Com. v. Gamboa-Taylor

Citation562 Pa. 70,753 A.2d 780
PartiesCOMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Paul GAMBOA-TAYLOR, Appellant.
Decision Date19 June 2000
CourtPennsylvania Supreme Court

Robert Brett Dunham, Christina Swarns, Philadelphia, for Paul Gamboa-Taylor.

Christy Fawcett, Robert A. Graci, Harrisburg, for Office of Atty. Gen.

Before FLAHERTY, C.J., and ZAPPALA, CAPPY, CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN and SAYLOR, JJ.

OPINION

NEWMAN, Justice.

This is an appeal from the denial of the second petition of Paul Gamboa-Taylor (Appellant) for post-conviction relief pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. Because Appellant's petition is untimely, we affirm the trial court.

This Court previously summarized the facts of this case as follows:

[O]n May 18, 1991, Appellant, his wife Valerie, and their three minor children, Paul, Jasmine and Rockelle, lived in York, Pennsylvania, with Valerie's mother, Donna Barshinger, and Donna's infant son Lance. Appellant came home that night at approximately 1:00 a.m. and found everyone asleep, except for Valerie who was out.
Despondent over his drug addiction and his wife's indifference to his narcotics dependency, Appellant went to his tool box and retrieved a ball-peen hammer. Appellant, armed with this hammer and a kitchen knife, first went to the bedroom of his sleeping mother-in-law, Donna, and hammered her three times in the head and then slit her throat and face with the knife, killing her. Leaving her blood-soaked body, he turned his attention to Donna's two-year-old baby, Lance. Lance was bludgeoned to death with the hammer, which Appellant used on the left side of the child's head at least five times until he bled through the mattress and onto the bedroom floor. Across the hall from Donna's and Lance's bedroom Appellant's three children, Jasmine, Paul, and Rockelle, were asleep in another bedroom. Appellant entered this room and attacked two year old Jasmine and four year old Paul. Jasmine sustained three hammer blows to the head and Paul was subjected to being hammered five times in the head. Neither child survived. Rockelle, the youngest child, however, was spared and placed by Appellant unharmed in the living room, where he and little Rockelle waited eleven hours, or until noon, for Valerie's return.
Valerie was with a friend, Tina Smith, from about 9:00 p.m. the previous evening until noon when Tina brought Valerie home so that she could pick up a pair of slacks. Once Valerie was inside the house, however, Appellant went to Tina's car and told her that Valerie would give her the slacks later that day and Tina left. Appellant then hammered Valerie to death, tied a green plastic bag over her head to gather the blood and added her lifeless body to the carnage, placing it beside the body of Jasmine, whose corpse had been covered with a white sheet and pillows.
Appellant then hid the hammer under the kitchen sink and attempted to commit suicide by slashing his wrists and stabbing himself in the abdomen. When neither of these attempts brought about death, Appellant tried to electrocute himself in the bathtub with an electric hairdryer. Finally, Appellant called 911 for help and the police were dispatched to the source of the call.
Upon arriving, the police could hear screaming in the house and broke in to find Appellant naked in the bathtub and blood everywhere along with Appellant's victims and little Rockelle. Appellant was hospitalized for his injuries and survived. During his subsequent incarceration, Appellant wrote a letter of confession to the police on June 15, 1991, admitting his guilt, stating his intent to kill his victims and identifying the order in which the killings occurred.1

On December 19, 1991, following full oral and written plea colloquies, Appellant entered a general plea to criminal homicide for the brutal murders of his wife, his two minor children, his mother-in-law and her infant child. The trial court conducted a degree of guilt hearing on January 10, 1992. At the commencement of the degree of guilt hearing, the trial court engaged in a second colloquy, which addressed Appellant's decision not to present any defense to the Commonwealth's charges. After entry of the Commonwealth's evidence, the trial court found Appellant guilty of five counts of first-degree murder. During the penalty phase proceedings on Appellant's capital murder convictions that followed, the trial court conducted a third colloquy, this time addressing Appellant's decision not to present any evidence of mitigating circumstances or to in any way defend the Commonwealth's request for a sentence of death. After hearing the Commonwealth's evidence regarding aggravating circumstances, the trial court determined that a penalty of death was appropriate for four of the murder convictions and that a penalty of life imprisonment was appropriate for the remaining murder conviction. In his automatic direct appeal to this Court, Appellant presented no claim of error and, on December 9, 1993, this Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court. Commonwealth v. Gamboa-Taylor, 535 Pa. 266, 634 A.2d 1106 (1993).

On January 13, 1997, Appellant, proceeding pro se, filed his first petition for collateral review under the PCRA.2 The PCRA court appointed counsel, who filed an amended PCRA petition. In the amended PCRA petition, Appellant alleged that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to override Appellant's decisions as to trial strategy at the penalty stage, specifically, Appellant's demand that trial counsel not present mitigating evidence or defend the Commonwealth's request for the imposition of a death sentence. The PCRA court conducted hearings on the matter, at which Appellant and trial counsel testified. The PCRA court denied Appellant's PCRA petition concluding that trial counsel had advised Appellant properly concerning all aspects of the criminal proceedings, and in particular, that trial counsel informed Appellant that the trial court would likely impose a death sentence if Appellant chose not to present mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of his trial. Furthermore, the PCRA court noted that the trial court had required psychological and psychiatric evaluations of Appellant prior to the entry of his guilty plea, which evaluations established that Appellant was competent to stand trial and was able to fully comprehend the consequences of not presenting evidence as to mitigating circumstances. The PCRA court concluded that Appellant did not present evidence to establish that he was incapable of making knowing and intelligent decisions and that trial counsel could not be deemed ineffective for not overriding Appellant's directives. This Court affirmed the decision of the PCRA court on August 20, 1998. Commonwealth v. Gamboa Taylor, 553 Pa. 144, 718 A.2d 743 (1998).

On February 5, 1999, Appellant, through current counsel, filed a document with the PCRA court captioned: "Amended Petition for Habeas Corpus Relief Pursuant to Article I, Section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution and 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6503 and Statutory Post Conviction Relief under 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9542 et seq. and Consolidated Memorandum of Law."3 On March 22, 1999, the Commonwealth filed a motion to dismiss the petition without a hearing asserting that the document filed by Appellant was a second PCRA petition, which was filed untimely pursuant to 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 9545(b). The PCRA court dismissed the petition without a hearing. The PCRA court, however, vacated its initial order and conducted a hearing solely for purposes of addressing the issue of timeliness. After the hearing, the PCRA court concluded that Appellant's petition was a second PCRA petition and that the petition must be dismissed as untimely. Appellant now appeals the dismissal of his second PCRA petition to this Court. Because Appellant filed his second PCRA petition after the January 16, 1996 effective date of the 1995 amendments, those amendments, which establish a time limitation for the bringing of PCRA petitions, apply in the instant case. See Commonwealth v. Laird, 555 Pa. 629, 726 A.2d 346 (1999)

. In accordance with the 1995 amendments, a petition for PCRA relief must be brought within one year of final judgment on the petitioner's case.4 A judgment becomes final at the conclusion of direct review by this Court or the United States Supreme Court, or at the expiration of the time for seeking such review. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3).

Moreover, the 1995 amendments afford three narrow exceptions to the one-year time limitation for seeking PCRA relief. One of the exceptions provides that a party is excused from the general one-year filing requirement of the PCRA if "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." 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1)(ii). This exception has come to be known as the after-discovered evidence exception. See Commonwealth v. Yarris, 557 Pa. 12, 731 A.2d 581, 592 (1999)

(characterizing 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(ii) as "the after-discovered evidence exception to the timeliness requirement"); Commonwealth v. Peterkin, 554 Pa. 547, 722 A.2d 638, 643 (1998) (stating that "the exceptions to [PCRA] filing period encompass government misconduct, after-discovered evidence, and constitutional changes"). Furthermore, as a secondary proviso, the amendments mandate that when a petitioner alleges entitlement to an exception to the one-year time limitation, the petition will only be addressed on substantive grounds if it is "filed within 60 days of the date the claim could have been presented." 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(2). Thus, a petitioner relying on the after-discovered evidence exception is further required to file his or her PCRA petition within 60 days of the discovery of the new evidence proffered in support of relief.

It is also important to note that the time limitations of the 1995 amendments are...

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