Com. v. Ford, T.

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 20, 2017
Docket3840 EDA 2015
StatusUnpublished

This text of Com. v. Ford, T. (Com. v. Ford, T.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Com. v. Ford, T., (Pa. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

J-S84022-16

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA Appellee

v.

TYRESE FORD

Appellant No. 3840 EDA 2015

Appeal from the PCRA Order Dated December 14, 2015 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0006600-2011

BEFORE: OLSON, J., SOLANO, J., and FITZGERALD, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY SOLANO, J.: FILED January 20, 2017

Appellant Tyrese Ford appeals pro se from the order denying his initial

petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S.

§§ 9541-9546. Appellant claims that his trial counsel was ineffective and

that his guilty plea was a product of this ineffective assistance of counsel.

We grant counsel’s petition to withdraw, deny Appellant’s pro se Motion to

Dismiss with Prejudice, and affirm the denial of Appellant’s PCRA petition.

Appellant was charged with murder1 and several weapons offenses in

connection with the February 19, 2011 shooting of Christopher Spence.

____________________________________________

* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court. 1 No degree was specified on the information. J-S84022-16

Appellant’s case was listed for trial on July 9, 2012.2 On that day,

Appellant’s counsel, Kenneth Young, informed the Court that the

Commonwealth had recently sent him a letter regarding additional

discovery. Specifically, the letter stated that Dr. Samuel Gulino, Chief

Medical Examiner for the City of Philadelphia, would testify at trial in place of

a Dr. Hunt, who performed the autopsy on Spence and was unavailable. In

addition, Dr. Gulino would testify that Spence suffered a contact gunshot

wound, an opinion contrary to the opinion in Dr. Hunt’s autopsy report. The

letter also informed Appellant that the Commonwealth’s firearms expert

would testify that the bullet recovered from Spence’s body was consistent

with ammunition found during a search of Appellant’s home. Finally, the

Commonwealth provided a previously undisclosed statement by

Commonwealth witness Dana McClamy, in which McClamy identified

Appellant as the shooter. Appellant presented a motion in limine to exclude

this new evidence. The court denied Appellant’s motion in limine, but

agreed to continue the case. PCRA Ct. Op., 12/14/15, at 1-2.

Also at the July 9, 2012 hearing, Appellant rejected an offer from the

Commonwealth to plead guilty to third-degree murder and weapons offenses

2 As the PCRA court noted, “[t]he Notes of Testimony and court file for this hearing indicate that it was held on July 8, 2012, though the docket indicates that it was held on July 9, 2012.” PCRA Ct. Op., 12/14/15, at 1 n.1. That discrepancy is not material to the disposition of this appeal.

-2- J-S84022-16

in exchange for a recommendation of a 25 to 50-year sentence. N.T.,

7/9/12, at 26-28.

Finally, at the July 9, 2012 hearing, the trial court denied Appellant’s

motion to suppress ammunition found during a search of his home. That

motion was based on alleged deficiencies in the search warrant affidavit.

N.T., 7/9/12, at 63-75.

At the next listing of Appellant’s case, on December 10, 2012,

Appellant entered into a negotiated guilty plea to one count of third-degree

murder (18 Pa.C.S. § 2502) and one count of possession of a firearm

without a license (18 Pa.C.S. § 6106). In exchange for his plea, the

Commonwealth agreed to withdraw the remaining charges against Appellant,

and to recommend an aggregate sentence of eighteen to forty years’

incarceration. At the plea hearing, the Commonwealth proffered the

following factual basis for the plea, to which Appellant agreed:

On February 19, 2011, Latoya Lofton and Christopher Spence were present at the T&T Bar and Lounge at Hawthorne and Margaret Streets in Philadelphia. Lofton stood next to [Appellant] at the bar for approximately seven minutes. At some point that evening, [Appellant] and Spence had a verbal argument concerning whether Spence was inappropriately touching Dana McClamy, another young woman at the bar. During the course of the argument, [Appellant] said, “I don’t fight like that” and showed the butt of a handgun that was secured in his waistband. Both Lofton and Spence saw the weapon. Loften attempted to intervene, between [Appellant] and Spence, but Spence reached around her and punched [Appellant] once in the face. [Appellant] recoiled from the punch, drew the firearm, and shot Spence once in the chest. Spence was taken to Frankford Hospital, where he was pronounced dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

-3- J-S84022-16

Following the shooting, [Appellant] returned home to his brother, to whom [Appellant] stated he had been in a fight over a girl and had ended up shooting a boy at the T&T Lounge. Ballistic examination of the bullet used to shoot Spence was consistent with ammunition recovered from [Appellant’s] residence upon [Appellant’s] arrest.

PCRA Ct. Op. at 3 (citing N.T., 12/10/12, at 11-21); N.T., 12/10/12, at 22.

During the plea colloquy, Appellant stated that apart from the

Commonwealth’s promises to withdraw certain charges and recommend an

aggregate sentence of 18 to 40 years, no one promised him anything or

threatened him in any way to induce him to plead guilty. N.T., 12/10/12, at

23. The trial court immediately imposed the negotiated sentence of 18 to 40

years’ incarceration. Appellant did not file a direct appeal.

On November 21, 2013, Appellant filed a pro se PCRA petition.

Attorney Daniel Silverman was subsequently appointed to represent him.

On July 24, 2014, Attorney Silverman filed a no-merit letter pursuant to

Commonwealth v. Turner, 544 A.2d 927 (Pa. 1988), and

Commonwealth v. Finley, 550 A.2d 213 (Pa. Super. 1988) (en banc).

However, on November 20, 2014, Silverman filed an Amended PCRA

Petition, claiming that trial counsel “rendered ineffective assistance in

affirmatively misleading petitioner to believe that he would be eligible for

‘pre-release’ after serving nine years of his 18-year minimum when that was

not true.” Amended Petition at 10. According to the amended petition,

Appellant “relied on this erroneous advice in deciding to plead guilty,” and

would have chosen to go to trial but for counsel’s advice. Id. Appellant

-4- J-S84022-16

attached an affidavit to his PCRA petition in which he stated that if his

counsel had informed him that he would be required to serve eighteen years

before he could be released, he “never would have taken the deal.”

Amended PCRA Petition, Ex. B.

The PCRA court held an evidentiary hearing on April 17, 2015, and

later summarized the proceedings at that hearing as follows:

[Appellant] presented testimony from Kenneth Young, Lamar Larke, and Lisa Robinson. The Commonwealth did not present any additional testimony.

Mr. Young testified that he was prepared to take [Appellant]’s matter to trial prior to receiving the additional unfavorable discovery that he received a few days prior to July 9, 2012, and losing a motion to exclude this evidence. Young testified that following the receipt of this additional evidence . . .

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Com. v. Ford, T., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/com-v-ford-t-pasuperct-2017.