Commonwealth v. Murphy

180 A.3d 402
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedFebruary 20, 2018
DocketNo. 541 MDA 2017
StatusPublished
Cited by198 cases

This text of 180 A.3d 402 (Commonwealth v. Murphy) 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
Commonwealth v. Murphy, 180 A.3d 402 (Pa. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

OPINION BY BENDER, P.J.E.:

Appellant, Edgar B. Murphy, Jr., appeals pro se from the post-conviction court's March 9, 2017 order denying, as untimely, his petition under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541 - 9546. For the following reasons, we affirm.

Briefly, in February of 2007, Appellant was convicted, following a jury trial, of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, and indecent assault committed against his 33-year-old daughter. On November 8, 2007, Appellant was sentenced to an aggregate term of 7 to 20 years' incarceration. This Court affirmed his judgment of sentence on direct appeal, and our Supreme Court denied Appellant's subsequent petition for allowance of appeal on April 29, 2009. Commonwealth v. Murphy , 965 A.2d 299 (Pa. Super. 2008) (unpublished memorandum), appeal denied , 601 Pa. 677, 970 A.2d 429 (2009). Accordingly, Appellant's judgment of sentence became final on July 28, 2009, at the conclusion of the ninety-day time-period for seeking review with the United States Supreme Court. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(3) (stating that a judgment of sentence becomes final at the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking the review); Commonwealth v. Owens , 718 A.2d 330, 331 (Pa. Super. 1998) (directing that under the PCRA, petitioner's judgment of sentence becomes final ninety days after our Supreme Court rejects *404his or her petition for allowance of appeal since petitioner had ninety additional days to seek review with the United States Supreme Court).

Between 2009 and 2015, Appellant filed several PCRA petitions, all of which were denied. He filed the present, pro se petition on August 4, 2016, as well as multiple amendments/supplements to that petition, containing nearly 200 pages of argument. Ultimately, the PCRA court issued a Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice of its intent to dismiss Appellant's petition, to which he filed several pro se responses. On March 9, 2017, the court issued the order denying Appellant's petition.

Appellant filed a timely, pro se notice of appeal with this Court. He also timely complied with the PCRA court's order to file a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) concise statement of errors complained of on appeal. In that five-page document, Appellant presented at least 33 issues and sub-issues. In his brief to this Court, Appellant sets forth 25 claims for our review.

However, before we may address the merits of any of those issues, we must begin by examining the timeliness of Appellant's petition, because the PCRA time limitations implicate our jurisdiction and may not be altered or disregarded in order to address the merits of a petition. Commonwealth v. Bennett , 593 Pa. 382, 930 A.2d 1264, 1267 (2007). Under the PCRA, any petition for post-conviction relief, including a second or subsequent one, must be filed within one year of the date the judgment of sentence becomes final, unless one of the following exceptions set forth in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii) applies:

(b) Time for filing petition.-
(1) Any petition under this subchapter, including a second or subsequent petition, shall be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final, unless the petition alleges and the petitioner proves that:
(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)(i)-(iii). Any petition attempting to invoke one of these exceptions "shall be filed within 60 days of the date the claim could have been presented." 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(2).

Here, Appellant's judgment of sentence became final in 2009 and, thus, his present petition filed in 2016 is facially untimely. Consequently, for this Court to have jurisdiction to review the merits of his claims, Appellant must prove that he meets one of the exceptions to the timeliness requirements set forth in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b).

Appellant fails to meet this burden. In his brief, Appellant presents a 58-page "Argument" section that is not clearly divided into identifiable issues. Instead, Appellant intermixes various claims together in an incoherent fashion, moving from assertions of trial counsel's ineffectiveness, to allegations of due process violations, to accusations that the trial court and the Commonwealth committed fraud. Most problematically, however, Appellant only *405occasionally mentions the PCRA's timeliness exceptions, see, e.g. , Appellant's Brief at 20, without developing any meaningful argument regarding which exception applies and why. Accordingly, Appellant has failed to demonstrate that the PCRA court erred by denying his untimely petition. See Commonwealth v. Ragan , 592 Pa. 217, 923 A.2d 1169, 1170 (2007) ("This Court's standard of review regarding an order denying a petition under the PCRA is whether the determination of the PCRA court is supported by the evidence of record and is free of legal error.").

We also point out that during the pendency of his appeal, Appellant filed with this Court at least 12 pro se motions, requesting various (and oftentimes unintelligible) forms of relief. While most of those motions were disposed of by per curiam orders, three of them are still pending. Specifically, we must dispose of Appellant's "Motion for Application for Special Relief Pursuant to 42 Pa.R.Crim.P.

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Bluebook (online)
180 A.3d 402, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-murphy-pasuperct-2018.