Commonwealth of Pa. v. Watts

• Decision Date: 28 April 2011
• Citation: 23 A.3d 980
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellantv.Edward WATTS, Appellee.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

23 A.3d 980

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant

v.Edward WATTS, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted April 26, 2010.Decided April 28, 2011.

Hugh J. Burns, Jr., Ronald Eisenberg, Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, Philadelphia, for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.Edward Watts, pro se.BEFORE: CASTILLE, C.J., SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER, TODD, McCAFFERY, ORIE MELVIN JJ.

OPINION

Justice ORIE MELVIN.

We granted allowance of appeal to determine whether a judicial opinion qualifies as a previously unknown “fact” capable of triggering the timeliness exception codified at section 9545(b)(1)(ii) of the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541–9546, which applies 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.” The Superior Court found that a serial PCRA petition was timely under section 9545(b)(1)(ii) because it had been filed less than sixty days after we rendered our decision in Commonwealth v. Bennett, 593 Pa. 382, 930 A.2d 1264 (2007), and the petitioner, Edward Watts, exercised due diligence in ascertaining the status of his counseled direct appeal, which was dismissed in 2002 for failure to file a docketing statement. For the reasons that follow, we hold that the Superior Court misapplied section 9545(b)(1)(ii) and the PCRA court properly determined that Watts's petition was untimely filed. Accordingly, we reverse the Judgment of the Superior Court.

Watts was convicted of first-degree murder and numerous other offenses on November 5, 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He filed a timely direct appeal, which, as noted, the Superior Court dismissed for failure to file a docketing statement. Defense counsel was directed to certify to the court within ten days that he had notified Watts of the dismissal, but he never filed the required certification.

Throughout 2002 and 2003, Watts, who is illiterate, sought information regarding the status of his direct appeal. On August 14, 2003, the Superior Court advised him that the appeal had been dismissed in August 2002 because his attorney neglected to file a docketing statement. Within sixty days of receiving that notice, Watts filed a pro se PCRA petition seeking reinstatement of his appellate rights nunc pro tunc. New counsel was appointed and filed a “no merit” letter on May 25, 2004, averring that the petition was untimely and that no filing exceptions were applicable. The PCRA court agreed and dismissed the petition on July 29, 2004. Watts then filed a pro se appeal.

The Superior Court affirmed on August 9, 2005 in an unpublished opinion. Observing that the PCRA's filing restrictions are mandatory and jurisdictional in nature, the Superior Court found that it was constrained to deny relief because the petition was untimely on its face: Watts's judgment of sentence became final on September 3, 2002, and his petition was not filed until October 1, 2003.¹ It also refused to apply the timeliness exception at section 9545(b)(1)(ii) on the rationale that Watts failed to exercise due diligence in determining the status of his appeal and in presenting his claim on collateral review. As to the latter point, the court noted that “by [his] own admission, [Watts] still had more than two weeks to file a timely PCRA petition when he discovered that his direct appeal had been dismissed, yet failed to act in a timely fashion.” Commonwealth v. Watts, 885 A.2d 587 (Pa.Super.2005) (unpublished memorandum at 6).

Watts did not appeal that decision. Instead, he filed a second PCRA petition, on December 5, 2007, raising the same issue presented in his first petition, i.e., that his direct appeal rights should be reinstated because his attorney abandoned him on direct appeal. He conceded that his petition was untimely but asserted that in light of our decision in Bennett, his original claim could be reviewed on the merits pursuant to section 9545(b)(1)(ii). After giving Watts appropriate notice of its intention to dismiss the petition without a hearing, the PCRA court denied relief on May 15, 2008.

Watts appealed to the Superior Court, which reversed and remanded for reinstatement of his appellate rights. Unlike the first Superior Court panel, which held that Watts should have inquired about the status of his direct appeal much earlier, the second panel found that Watts exercised due diligence at all times. In doing so, the second panel emphasized that Watts is illiterate, that he was completely abandoned by counsel on direct appeal, that he initiated efforts to ascertain the status of the appeal in 2002, and that he filed his first PCRA petition within sixty days of the date on which he discovered that the appeal had been dismissed. Given these facts, the second panel concluded that this case bore many similarities to Bennett, and, therefore, it would be unjust to deny relief to an individual whose first PCRA petition was denied based on the faulty premise that appellate rights can never be restored after the one-year filing deadline has expired. Accordingly, the second panel declared Watts's second petition timely under section 9545(b)(1)(ii) because it was filed less then sixty days after Bennett was published.

We granted the Commonwealth's petition for allowance of appeal to determine whether subsequent decisional law such as Bennett can amount to a new “fact” under section 9545(b)(1)(ii) of the PCRA.² As the appeal presents a question of law, we exercise plenary review. See Commonwealth v. Brown, 596 Pa. 354, 943 A.2d 264, 266 (2008).

The PCRA is the sole means of obtaining collateral relief on issues that are cognizable under the statute, see 42 Pa.C.S. § 9542, and we have held on numerous occasions that the PCRA time restrictions are jurisdictional in nature; consequently, Pennsylvania courts may not entertain untimely PCRA petitions. See Commonwealth v. Robinson, 575 Pa. 500, 837 A.2d 1157, 1161 (2003); Commonwealth v. Brown, 596 Pa. 354, 943 A.2d 264, 267 (2008). Furthermore, we have observed that the statute “confers no authority upon this Court to fashion ad hoc equitable exceptions to the PCRA time-bar in addition to those exceptions expressly delineated in the Act.” Robinson, 837 A.2d at 1161 (quoting Commonwealth v. Eller, 569 Pa. 622, 807 A.2d 838, 845 (2002)). The time restrictions in the existing statutory scheme are reasonable and accord finality to the collateral review process. Commonwealth v. Peterkin, 554 Pa. 547, 722 A.2d 638, 642–43 (1998).

As noted above, the one-year filing deadline is not absolute. The PCRA contains three narrow exceptions that enable petitioners to assert claims after the deadline has passed. The exception at issue herein, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b), states in relevant part:

(b) Time for filing petition.—

(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, unless the petition alleges and the petitioner proves that:

....

(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

....

(2) Any petition invoking an exception provided in paragraph (1) shall be filed within sixty days of the date the claim could have been presented.

42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)-(2).

The Commonwealth contends that the Superior Court improperly characterized our decision in Bennett as a newly-discovered fact under section 9545(b)(1)(ii) in order to circumvent the PCRA time-bar and re-examine a claim that was previously litigated in 2005. The decision cannot stand, the Commonwealth argues, because it defies logic and conflicts with Commonwealth v. Hackett, 598 Pa. 350, 956 A.2d 978 (2008), where we held that the grant of a new trial to the petitioner's codefendant did not constitute a newly-discovered fact within the meaning of section 9545(b)(1)(ii). The Commonwealth asserts that while a judicial opinion may establish a new theory or method of obtaining relief on collateral review, it does not fall within the purview of section 9545(b)(1)(ii) because it does not form an independent basis for a new claim; the legal principles derived from the opinion must be applied to a set of pre-existing facts.³ See Commonwealth brief at 10. Consistent with this view, it maintains that the Superior Court erred in finding that Watts's second PCRA petition was timely under section 9545(b)(1)(ii) because his claim is predicated not upon Bennett but upon the dismissal of his direct appeal, which was revealed to him in 2003.

Watts replies that his second PCRA petition should be reviewed on the merits because his first petition was erroneously denied under pre- Bennett case law which held that appellate rights could never be restored after the PCRA filing deadline had expired. Since this Court modified that rule in Bennett, he argues that Bennett qualifies as a previously-unknown “fact” under section 9545(b)(1)(ii). To hold otherwise, Watts contends, would unfairly deprive him of his constitutional right to file a direct appeal from the judgment of sentence. In leveling this argument, Watts maintains that he made every effort to obtain relief through his first PCRA petition, but, as an illiterate prisoner with limited access to legal research materials, he could not have foreseen our ruling in Bennett, which announced a significant departure from prior decisional law applying the PCRA time-bar.

We begin our analysis with Bennett. In that case, the defendant was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993. No direct appeal was filed. In 1995, the defendant filed a timely post-conviction petition under the predecessor to the PCRA claiming, inter alia, that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to a jury instruction and for failing to file a notice of appeal following imposition of sentence. The petition...