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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
JEREMY DEVON DICKENS :
:
Appellant : No. 568 MDA 2016
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence March 29, 2016
In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County
Criminal Division at No(s): CP-14-CR-0001465-2015
BEFORE: FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E., RANSOM, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*
MEMORANDUM BY STEVENS, P.J.E.: FILED FEBRUARY 14, 2017
This is an appeal from the judgment of sentence entered by the Court
of Common Pleas of Centre County after Appellant Jeremy Devon Dickens
pled guilty to two counts of the possession of a controlled substance/
contraband by an inmate.1 Appellant raises challenges to the arraignment
process and the lower court’s denial of his suppression motion. We affirm.
On April 2, 2015, Appellant, an inmate residing at the State
Correctional Institute (SCI) at Benner Township, was found in possession of
nineteen individual baggies containing six grams of marijuana as well as four
bags of heroin weighing about 4.06 grams each. Corrections officers
removed the contraband from Appellant’s cell and placed him in restrictive
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1
18 Pa.C.S. § 5123(a)(2).
* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
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housing. Pennsylvania State Trooper Jeffrey Ebeck responded to the prison
and initiated an investigation of this matter. After Trooper Ebeck gave
Appellant his Miranda rights, Appellant made statements incriminating
himself in a drug distribution ring in the prison.
On June 9, 2015, Appellant was charged with the aforementioned
offenses. Appellant filed three pre-trial motions, seeking the suppression of
statements he made to Trooper Ebeck and physical evidence confiscated
from his prison cell. The trial court held two suppression hearings and on
February 23, 2016, the trial court entered an order denying two of
Appellant’s three suppression motions.
On March 29, 2016, in a hearing conducted by the Honorable David E.
Grine, Appellant entered a negotiated guilty plea to two counts of possession
of a controlled substance/contraband by an inmate. In his written colloquy,
Appellant repeatedly acknowledged that he understood that, by pleading
guilty, he was waiving the majority of the issues he could challenge on
appeal. Appellant’s written guilty plea colloquy reads in pertinent part:
[Question 26:] Under the law, you have the right to file certain
pre-trial motions that might improve your chances of being
found not guilty. These include the right to file a motion to
suppress evidence to try to convince the judge that some of the
evidence against you should not be used at trial. By pleading
guilty you may give up some of our pre-trial rights. Do you
understand this?
[Appellant’s written response]: yes
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[Question 27:] If you have already had a hearing on pre-trial
motions, by pleading guilty you give up your right to appeal the
decisions on those motions. Do you understand this?
[Appellant’s written response]: yes
***
[Question 31:] By pleading guilty instead of having a trial, you
give up almost all of your rights to appeal. Do you understand
this?
[Appellant’s written response]: yes
[Question 32:] After you plead guilty, you can appeal to a higher
court for only four reasons:
i. that you were in the wrong Court – the Court that
sentenced you did not have jurisdiction over your
case;
ii. that the judge imposed an illegal or improper
sentence on you;
iii. that the attorney who represented you was
incompetent or ineffective and
iv. that you did not know what you were doing when
you plead guilty, that someone forced you to plead
guilty, or that your guilty plea was not entered
knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily.
Do you understand that when you plead guilty you can only
appeal to a higher Court for one or more of the four reasons
listed above?
[Appellant’s written response]: yes
Guilty Plea Colloquy, 3/29/16, at 3-4. After giving Appellant a brief oral
colloquy, the trial court accepted Appellant’s guilty plea.
The trial court then sentenced Appellant to two concurrent terms of
one to two years’ incarceration to run consecutively with the sentence
Appellant was currently serving. Once the trial court imposed Appellant’s
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sentence, defense counsel petitioned the court to make its suppression order
final, indicating that Appellant wished to appeal it. The following exchange
took place between defense counsel and Judge Grine:
[Defense counsel:] Your Honor, the other thing that my client
wanted to ask you, could you make the suppression motion an
order of the Court so that he could appeal it? That’s up to you.
[The Court:] Fine. I’ll do it. Suppression’s denied, but I’ll do an
opinion.
[Prosecutor:] I’m not even sure that’s of issue since he
accepted a plea.
[Defense counsel:] He asked me.
[The Court:] That’s fine. It’s almost finished anyway, I’ll finish
it.
[Defense counsel:] All right. Thank you, Judge. That’s all we
ask for.
N.T. Sentencing, 3/29/16, at 11. That same day that Appellant entered his
guilty plea and was sentenced, Judge Grine filed an order and opinion
denying Appellant’s omnibus-pretrial motion. Appellant did not file a post-
sentence motion. On April 7, 2016, Appellant filed a notice of appeal and
complied with the trial court’s direction to file a concise statement of errors
complained of on appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b).2
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2
Although defense counsel filed a 1925(b) statement raising four issues on
appeal, defense counsel also filed a “Statement of Intent to File an Anders/
McClendon brief” with respect to two issues he found frivolous. However,
(Footnote Continued Next Page)
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On appeal, Appellant raises two procedural challenges to the
arraignment process and argues that the lower court erred in denying his
suppression motion. However, it is well-established that “upon entry of a
guilty plea, a defendant waives all claims and defenses other than those
sounding in the jurisdiction of the court, the validity of the plea, and what
has been termed the ‘legality’ of the sentence imposed.” Commonwealth
v. Eisenberg, 626 Pa. 512, 525, 98 A.3d 1268, 1275 (2014). As a result of
Appellant’s guilty plea, we agree with the Commonwealth that Appellant’s
claims on appeal pertaining to his arraignment and the denial of his
suppression motion are waived.
While Appellant acknowledges this precedent and concedes that all the
arguments he raises on appeal are technically waived by the entry of his
guilty plea, Appellant claims that this Court should overlook this waiver as
Appellant had an honest expectation that he would be able to appeal the
lower court’s denial of his suppression motion. Appellant points out that
after he pled guilty and was sentenced, Judge Grine agreed to make his
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(Footnote Continued)
counsel would file an Anders brief where after a conscientious review of the
case, counsel finds his case to be wholly frivolous and requests the court’s
permission to withdraw. Commonwealth v. Santiago, 602 Pa. 159, 167–
68, 978 A.2d 349, 354 (2009) (citing Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738,
744, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 1400 (1967)). However, if the court finds there are non-
frivolous issues, the court will deny the petition and remand for the filing of
an advocate's brief. Commonwealth v. Wrecks, 931 A.2d 717, 721
(Pa.Super. 2007). Counsel did not seek to withdraw or file an Anders brief,
but filed an advocate’s brief.
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denial of Appellant’s suppression motion final so that Appellant could
challenge it on appeal. Moreover, Appellant notes that the trial court
discussed all of Appellant’s claims without finding waiver or noting any
objection to the irregularity of this appeal.
However, even if we were to overlook Appellant’s waiver of his
suppression issue, Appellant’s argument clearly fails on the merits.
An appellate court's standard of review in addressing a
challenge to the denial of a suppression motion is limited to
determining whether the suppression court's factual findings are
supported by the record and whether the legal conclusions
drawn from those facts are correct. Because the Commonwealth
prevailed before the suppression court, we may consider only
the evidence of the Commonwealth and so much of the evidence
for the defense as remains uncontradicted when read in the
context of the record as a whole. Where the suppression court's
factual findings are supported by the record, [the appellate court
is] bound by [those] findings and may reverse only if the court's
legal conclusions are erroneous. Where the appeal of the
determination of the suppression court turns on allegations of
legal error, the suppression court's legal conclusions are not
binding on an appellate court, whose duty it is to determine if
the suppression court properly applied the law to the facts. Thus,
the conclusions of law of the courts below are subject to plenary
review.
Commonwealth v. Jones, 121 A.3d 524, 526–27 (Pa.Super. 2015)
(citation omitted).
Appellant claims that his confession to Trooper Ebeck was involuntary
as he was coerced into making the incriminatory statement by the trooper’s
remarks and the presence of several correctional officers in the room. We
review a defendant’s claim that his confession was involuntary based on the
totality of the circumstances. Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 629 Pa. 572,
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591, 105 A.3d 1257, 1268 (2014). When a defendant alleges that his …
confession was involuntary, the question is not whether the defendant would
have confessed without interrogation, but whether the interrogation was so
manipulative or coercive that it deprived the defendant of his ability to make
a free and unconstrained decision to confess. Commonwealth v. Mitchell,
629 Pa. 572, 591, 105 A.3d 1257, 1268 (2014) (quoting Commonwealth v.
Sepulveda, 618 Pa. 262, 310, 55 A.3d 1108, 1137 (2012)).
In this case, when Trooper Ebeck arrived to the prison to question
Appellant regarding the drugs found in his cell, Trooper Ebeck immediately
gave Appellant his Miranda rights. Trooper Ebeck informed Appellant that
he did not have to provide any information and was entitled to a lawyer.
Appellant, however, knowingly waived his Miranda rights and indicated that
he wanted to make a statement in the hopes of receiving leniency for the
crimes. Appellant then confessed to his role in a drug distribution ring in the
prison. The interview lasted at most twenty minutes.
Nonetheless, Appellant specifically argues that Trooper Ebeck coerced
him into confessing by stating that Appellant could not refuse to speak with
him or leave the room. We find that Appellant is mischaracterizing Trooper
Ebeck’s statement informing Appellant that he was obligated to give him
Miranda rights as Appellant’s status as an inmate restricted his ability to be
free to physically leave the interview room. Moreover, we reject Appellant’s
claim that the mere presence of the corrections officers in the interview
room coerced his confession as this conclusion would render all confessions
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made by inmates to be involuntary. We cannot find that Appellant has
presented evidence that he was subject to “interrogation … so manipulative
or coercive that it deprived [Appellant] of his ability to make a free and
unconstrained decision to confess.” See Mitchell, supra.
Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 2/14/2017
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