Com. v. McClelland, A.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania·Decided October 22, 2015·No. 1778 WDA 2014·Unpublished

Opinion

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee

v.

AARON MCCLELLAND, Appellant No. 1778 WDA 2014

Appeal from the PCRA Order October 10, 2014 In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-02-CR-0012748-2010

BEFORE: SHOGAN, OLSON, and WECHT, JJ. MEMORANDUM BY SHOGAN, J.: FILED OCTOBER 22, 2015 Appellant, Aaron McClelland, appeals from the October 10, 2014 order denying his petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541–9546. After careful review, we affirm.

Quoting the trial court, we previously summarized the facts of the crime in our disposition of Appellant’s direct appeal, as follows:

The charges against [Appellant] stem from an incident that occurred on July 11, 2010, at approximately 12:40 p.m. A woman called Pizza Bellagio and placed an order to be delivered to an address in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. The delivery driver, Zamir Khudoykulov, left to deliver the order. He returned approximately 45 to 50 minutes later, bleeding profusely and saying that he had been shot. The pizza shop did not receive a call from anyone inquiring why their food had not been delivered.

During the course of his investigation, Detective Matthew Gray determined that the telephone number used to call the pizza shop belonged to Chaquishia Pack. Eventually, Pack

admitted to Detective Alisha Duncan that she called the pizza shop and placed the order.

Pack, who is mother to [Appellant’s] child, testified that she initially told police that she let “Boo,” a man she knew from the neighborhood, and another man into her apartment to use her phone to call a jitney. Later she said that she lent her phone to “Boo” who took it to the apartment across the hall for ten to fifteen minutes. Pack testified that both times the deliveryman called, she spoke with him. She said she told him she hadn’t ordered any food and took the phone outside her apartment to find “Boo.” Again she claimed that “Boo” had the phone for ten to fifteen minutes before returning it. Telephone records indicated that the two calls from the driver to Pack were slightly over a minute in duration, and approximately four minutes apart.1

1

At a subsequent hearing on Post-Sentence Motions, Pack indicated that she was fully aware of [Appellant’s] plan to steal from the delivery man but that she testified falsely because she was afraid of [Appellant].

On two different occasions, the victim was shown a photo array, each containing a suspect identified by the investigating officers. On the first array, which did not contain [Appellant’s]

photo, the victim failed to identify his assailant. On the second array, the victim without hesitation or doubt identified [Appellant] as his assailant.

The victim, Khudoykulov, testified that upon arrival to the address he was given, no one was outside to receive the delivery. He rang the bell and a woman answered and told him that she did not order any food. Khudoykulov called the number from which the order had been placed.2 A woman answered but quickly handed the phone to a man. The man said that he was at the apartment building on the other side of the street.

2

Pack provided a different number when she placed the order. That number was no longer in service, but the pizza shop automated order system printed the number that appeared on the caller ID on the order ticket.

Khudoykulov went across the street to the apartment complex located there and called out, “I'm here. Where are you at? So get the food.” When nobody responded, he again called the number from which the order had been placed. A woman answered and again immediately gave the phone to the man who had just told him he was in the apartment building. This time, the man said “I'm flagging you. You see me?” to Khudoykulov.

Khudoykulov looked up and saw at an upstairs window a man waving what appeared to be a bandana. Khudoykulov waited for the customer to come out, but he did not.

Khudoykulov then entered the building and went to the second floor, where he encountered a man with a bandana covering his mouth and half of his nose. At gunpoint, the man took Khudoykulov’s wallet and approximately fifteen dollars in cash.

Khudoykulov mistakenly thought the gun was a fake, and attempted to wrestle it from the man. The assailant fired one shot. Wounded, Khudoykulov sat down and said “Okay, don’t shoot, take anything,” but the man fired several more shots at Khudoykulov before running upstairs. In court, Khudoykulov identified [Appellant] as his assailant.

Commonwealth v. McClelland, 1402 WDA 2011, 60 A.3d 587 (Pa. Super. filed August 31, 2012) (unpublished memorandum at 1–3). We summarized the ensuing procedural history as follows:

The trial court conducted a bench trial on March 18, 2011, trying [Appellant] together with his co-defendant, Pack. It [1]

adjudged him guilty of all charges on March 29, 2011. The trial court sentenced [Appellant] to 20 to 40 years of incarceration for attempted criminal homicide, a concurrent term of imprisonment of seven and a half to 15 years for aggravated assault, a consecutive term of imprisonment of five to 20 years for robbery, and a concurrent term of imprisonment of seven

1 The trial court found Appellant guilty of attempted homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and conspiracy to commit robbery.

and a half to 15 years for conspiracy.[2] [Appellant] filed postsentence motions challenging, inter alia, the weight of the evidence to support his convictions. They were denied by the trial court on August 16, 2011.

Id. at 3–4. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal on August 29, 2011. Both Appellant and the trial court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925. We affirmed the judgment of sentence on August 31, 2012, and our Supreme Court denied further review on April 3, 2013. McClelland, 60 A.3d 587, appeal denied, 432 WAL 2012, 63 A.3d 1245 (Pa. 2013).

Appellant filed a pro se PCRA petition on January 8, 2014. The PCRA court appointed counsel, who filed an amended PCRA petition on May 9, 2014. The Commonwealth filed an answer on August 15, 2014, and a supplemental answer on August 18, 2014. On August 27, 2014, the PCRA court filed a notice of intent to dismiss the PCRA petition pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 907. Counsel filed a motion for leave to amend the amended PCRA petition on September 9, 2014, and a response to the court’s notice of intent to dismiss. In an order dated October 8, 2014, and filed on October 10, 2014, the PCRA court dismissed the PCRA petition without a hearing; the docket does not reflect an order disposing of Appellant’s motion for leave to amend. Appellant filed a notice of appeal on October 29, 2014. Both Appellant and the PCRA court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

2 The resulting aggregate sentence was twenty-five to sixty years of imprisonment.

Appellant raises the following issues for our review:

1. Did the PCRA Court err in failing to find that the sentence of 20 to 40 years’ imprisonment imposed upon [Appellant] for attempted homicide was illegal in that the written information failed to allege that serious bodily injury had resulted and where the record does not reflect that Assistant District Attorney’s oral motion to amend the information was granted prior to the close of evidence?

2. Did the PCRA Court err in failing to find trial counsel ineffective in failing to seek suppression of the photo identification based upon a claim of an unduly suggestive photo array?

3. Did the PCRA Court err in failing to find one or more violations of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), or ineffective assistance of counsel claims based upon Apprendi violations, namely that:

Appellant’s waiver of jury trial was invalid as Appellant was not apprised of his Apprendi rights and counsel was ineffective in failing to raise the issue post-trial or on appeal[.]

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