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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
PENNSYLVANIA
Appellee
v.
MATTHEW BENDEL,
Appellant No. 720 WDA 2015
Appeal from the PCRA Order May 4, 2015,
in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County,
Criminal Division, at No(s): CP-02-CR-0005192-2011.
BEFORE: PANELLA, J., OLSON, J., and PLATT, J.
MEMORANDUM BY PANELLA, J. FILED MAY 06, 2016
Matthew Bendel appeals pro se from the order dismissing his second
petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S.A.
§§ 9541-9546, as untimely.1 We affirm.
____________________________________________
Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
1
Appellant filed his notice of appeal prematurely. Although the trial court
dated its order denying Appellant’s PCRA petition on February 6, 2015, it
was not entered onto the docket until May 4, 2015. See, e.g.,
Commonwealth v. Gordon, 652 A.2d 317, 320-21 (Pa. Super. 1994)
(explaining that an order is not appealable until it is entered on the docket).
See also Pa.R.Crim.P. 114; Pa.R.A.P. 903(a). Appellant filed his notice of
appeal in the lower court on February 24, 2015. The premature filing of the
notice of appeal does not affect the appeal. See Pa.R.A.P. 905(a)(5). We
have amended the appeal paragraph to indicate the correct date.
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On November 9, 2011, Appellant entered a negotiated guilty plea to
multiple counts of sex offenses that he perpetrated upon two minor females
over the course of five years. The sexual encounters with the girls began
when they were just thirteen years old.
The trial court sentenced Appellant in accordance with the plea
agreement to a term of ten to twenty years of imprisonment for the first
count, and no further penalty on the remaining sixteen counts. Appellant
filed neither a post-sentence motion nor a direct appeal.
Appellant filed a timely, counseled PCRA petition, and the
Commonwealth filed an answer. The PCRA court held an evidentiary hearing.
By order entered September 18, 2013, the PCRA court denied relief.
Represented by new counsel, Appellant filed an appeal to this Court in
which he claimed that the trial court erred in concluding that plea counsel
was not ineffective for permitting him to plead guilty to crimes that were not
supported by the factual record. In a memorandum filed on June 11, 2014,
the Court affirmed the PCRA court’s order denying post-conviction relief.
See Commonwealth v. Bendel, 1633 WDA 2013 (Pa. Super., filed June
11, 2014) (unpublished memorandum). On November 18, 2014, our
Supreme Court denied Appellant’s petition for allowance of appeal. See
Commonwealth v. Bendel, 104 A.3d 1 (Pa. 2014) (Table).
Appellant filed his second PCRA petition pro se on January 5, 2015.
The PCRA court issued Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice of intent to dismiss the
petition without a hearing. Appellant did not file a response. The PCRA court
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later denied Appellant’s second PCRA petition as patently untimely. This
appeal follows.
Appellant raises the following issue:
[1] Whether the PCRA court erred in dismissing
Appellant’s pro se PCRA petition filed pursuant to Title 42 Pa.C.S.
§9545(b)(1)(ii), §9545(b)(1)(iii), §9545(b)(2), and
§9543(a)(2)(ii). Whereas [] Appellant made a strong prima
facie showing that a miscarriage of justice occurred?
Appellant’s Brief at 5.
Our scope and standard of review is well-settled.
In PCRA appeals, our scope of review is limited to the findings of
the PCRA court and the evidence on the record of the PCRA
court’s hearing, viewed in the light most favorable to the
prevailing party. Because most PCRA appeals involve questions
of fact and law, we employ a mixed standard of review. We defer
to the PCRA court’s factual findings and credibility
determinations supported by the record. In contrast, we review
the PCRA court’s legal conclusions de novo.
Commonwealth v. Reyes-Rodriguez, 111 A.3d 775, 779 (Pa. Super.
2015) (internal citations and quotations omitted).
Appellant correctly notes that, because this is his second PCRA petition
for post-conviction relief, he must meet a far more stringent standard. “A
second or any subsequent post-conviction request for relief will not be
entertained unless a strong prima facie showing is offered to demonstrate
that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.” Commonwealth v.
Burkhardt, 833 A.2d 233, 236 (Pa. Super. 2003) (en banc) (citations
omitted). In order to address issue, however, we must first determine
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whether the PCRA court correctly determined that Appellant’s second PCRA
petition was untimely filed.
The timeliness of a post-conviction petition is jurisdictional. See
Commonwealth v. Murray, 753 A.2d 201, 203 (Pa. 2000). A petition for
relief under the PCRA, including a second or subsequent petition, must be
filed within one year of the date the judgment is final unless the petition
alleges, and the petitioner proves, that an exception to the time for filing the
petition, set forth at 42 Pa.C.S.A. sections 9545(b)(1)(i), (ii), and (iii), is
met.2 See Commonwealth v. Gamboa-Taylor, 753 A.2d 780, 783 (Pa.
2000); 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545. A PCRA petition invoking one of these statutory
exceptions must “be filed within 60 days of the date the claims could have
____________________________________________
2
The exceptions to the timeliness requirement are:
(i) the failure to raise the claim previously was the result of
interference of 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.A. §§ 9545(b)(1)(i), (ii), and (iii).
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been presented.” Gamboa-Taylor, 753 A.2d at 783; see also 42 Pa.C.S.A.
§ 9545(b)(2).
Appellant’s judgment of sentence became final on December 9, 2011,
when the thirty-day time period for filing a direct appeal to this Court
expired. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3). Therefore, Appellant needed to file
the PCRA petition at issue by December 9, 2012, in order for it to be timely.
Appellant filed the instant petition on January 5, 2015; it is untimely unless
he has satisfied his burden of pleading and proving that one of the
enumerated exceptions applies. See Commonwealth v. Beasley, 741 A.2d
1258, 1261 (Pa. 1999).
Within his brief he claims a newly-discovered evidence claim pursuant
to Section 9545(b)(1)(ii).3 As this Court recently has summarized:
The timeliness exception set forth in Section 9545(b)(1)(ii)
requires a petitioner to demonstrate he did not know the facts
upon which he based his petition and could not have learned
those facts by the exercise of due diligence. Due diligence
demands that the petitioner take reasonable steps to protect his
own interests. A petitioner must explain why he could not have
learned the new fact(s) earlier with the exercise of due diligence.
This rule is strictly enforced. Additionally, the focus of the
exception is focused on the newly discovered facts, not a newly
discovered or newly willing source for previously known facts.
The timeliness exception set forth at Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) has
often mistakenly been referred to as the “after-discovered
____________________________________________
3
Although Appellant also refers to the section 9545(b)(1)(iii) in his
statement of his issue, he provides no argument on this exception to the
PCRA’s time bar.
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evidence” exception. This shorthand reference was a misnomer,
since the plain language of subsection (b)(1)(ii) does not require
the petitioner to allege and prove a claim of “after discovered
evidence.” Rather, as an initial jurisdictional threshold, Section
9545(b)(1)(ii) requires a petitioner to allege and prove that
there were facts unknown to him and that he exercised due
diligence in discovering those facts. See 42 Pa.C.S.A.
§ 9545(b)(1)(ii). Once jurisdiction is established, a PCRA
petitioner can present a substantive after-discovered-evidence
claim. See Pa.C.S.A. § 9543(a)(2)(vi) (explaining that to be
eligible for relief under PCRA, petitioner must plead and prove by
preponderance of the evidence that conviction or sentence
resulted from, inter alia, unavailability at the time of trial of
exculpatory evidence that has subsequently become available
and would have changed the outcome of the trial if it had been
introduced). In other words, the “new facts” exception at:
Subsection (b)(1)(ii) has two components, which must
be alleged and proved. Namely, the petitioner must
establish that: 1) the facts upon which the claim was
predicated were unknown and 2) could not have been
ascertained by the exercise of due diligence. If the
petitioner alleges and proves these two components, then
the PCRA court has jurisdiction over the claim under this
subsection.
Thus the “new facts” exception at Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) does
not require any merits analysis of an underlying after-
discovered-evidence claim.
Commonwealth v. Brown, 111 A.3d 171, 176-77 (Pa. Super. 2015) (some
internal quotation marks and citations omitted; footnote omitted; emphasis
in original).
In dismissing Appellant’s claim, the PCRA court reasoned that
Appellant has failed to plead and prove that the facts upon which
his claim is based were unknown and unknowable even with the
exercise of due diligence. In fact, Appellant fails to state exactly
what evidence was newly discovered. He states that he “was
made aware by the SCI-Para-Legal Department of the newly
discovered evidence contained herein” on December 27, 2014.
Without further clarification, this Court is unable to make a
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searching inquiry as to the validity of Appellant’s claim. This
Court is unable to consider if the evidence was discoverable with
due diligence, if it was material, authentic or would cause a new
trial to likely produce a different result. This Court, therefore,
determined that the after-discovered exception [sic] to the
PCRA’s timeliness requirement could not be applied to this case.
PCRA Court Opinion, 8/26/15, at 5.
Appellant vaguely phrases his newly discovered evidence claim on
appeal. As recognized by the PCRA court, to the extent Appellant raises
claims regarding the effectiveness of counsel during the plea process,
because that claim was disposed of in Appellant’s prior PCRA proceeding, it
is considered “previously litigated” under the PCRA. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. §
9544(a). To the extent Appellant raises claims of trial court error regarding
the discretionary aspects of his sentence, such direct challenges are not
cognizable under the PCRA. See, e.g., Commonwealth ex rel. Dadario v.
Goldberg, 773 A.2d 126 (Pa. 2001); 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9544(b). (In any event,
because Appellant’s negotiated guilty plea contained an agreed to sentence,
he cannot raise a discretionary aspect claim. See Commonwealth v.
Dalberto, 648 A.2d 16 (Pa. Super. 1994).)
The PCRA court correctly concluded that Appellant failed to establish
any exception to the PCRA’s time-bar. The PCRA court therefore properly
dismissed Appellant’s second PCRA petition as untimely filed.
Order affirmed.
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Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 5/6/2016
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Com. v. Bendel, M.
Combined Opinion