2022, the [c]ourt
entered an order putting [Yeager] on notice of the [c]ourt’s intent
to dismiss without a hearing. [Yeager] filed a response on
December 13, 2022. On December 19, 2022, the [c]ourt entered
an order dismissing [Yeager’s] PCRA [petition].
Trial Court Opinion, 1/24/23, at 2-4 (citations and quotation marks omitted)
(formatting altered) (italics added). After that dismissal, Yeager filed a timely
notice of appeal. The relevant parties have adhered to their obligations under
Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 1925, and accordingly, this matter
is ripe for review.
Preliminarily, as it controls this appeal, we note that the PCRA is the
“sole means of obtaining collateral relief and encompasses all other common
law and statutory remedies … including habeas corpus[.]” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9542
(italics added); see also Commonwealth v. Taylor, 65 A.3d 462, 465-66
(Pa. Super. 2013) (“[T]he PCRA is intended to be the sole means of achieving
post-conviction relief. Unless the PCRA could not provide for a potential
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remedy, the PCRA statute subsumes the writ of habeas corpus.”) (citations
omitted).
In arguing that the lower court erred by applying the PCRA to his
petition, Yeager contends that his November 28, 2022 filing should have been
treated outside of the PCRA’s domain as a habeas petition because “the
contractual enforcement of a plea agreement … is not cognizable under the
auspice of the [PCRA.]” Appellant’s Brief, at 7.
While it is true that “a collateral petition to enforce a plea agreement is
regularly treated as outside the ambit of the PCRA and under the contractual
enforcement theory of specific performance[,]” Commonwealth v. Kerns,
220 A.3d 607, 611-12 (Pa. Super. 2019) (emphasis added), in a wholly
distinct manner, Yeager’s petition attempts to invalidate his plea agreement.
See Appellant’s Brief, at 9 (“[Yeager’s] plea agreement … is contractual[ly]
invalid for lack of the availability of ‘an attempt’ in the charge of rape. This
enforcement of the initial plea bargain is a legal impossibility as the factual
basis for the plea does not exist[.]”). Essentially, Yeager argues that he
entered into his plea under false pretenses because although he “adequately
prepared for a rape, … [he] never went through with a significant step toward
that rape since the acts [were] confined to preparation only and were
abandoned before any transgression of the law[.]” Id. (quotation marks
omitted) (formatting altered). Accordingly, there was no factual basis for him
to assent to what he is implicitly describing as an unlawfully induced plea.
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Despite him arguing to the contrary, such a contention, believing his
original plea agreement to be “void” or “voidable,” id., at 10, falls squarely
within the PCRA’s ambit. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(iii) (establishing that,
under the PCRA, relief may be sought if there has been a conviction or
sentence involving an unlawfully induced guilty plea “where the circumstances
make it likely that the inducement caused the petitioner to plead guilty and
the petitioner is innocent[]”); see also, e.g., Commonwealth v. Oliver, 128
A.3d 1275, 1280 (Pa. Super. 2015). Consequently, as the PCRA is capable of
providing him with the relief that he now seeks, the court was correct in
treating Yeager’s filing as his second PCRA petition.
With Yeager having filed a PCRA petition, as with all cases involving 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.
Montalvo, 114 A.3d 401, 409 (Pa. 2015) (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted). To seek relief under the PCRA, a petitioner must satisfy the
jurisdictional requisite of timeliness; otherwise, a PCRA court cannot hear
untimely PCRA petitions. See Commonwealth v. Zeigler, 148 A.3d 849, 853
(Pa. Super. 2016). Specifically, PCRA petitions must be filed within one year
of the date a judgment of sentence becomes final. See Commonwealth v.
Bennett, 930 A.2d 1264, 1267 (Pa. 2007); 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). A
judgment becomes final “at the conclusion of direct review, including
discretionary review in the Supreme Court of the United States and the
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Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, or at the expiration of time for seeking the
review.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(3).
Notwithstanding jurisdictional concerns, a petitioner can avail himself of
the PCRA’s three exceptions to its one-year time bar. Specifically, for an
otherwise untimely PCRA petition, a petitioner must demonstrate the
existence of: (1) newly-discovered facts; (2) interference by a government
official; or (3) a newly-recognized constitutional right. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. §
9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii). A petitioner seeking to prove the applicability of a time-bar
exception must also allege and prove that he filed his petition within one year
of the date his time-bar exception claim first could have been presented. 42
Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2). “Our Supreme Court has repeatedly stated it is the
petitioner’s burden to allege and prove that one of the timeliness exceptions
applies.” Commonwealth v. Smallwood, 155 A.3d 1054, 1060 (Pa. Super.
2017) (citation omitted).
After this Court affirmed Yeager’s judgment of sentence in
Commonwealth v. Yeager, 2014 WL 10786870 (Pa. Super., December 22,
2014) (unpublished memorandum), and he sought no further relief from our
Supreme Court, Yeager’s judgment of sentence necessarily became final in
the year 2015. Yeager then filed his first and timely PCRA petition on
September 9, 2015, which was ultimately resolved through this Court’s
affirmance of the PCRA court’s dismissal of that petition in 2017. Therefore,
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Yeager’s present 2022 petition, filed several years after his judgment of
sentence became final, is facially untimely.
Yeager does not illuminate, much less discuss, any of the three bases
that were available to him in his attempt to surmount the PCRA’s time bar in
his 2022 petition or in his appellate brief. As he has failed to plead and prove
the applicability of any exception, we are without jurisdiction to consider the
underlying allegations contained in his petition, and the lower court was
correct in its determination of the same. In the absence of any PCRA time bar
exception, we affirm the lower court’s order dismissing Yeager’s PCRA petition.
Order affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 9/14/2023
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