Commonwealth v. Andrews
Decision Date | 18 December 2020 |
Docket Number | No. 3452 EDA 2019,3452 EDA 2019 |
Citation | 245 A.3d 1084 (Table) |
Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. David ANDREWS, Appellant |
Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Appellant, David Andrews, appeals from the order entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County dismissing his petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA"), 42 Pa. §§ 9541-9546, as untimely.
Herein, Appellant contends the court erred in failing to grant his petition seeking specific performance of his negotiated guilty plea, which called for his sentence on one count of robbery to run concurrently to a sentence of back time he was serving for violating parole in his prior cases. The Commonwealth agrees Appellant is entitled to receive the benefits of his negotiated sentence notwithstanding the fact it was one which the law did not permit. After careful review and consideration of controlling precedent, we vacate and remand.
On March 6, 2015, while on parole, Appellant entered a Philadelphia clothing store keeping his hand in his coat pocket as if he held a gun and demanded all the money from the register and in the employees’ possession. Appellant secured $572 cash and fled from the store, only to be arrested moments later by police.
Charged with robbery, receiving stolen property, terroristic threats with intent to terrorize another, simple assault, and recklessly endangering another person, Appellant entered a negotiated guilty plea whereby, in exchange for his plea to robbery, his remaining charges would be nolle prossed and he would receive a two and one-half to five-year prison sentence, followed by three years’ probation, to run concurrently with any back time sentence imposed in his upcoming parole violation hearing. On June 10, 2015, the court accepted the plea and imposed the agreed-upon sentence:
N.T., 6/10/15, at 7. The sentencing order provides, "Sentence to Run Concurrent to Back Time." Sentencing Order, 6/10/15. Appellant filed no post-sentence motion or direct appeal.
On November 2, 2015, the court presided over Appellant's revocation hearing, found him in violation of his parole in his prior cases, and sentenced him to serve back time. On November 13, 2015, the Department of Corrections ("DOC") recalculated Appellant's sentence on those cases, arriving at a new maximum date of October 3, 2020. After crediting Appellant's back time sentence with pre-trial incarceration time served from time March 31, 2015 to June 10, 2015, the DOC calculated Appellant's new earliest re-parole date as July 18, 2017. It was on this date that Appellant was re-paroled.
Despite the trial court's order calling for the present robbery sentence to run concurrently with the back time sentence, the DOC calculated it to run consecutively in conformance with the 61 Pa.C.S. § 6138(a)(5)(i) ( ). Therefore, the DOC commenced the running of Appellant's present sentence on July 19, 2017. After giving Appellant time credits from his arrest date of March 7, 2015 to March 30, 2015, and June 11, 2015 to September 27, 2015, the DOC set Appellant's minimum sentence date at September 7, 2019 and maximum sentence date of March 7, 2022.
On November 13, 2017, Appellant filed the present PCRA petition asserting that it was not until August of 2017 that he first learned his present sentence was run consecutively to his back time, in contravention of his negotiated guilty plea. Seeking enforcement of the negotiated plea terms, he asked the court to vacate the present sentence and impose a new sentence reflecting the intent of all parties agreeing to and accepting his guilty plea.
The Court appointed counsel, who filed an amended petition claiming Appellant's patently untimely petition for relief nevertheless qualified for review under both the governmental interference and newly discovered fact exceptions to the PCRA time-bar. In response, the Commonwealth filed a brief positing that Appellant was entitled to an evidentiary hearing to determine the cognizabilty of his claim, which appeared to be outside the aegis of the PCRA and, thus, not subject to its time restrictions.
On October 2, 2019, the PCRA court issued its notice of intent to dismiss Appellant's petition pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 907. Appellant filed a response asserting his claim should not be dismissed because it was not cognizable under the PCRA. On October 31, 2019, the PCRA court dismissed the petition as untimely. This timely appeal followed.
Appellant raises the following issue on appeal:
If the Appellant entered into a negotiated plea with the district attorney, which included the important provision that his sentence would run concurrently with his "back time," and this was clearly stated at sentencing and agreed to by the sentencing judge and district attorney, when in fact, under Pennsylvania law, the sentence had to run consecutively with his "back time," would this run afoul of the Appellant's constitutional rights and deprive him of the sentence he had negotiated in good faith?
Appellant's brief, at 5 (emphasis omitted).
Though Appellant delineated his petition for specific enforcement of the negotiated plea agreement as a PCRA petition, precedent holds that such a claim is contractual in nature and, thus, lies beyond the ambit of the PCRA. As this Court recently explained:
Commonwealth v. Kerns , 220 A.3d 607, 611–12 (Pa.Super. 2019).
Thus, we must find the lower court erred in reviewing and dismissing Appellant's petition as one governed by the PCRA, and we are constrained to address the merits of Appellant's claim for specific enforcement of his negotiated plea terms. In this regard, we observe the following:
"When a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said...
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