Com. v. Frazier, J.

Opinion

J-S46011-25

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : JASON MICHAEL FRAZIER : : Appellant : No. 290 WDA 2025

Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered February 14, 2025 In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-02-CR-0011969-2000

BEFORE: BOWES, J., NICHOLS, J., and KING, J.

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED: January 21, 2026

Jason Michael Frazier appeals pro se from the order that dismissed as

untimely his serial petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act

(“PCRA”). We affirm.

Appellant was the target of a shooting in Pittsburgh on July 3, 2000, for

which he blamed individuals associated with Kelley Street. The next day,

bystander Sherdina Jones was shot and killed near the 7500 block of Kelley

Street. Appellant initially told police that he had not been in Pittsburgh on the

night of the latter shooting. Following his arrest and confinement in the

Allegheny County Jail, Appellant requested, through his girlfriend, to speak to

Pittsburgh Police Detectives Dennis Logan and Richard McDonald. During the J-S46011-25

interview on the following day, after being informed of his Miranda rights,1

Appellant conceded that he had been at the scene of the shooting, having

taken a sawed-off .22 rifle with him and returning fire upon hearing shots.

Appellant quickly changed his story again and admitted that he had initiated

the shooting. He signed notes memorializing the confession in five separate

places, and then reiterated it in an audio recording. After the trial court denied

his subsequent motion to suppress his statements as involuntary, Appellant

proceeded to a jury trial in January 2001, at which Appellant’s confession was

admitted into evidence. Detectives Logan and McDonald both testified, each

denying having coerced Appellant’s confession in any way.

The jury convicted Appellant of first-degree murder, and the court

immediately sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of

parole. On direct appeal, this Court, inter alia, affirmed the denial of

Appellant’s suppression motion, finding no record support for his claims that

the trial court erred in ruling his confession voluntary. See Commonwealth

v. Frazier, 821 A.2d 132 (Pa.Super. 2003) (unpublished memorandum at 9-

10), appeal denied, 829 A.2d 1156 (Pa. 2003). We also held that the

Commonwealth sufficiently disproved his claim of self-defense, and that his

claim of after-discovered evidence founded upon affidavits of witnesses to the

shooting was not properly before us at that juncture. Id. (unpublished

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1 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

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memorandum at 4-5). We summarized the ensuing procedural history as

follows:

Since [then, Appellant] has filed multiple PCRA petitions seeking relief based on after-discovered evidence. In his first PCRA petition, [Appellant] sought a new trial based on after-discovered evidence of six witnesses who corroborated [his] defense that other men fired at his vehicle, causing him to fear for his life, before [he] fired back. We concluded that the affidavits were not timely obtained through due diligence, were merely corroborative of the self-defense theory he presented at trial, and would not have altered the outcome of the case.

In his second PCRA petition, [Appellant] presented two additional affidavits. One of the affidavits was from a new witness who identified Paul Pierce as the individual who first fired upon [Appellant]’s vehicle. The affidavit further alleged that Pierce, who was by that time deceased, had told the affiant he had killed the victim. The second affidavit was produced by a witness who had submitted affidavits in support of [Appellant]’s first PCRA petition. We held that [Appellant] had not exercised due diligence with respect to either witness and that the affidavits merely rehashed facts regarding self-defense previously known to [Appellant].

In his third PCRA petition, [Appellant] once again submitted affidavits from three witnesses who averred that Pierce had confessed to shooting the victim and two additional witnesses who allegedly saw Pierce shoot at [Appellant]’s vehicle. We concluded that [Appellant] had not exercised due diligence in uncovering the first three witnesses. With regard to the final two witnesses, we held that [Appellant] had timely presented their affidavits but was nonetheless not entitled to relief because the affidavits were again merely cumulative of his self-defense claim and would not have altered the result of the trial.

In [his fourth] petition, [Appellant] again proffer[ed] affidavits from alleged witnesses to the shooting: Jesse Lumberger and James Hill. The affidavits differed from the prior witness affidavits in that they averred that after [Appellant] fled the scene, Pierce walked over to the victim and fired two shots into her abdomen as she lay on the ground. The PCRA court held an evidentiary

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hearing at which Lumberger and Hill testified, consistent with their affidavits[.]

Commonwealth v. Frazier, 297 A.3d 731 (Pa.Super. 2023) (cleaned up),

appeal denied, 304 A.3d 333 (Pa. 2023). The PCRA court dismissed the

petition upon finding the witnesses incredible, and this Court affirmed the

denial of relief. Id.

Appellant filed the petition at issue in the instant appeal in January 2024,

roughly twenty years after his judgment of sentence became final. He

premised his latest claim upon a discovery he made in October 2023 in “a pile

of caselaw sitting on the table on his housing unit, at SCI-Somerset[.]” PCRA

Petition, 1/12/24, at 4.1. Specifically, Appellant learned from reading

Commonwealth v. Pinson, 174 A.3d 54 (Pa.Super. 2017) (unpublished

memorandum), that Detectives Logan and McDonald had been sued in 2000

by Clyde Manns for civil rights violations during a homicide interrogation.2

2 As this Court summarized in another appeal:

In March 2000, a lawsuit was filed against Detective[s McDonald and] Logan alleging that during an interrogation, [they] violated the constitutional rights of a homicide suspect. The plaintiff referenced a 1999 document from the Department of Public Safety, Office of Municipal Investigations which listed three complaints against Detective Logan, and alleged that Detective[s McDonald and] Logan engaged in coercive interrogation techniques against him. A federal jury awarded the plaintiff $25,000 in damages in June 2002. A new trial was subsequently granted, and after a settlement conference, the parties entered into a stipulation dismissing the case with prejudice in November 2002. (Footnote Continued Next Page)

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Appellant asked his family to search the internet for newspaper articles

about the matter, and they found a June 2002 TribLIVE article about Mr.

Manns’s case that also referenced “dozens of federal civil-rights lawsuits that

alleged police misconduct” which “spawned a federal consent decree over

Pittsburgh police” and settled earlier that month. See PCRA Petition, 1/12/24,

at Exhibit 3. Appellant alleged he exercised due diligence in discovering this

new fact because, before he “luckily came across the Pinson case[,] he had

no reason to believe that the Commonwealth withheld this material

impeachment evidence in violation of Brady [v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83

(1963)].” PCRA Petition, 1/12/24, at 3.3.

The PCRA court issued Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice of its intent to dismiss

Appellant’s petition because it failed to satisfy any of the exceptions to the

PCRA’s one-year time bar. After some hiccups resulting from filings crossing

in the mail, Appellant responded to the Rule 907 notice through an amended

PCRA petition. Therein, he additionally asserted the governmental

interference timeliness exception codified at 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(i), citing

federal cases such as Dennis v. Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of

Corrections, 834 F.3d 263 (3d Cir. 2016) (en banc), and Bracey v.

Superintendent Rockview SCI, 986 F.3d 274, 290 (3d Cir. 2021),

Commonwealth v. Boyer, 323 A.3d 182, 2024 WL 2815035, at *2 (Pa.Super. 2024) (non-precedential decision) (cleaned up).

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concerning the timeliness and due diligence requirements of habeas corpus

petitions pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1).

Unpersuaded, the court dismissed the petition by order entered

February 14, 2025. This timely appeal followed. The PCRA court authored a

Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion explaining its ruling without requiring Appellant to

file a Rule 1925(b) statement. He presents the following questions for our

determination:

I. Whether the PCRA court erred in summarily dismissing [Appellant]’s pro se PCRA petition as untimely. And whether the PCRA court erred in denying an evidentiary hearing and other relief on a petition which raised numerous issues of material fact based upon the prosecution’s withholding of material impeachment evidence favorable to [Appellant], where [he] relied on the prosecutor’s confirmation that they had disclosed all impeachment evidence, pursuant [to] Brady, Dennis, and Bracey.

II. Whether the PCRA court erred by relying on statement of facts not supported by the record and previously corrected by this honorable Court.

Appellant’s brief at 4 (cleaned up).

We begin with the governing law. This Court will “review an order

dismissing or denying a PCRA petition as to whether the findings of the PCRA

court are supported by the record and are free from legal error.”

Commonwealth v. Howard, 285 A.3d 652, 657 (Pa.Super. 2022) (cleaned

up). “It is an appellant’s burden to persuade us that the PCRA court erred

and that relief is due.” Commonwealth v. Stansbury, 219 A.3d 157, 161

(Pa.Super. 2019) (cleaned up).

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It is well-settled “that the timeliness of a PCRA petition is jurisdictional

and that if the petition is untimely, courts lack jurisdiction over the petition

and cannot grant relief.” Commonwealth v. Fantauzzi, 275 A.3d 986, 994

(Pa.Super. 2022). Any PCRA petition must be filed within one year of the date

that the underlying judgment of sentence became final unless the petitioner

pleads and offers to prove one of the following enumerated timeliness

exceptions:

(i) the failure to raise the claim previously was the result of interference by government officials with the presentation of the claim in violation of the Constitution or laws of this Commonwealth or the Constitution or laws of the United States;

(ii) 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; or

(iii) the right asserted is a constitutional right that was recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States or the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania after the time period provided in this section and has been held by that court to apply retroactively.

42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). Further, a petition invoking a timeliness exception

“shall be filed within one year of the date the claim could have been

presented.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2).

Here, Appellant acknowledges that his petition, filed approximately

twenty years after his sentence became final, was facially untimely. He

invoked both subsections (i) and (ii) of § 9545(b)(1) as bases for the court’s

jurisdiction over his Brady claim. As our Supreme Court has explained:

Although a Brady violation may fall within the governmental interference exception, the petitioner must plead and prove the

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failure to previously raise the claim was the result of interference by government officials, and the information could not have been obtained earlier with the exercise of due diligence. Section 9545(b)(1)(ii)’s exception requires the facts upon which the Brady claim is predicated were not previously known to the petitioner and could not have been ascertained through due diligence. . . . [T]he exception set forth in subsection (b)(1)(ii) does not require any merits analysis of the underlying claim. Rather, the exception merely requires that the facts upon which such a claim is predicated must not have been known to [the] appellant, nor could they have been ascertained by due diligence.

Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal, 941 A.2d 1263, 1268 (Pa. 2008). Thus,

neither exception could confer jurisdiction for the court to consider the merits

of Appellant’s Brady claim unless he pled and offered to prove that he

exercised due diligence in discovering the alleged Brady material.

The PCRA court noted that the lawsuit against the detectives upon which

Appellant premises his Brady claim was filed in 2000, which predates his trial,

and concluded in 2002, which was before his judgment of sentence became

final. Further, “[t]here were articles in the local newspapers about the lawsuit

which mentioned both detectives by name[,]” such as the one from June 2002

that Appellant attached to the instant PCRA petition after his family located

through a simple internet search. See PCRA Court Opinion, 4/1/25, at 2.

Therefore, the PCRA court concluded that, “[i]f [Appellant] had exercised due

diligence, as required by the exception, he would have unearthed details of

the lawsuit at some point over the past more than twenty years.” Id.

Citing the federal court decisions in Bracey and Dennis, Appellant

argues that, absent any notice of a possible Brady violation, he had no reason

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to doubt that the Commonwealth fulfilled its disclosure obligations such that

“due diligence d[id] not require him to search for such material.” Appellant’s

brief at 18-19. However, as our High Court has noted:

[T]he Third Circuit’s pronouncement in Dennis that Brady does not include a due diligence requirement is in apparent conflict with case law from this Court that there is no Brady violation where a defendant could have uncovered the undisclosed evidence with reasonable diligence. This apparent conflict is not directly before us . . . . We note, however, that while this Court is clearly bound by the holdings of the United States Supreme Court on issues of federal law, we are not bound by the holdings of the Third Circuit on such issues.

Commonwealth v. Conforti, 303 A.3d 715, 726 n.8 (Pa. 2023) (cleaned

up).

This Court is bound to follow Pennsylvania Supreme Court precedent,

not any contrary Third Circuit decisions. Applying the due diligence mandates

discussed above, we discern no abuse of discretion or error of law in the PCRA

court’s finding that Appellant did not meet his burden. Indeed, in the Pinson

memorandum he happened upon in prison, Appellant would have read that in

pursuing relief based upon Detective Logan’s alleged misconduct, Pinson relied

on: (1) a June 2002 newspaper article about it in a PCRA petition that was

the subject of a 2009 appeal to this Court; and (2) later information he

received about the civil rights case through an open records request upon

which he premised a 2015 PCRA petition.

Plainly, the facts Appellant discovered were readily available through the

exercise of due diligence many years before he filed his 2024 petition.

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Moreover, Appellant offered no explanation as to how the government

interfered with his ability to bring the claim earlier. Cf. Commonwealth v.

Williams, 168 A.3d 97, 106 (Pa. 2017) (holding the petitioner satisfied the

governmental interference exception where due diligence would not have

earlier uncovered Brady material included in the prosecution’s files, but not

provided to the defense before the 1986 trial, because the petitioner “had no

access to the Commonwealth’s files until [a witness] came forward in 2012

with his affidavits, which resulted in the discovery orders that finally revealed

the Commonwealth’s suppression of evidence”).

Thus, Appellant’s 2024 PCRA petition was untimely, and he failed to

establish that a timeliness exception applied. Since the PCRA court lacked

jurisdiction to entertain the merits of his Brady claim, it properly dismissed

his petition.

In his remaining question, Appellant’s attacks the PCRA court’s

recitation in its opinion of the facts underlying his convictions. In particular,

he disputes the court’s representations that all four bullets that were

recovered from the victim’s body were found in her stomach and matched

Appellant’s gun, and insists that the trial testimony was that police overheard

him say “‘Kelly Street is responsible for this’ and ‘Somebody is going to pay

for this’” to an unknown person, not that he made those statements directly

to police. See Appellant’s brief at 28-29. As any inaccuracies in this regard

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have no bearing on the court’s jurisdiction to adjudicate the PCRA petition,

any error in this regard would be harmless.

In sum, because Appellant has failed to convince us both that the PCRA

court erred and that relief is due, we affirm the court’s order.

Order affirmed.

DATE: 1/21/2026

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