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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37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. :
:
:
YAMIL TORRES :
:
Appellant : No. 4051 EDA 2017
Appeal from the PCRA Order November 28, 2017
In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-51-CR-0916741-1993
BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., OLSON, J., and STRASSBURGER*, J.
JUDGMENT ORDER BY LAZARUS, J.: FILED MARCH 25, 2019
Yamil Torres appeals from the order, entered in the Court of Common
Pleas of Philadelphia County, dismissing as untimely his petition filed under
the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. We affirm.
In 1994, Torres was convicted of first-degree murder, third-degree
murder, and related offenses for the shooting deaths of Carlos Santiago and
Robert Velasquez. The court sentenced Torres, who was 20 years old at the
time of the commission of his crimes, to life imprisonment without parole on
the first-degree murder conviction and a consecutive sentence of 10-20 years’
imprisonment on the third-degree murder conviction. On direct appeal, this
Court affirmed his judgments of sentence. Commonwealth v. Torres, 665
A.2d 1303 (Pa. Super. 1995). Torres did not seek review in the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court.
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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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On November 9, 2000, Torres filed his first PCRA petition, which the
court dismissed as untimely. On appeal, this Court affirmed.
Commonwealth v. Torres, 844 A.2d 1290 (Pa. Super. 2003). The
Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Torres’ petition for allowance of appeal.
Commonwealth v. Torres, 852 A.2d 312 (Pa. Super. 2004) (Table).
On August 16, 2012, following the United States Supreme Court’s
decision in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S 460 (2012), Torres filed the instant
PCRA petition. Following the Court’s decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana,
136 S. Ct. 718 (2016), which made its holding in Miller retroactive, Torres
amended his PCRA petition. On November 28, 2017, the PCRA court
dismissed the petition as untimely. On appeal, Torres claims that he was a
“minor” at the time of his offenses because he was under the age of 21, and
that therefore the Miller decision entitles him to relief based on both the
Eighth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the United States
Constitution.
Recently, this Court has rejected these claims. See Commonwealth
v. Lee, 2019 PA Super 64 (Pa. Super. 2019) (en banc) (holding defendant,
who was over age eighteen at the time of her offense, could not invoke Miller
to overcome the PCRA time-bar); see also Commonwealth v.
Montgomery, 181 A.3d 359, 366 (Pa. Super. 2018) (en banc) (“Neither the
Supreme Court of the United States nor our Supreme Court has held that
Miller announced a new rule under the Equal Protection Clause.”).
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The PCRA court, therefore, properly rejected Torres’ effort to extend
Miller to satisfy the new constitutional rule exception to the PCRA time-bar.
42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(iii). We find no error.
Order affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 3/25/19
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