M.P. Dec v. Butler, PA. Clerk of Courts
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Opinion
IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
Matthew P. Dec, : Appellant : : v. : : No. 271 C.D. 2015 Butler, PA. Clerk of Courts : Submitted: June 5, 2015
BEFORE: HONORABLE BERNARD L. McGINLEY, Judge HONORABLE MARY HANNAH LEAVITT, Judge HONORABLE ROCHELLE S. FRIEDMAN, Senior Judge
OPINION NOT REPORTED
MEMORANDUM OPINION BY JUDGE McGINLEY FILED: August 6, 2015 Matthew P. Dec (Dec) appeals the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Butler County (common pleas court) that sustained the preliminary objections of the Clerk of Courts of Butler County (Clerk) and dismissed Dec’s amended complaint.
On February 25, 2014, Dec commenced an action in the common pleas court and alleged that three criminal convictions he received were void because there was no colloquy concerning his waiver of his right to counsel in two of the cases and an inadequate colloquy in the third case. Dec sought declaratory relief from fines and costs as well as the removal of the convictions from his record.
On April 22, 2014, the Clerk preliminarily objected in the form of a demurrer, and averred a lack of jurisdiction, and the failure of a pleading to conform to law or rule. On May 21, 2014, Dec filed an amended complaint “as a Private Attorney General for Violations Against the Universal Law of Void Judgments as Codified by the United States Supreme Court against Citizens of this State.” Amended Complaint, May 21, 2014, (Amended Complaint) at 1. Dec alleged that in each of the three listed criminal cases for which he was convicted, the trial court failed to give a “proper Waiver of Attorney on the record for which cause each of these cases are void judgments.” Amended Complaint, Paragraph No. 1 at 1. Dec demanded that the Clerk produce a proper and constitutional waiver of his right to counsel or enter “summary judgment in his favor for the quashing of the void judgments on his record.” Amended Complaint, Paragraph No. 3 at 2.
On May 22, 2014, the Clerk preliminarily objected to the Amended Complaint. In the first preliminary objection, a demurrer to the Amended Complaint, the Clerk alleged:
1. Plaintiff [Dec] has filed a Complaint that in essence seeks to change three (3) criminal convictions; those being (1) CP-10-CR-1198-2005, (2) CP-10-CR-1320- 2007, and (3) CP-10-CR-42-2006 (appealed at 1508 WDA 2012).
2. For each of the three (3) criminal cases, Plaintiff [Dec] is collaterally attacking the judgment of sentence on constitutional grounds and seeks to have his convictions declared void or overturned by a civil court.
3. What Plaintiff [Dec] is seeking is post-conviction collateral relief.
4. Post-conviction relief is governed by the Pennsylvania Post-Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa.C.S. . . §§9541-9546 and the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure No. [sic] 900-910.
2 5. Under Pennsylvania law, a petition for post- conviction relief must be filed within one (1) year of the date the judgment becomes final. 42 Pa.C.S. . . §9545(a).
6. In the case of CP-10-CR-1198-2005, Plaintiff’s [Dec] criminal judgment became final on December 11, 2008.
7. In the case of CP-10-CR-1320-2007, Plaintiff’s [Dec] criminal judgment became final on February 5, 2009, and the Superior Court denied Plaintiff’s [Dec] appeal on March 7, 2014 (at 1903 WDA 2013).
8. In the case of CP-10-CR-42-2006, Plaintiff’s [Dec] criminal judgment became final on October 16, 2013, when the Pennsylvania Superior Court denied Plaintiff’s [Dec] request for post-conviction relief.
9. It is clear that not only does this Court lack jurisdiction because either the statute of limitations has expired, or only the sentencing Court has jurisdiction over the issues raised by Plaintiff [Dec] in his Complaint.
10. Therefore, to the extent that Plaintiff [Dec] has already raised the same issues in his Petition for Post- Conviction Relief, the decisions of the criminal court bar the re-litigation of the same issues under the doctrine of res judicata. Defendant’s Preliminary Objections to Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint, May 22, 2014, Paragraph Nos. 1-10 at 1-2.
In the second preliminary objection, the Clerk asserted that only the criminal court that had imposed the sentences on Dec had the authority to review the sentence it imposed and grant the relief that Dec sought. The Clerk requested that the Amended Complaint be dismissed with prejudice.
3 In the third preliminary objection, the Clerk asserted that Dec failed to execute a verification, failed to properly divide the pleading into paragraphs, and failed to set forth facts which supported a cause of action in a concise and summary form in compliance with Pa.R.C.P. No. 1019(a).
On September 11, 2014, the common pleas court heard oral argument on the preliminary objections. The Clerk argued that the amended complaint was devoid of facts and that Dec was attempting to collaterally challenge his three criminal convictions. The Clerk also argued that the wrong party was named as the Clerk lacked the authority to accommodate if the relief was granted. Notes of Testimony, September 11, 2014, (N.T.) at 2-3.
Dec argued that because he did not have an attorney and did not waive his right to an attorney, his convictions were null and void. N.T. at 5. He admitted that he was “going back to the convictions” and admitted that the Clerk could do nothing. N.T. at 6. He further admitted that he was attacking the criminal convictions because they were void. N.T. at 6.
By order dated September 11, 2014, the common pleas court sustained all three preliminary objections and dismissed the Amended Complaint with prejudice.
Dec raises1 five issues for this Court’s review:
1 This Court’s review is limited to determining whether on the facts alleged the law states with certainty that no recovery is possible. Hawks v. Hawks v. Livermore, 629 A.2d 270, (Footnote continued on next page…)
4 A- If a malicious individual Tampered with Public Records two days from now and placed this Court on record as ‘Megan’s Law’ offenders convicted 8 years ago, can the ‘one year jurisdictional time bar of the PCRA in any way make valid the obvious void judgment because this court ‘was no longer serving a sentence’?
B-Second, would the Civil Rights victim of illegal violations of the Supreme Law of the Land’s Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments belong in Appellate or Civil Court proceedings?
C-If a Void Judgment is discovered and made manifest at any time in any kind of case, is it to be vacated, or is the Court to say, ‘Too bad for you-hoo. . . ?’
D-If this Court vacated a man’s sentence, and the lower court re-sentenced without even a trial on NEW CHARGES the man on a lower grading of the original charges in Violation of Double Jeopardy . . . would the conviction now be valid because the Superior Court denied hearing ‘Per Curiam’ and the PCRA’s one year is up? . . . .
E- If the lower courts sentenced a man without an attorney, without waiving his Right thereto in violation of Pa. Crim. Rule 121, AND never had given a proper plea colloquy in violation of Code established Due Process, AND convicted him of a crime that by elements he was never guilty of by higher court’s precedence; and upon learning thereof, he is beyond the ‘PCRA Jurisdictional Validation of Void Judgment’s’ one year time bar; is he now without relief? The PCRA having trumped the very Federal and State Constitutions themselves? . . . . (Citations omitted. Emphasis in original.)
(continued…)
271 n.3 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1993). This Court must accept as true all well pled allegations and material facts averred in the complaint as well as inferences reasonably deducible therefrom and any doubt should be resolved in favor of overruling the demurrer. Id.
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