Com. v. West

• Decision Date: 27 December 2007
• Docket Number: No. 56 WAP 2006.,56 WAP 2006.
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. Sheldon L. WEST, Appellee.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

938 A.2d 1034

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. Sheldon L. WEST, Appellee.

No. 56 WAP 2006.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued September 11, 2006.

Decided December 27, 2007.

Robert A. Willig, Pittsburgh, Amy Leigh Fitzpatrick, for the Com. of PA., appellant.

Herbert A. Terrell, McAbee, Terrell and Associates, Pittsburgh, for Sheldon L. West, appellee.

BEFORE: CAPPY, C.J., CASTILLE, NEWMAN, SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER and BALDWIN, JJ.

OPINION

Justice BAER.

In this case, we granted allowance of appeal to determine whether the Superior Court improperly concluded that habeas corpus relief was available to Appellee Sheldon West, who, for nine years, remained at liberty despite the imposition of a valid criminal sentence after his conviction of various drug crimes and culmination of all appellate proceedings, because the appropriate authorities failed to call and commit him to serve his sentence. The Superior Court, in a published decision, found that West was entitled to habeas corpus relief and discharged him from having to serve his criminal sentence. For the reasons that follow, we now reverse the Superior Court's decision.

The facts are relatively straightforward. On May 10, 1989, West was arrested for selling cocaine. He was charged with possession and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. Approximately one year later, on May 11, 1990, West appeared before the trial court, which heard evidence on West's motion to suppress physical evidence. Following that hearing, the court denied West's prayer for relief. On that same date, the court conducted a bench trial and found West guilty of the crimes charged. Thereafter, on July 17, 1991, West was sentenced to serve a term of twenty-seven to fifty-four months of imprisonment.

New counsel was then hired by West's mother to file an appeal on West's behalf. Accordingly, counsel appealed to the Superior Court, and, simultaneously, sought West's release on bail pending appeal. In his direct appeal, West alleged, inter alia, that the trial court erred in failing to suppress the evidence obtained by police as he asserted they lacked probable cause to arrest him.

On September 11, 1991, the trial court granted West's release on $20,000 bail pending his appeal. West's mother posted her residence as security on the appeal bond and West was released. On June 10, 1992, the Superior Court affirmed West's judgment of sentence in an unpublished decision. Thereafter, his appellate counsel filed a petition for allowance of appeal with our Court, which we denied on March 24, 1993. On April 7, 1993, we remanded the certified record to the Allegheny County Clerk of Courts.

Following the above noted events, and despite West's judgment of sentence becoming final, West was not recalled to serve his sentence in conformity with Pa. R.A.P. 1763, which specifies as follows:

Unless otherwise ordered pursuant to this chapter, upon the remand of the record in any matter in which the judgment of sentence was affirmed, a defendant who has been released pending appeal shall appear in the lower court at such time as the defendant may be there called, and shall be committed by that court until the defendant has complied with the original sentence, or any part thereof which had not been performed at the time the defendant was released pending appeal.

West remained at liberty for nine years, until April 24, 2002, when the matter was brought to the attention of the administrative judge of the criminal division of the common pleas court.¹ Accordingly, on that date, the court issued an arrest warrant for West mandating his return to custody to begin serving his July 17, 1991 sentence. West remained at large until June of 2002, when he was stopped by police for a routine traffic offense. At that time, police discovered the arrest warrant and took West into custody. He was then committed to serve his prior criminal sentence.

Thereafter, West retained new counsel, who, on October 21, 2002, filed a Writ of Habeas Corpus with the common pleas court. In his petition, West raised claims relating to both a violation of his substantive due process rights because of the government's delay in confining him, as well as claims relating to counsel's ineffectiveness for failing to inform him of the outcome of his direct appeal impacting a successful challenge to the legality of the search and seizure underlying his 1990 conviction. Hearings were held before the common pleas court on November 4, 2002 and January 27, 2003. During the course of the initial hearing, counsel for West orally requested that he be given leave to amend his request for relief to include a claim for post-conviction relief pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-46. The trial court granted the request; however, West never amended his pleading and, instead, on March 6, 2003, filed a "Brief in Support of Writ of Habeas Corpus/Post Conviction Relief Petition."

In his brief, West contended that the failure of the courts to summon him promptly to serve his sentence after affirmance and then to recommit him years later was "outrageous conduct which is offensive to the [C]onstitution." In this regard, he also claimed actual prejudice based upon the passage of time, which resulted in his inability to challenge his conviction and sentence because of missing evidence, dead witnesses and lost trial transcripts. Accordingly, he claimed the Commonwealth was estopped from enforcing the judgment of sentence at such late date.

The Commonwealth responded, initially framing their argument in terms of whether West was entitled to relief pursuant to the PCRA, which, in the Commonwealth's view, was the sole means by which West could obtain relief at this stage of the proceedings, i.e., post-conviction. The Commonwealth noted in this regard that West's petition was untimely on its face as a PCRA petition must be filed within one year of the date of final judgment. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1) (Any petition under this subchapter, including a second or subsequent petition, shall be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final). Moreover, the Commonwealth pointed out that West failed to plead any of the applicable exceptions to the time requirements found in Section 9545(b)(1)(i)-(iii) (including, governmental interference, newly discovered evidence and newly recognized retroactive constitutional rights). Accordingly, the Commonwealth contended that relief was not warranted.

The Commonwealth further argued that, even if review pursuant to habeas corpus was permitted, West was not entitled to relief on the merits of his substantive due process claim for several reasons. First, the Commonwealth pointed out that substantive due process rights protect against arbitrary and oppressive exercise of governmental power. Here, West was duly tried, convicted, and sentenced. Although there was substantial delay in finally recommitting West, there was nothing arbitrary about it. The Commonwealth conceded that although the delay was significant, it was due merely to negligence, not outrageous governmental conduct.

Further, the Commonwealth contended that West suffered no prejudice from the delay. Specifically, the Commonwealth contended that rather than do something constructive with his life while he remained erroneously at liberty, West continued his life of crime, having been convicted of drunk driving, and cocaine possession in Allegheny County and felony drug charges in Westmoreland County. The Commonwealth also disputed West's contention that he was unaware that his conviction had been sustained on appeal.

Thereafter, the trial court denied West's request for relief. Without examining whether West was entitled to habeas corpus relief or whether the PCRA provided the sole means for relief as contended by the Commonwealth, the trial court examined the merits of West's claim that the delay in committing him to serve his sentence violated his substantive due process rights. In this regard, the court examined the Superior Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Blair, 699 A.2d 738 (Pa.Super.1997), where the court similarly examined whether pre-incarceration delay prejudiced the defendant thus entitling him to dismissal of his judgment of sentence. Defendant Blair was released on a $50,000 appeal bond following his conviction and sentencing. At the completion of a direct appeal resulting in affirmance of the conviction and sentence, the record was remanded to the common pleas court. Because the bond papers were missing from the record, the court was unaware that Blair remained at large on bond and, accordingly, the court did not recall him to begin serving his sentence. Two years later, the mistake was discovered, and, following his return to custody, the court committed Blair requiring that he serve his sentence.

Blair filed a motion to dismiss and/or vacate his judgment of sentence, arguing that he was prejudiced by the delay between the denial of his appeal and his incarceration. The trial court denied relief and the Superior Court affirmed. Concluding that Blair was not entitled to relief, the Superior Court noted that it would "not allow the court system's inadvertent error to cancel any part of Blair's punishment for the crimes for which he was justly convicted and sentenced. Society has an interest in knowing that its criminals are serving the punishment to which they have been sentenced, regardless of an unintended delay or negligent error attributable to the government." Blair, 699 A.2d at 743. In addressing Blair's due process claim, the court stated that "we are not confronted here with conduct so `affirmatively improper or grossly negligent' by the government that due process is violated. . . ." Id. at 745.

As noted, the trial court in the matter sub judice, likewise denied West relief on the merits of his substantive due process claim raised in the context of habeas corpus, concluding...