Commonwealth v. Griffith
| Decision Date | 30 November 2022 |
| Docket Number | 1226 EDA 2021,J-S02015-22 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. JOHN GRIFFITH Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered May 25, 2021 In the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County Criminal Division at No(s) CP-39-CR-0001754-2015
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
BEFORE: OLSON, J., KING, J., and McCAFFERY, J.
Appellant John Griffith, appeals pro se from an order, entered on May 25, 2021 in the Criminal Division of the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County, that dismissed, as an untimely petition for collateral relief under the Post-Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA"),[1] Appellant's petition to vacate his conviction and sentence for failure to comply with sexual offender registration requirements. After careful review, we reverse the order entered on May 25, 2021 and vacate Appellant's conviction and sentence for failure to comply.
On March 6, 2000, Appellant pled guilty in the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County to the attempted rape[2] and indecent assault[3] of his seven-year-old daughter and received a sentence of ten to 20 years' imprisonment. Trial Court Opinion, 7/28/21, at 1-2. Under then-effective Megan's Law I,[4] Appellant's indecent assault conviction triggered a ten-year sex offender registration requirement upon his release from prison.[5] Appellant was granted parole in 2010. Id. at 2. In the ensuing years, the General Assembly amended the sex offender registration statutes. Relevant to this appeal, on December 20, 2012, the Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act ("SORNA I") took effect.[6] SORNA I reclassified Appellant's indecent assault conviction under 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 3126(a)(7) and his attempted rape conviction under 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 901(a) and 3121 as Tier III sexual offenses requiring lifetime registration.[7] See 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9799.14(d)(8), (d)(14) (classifying indecent assault under 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 3126(a)(7) and attempted rape as Tier III offenses, respectively); 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9799.15(a)(3) () ( .
Thereafter, on July 27, 2015, Appellant pled guilty in the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County to failure to comply with registration requirements enacted under SORNA I at 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9799.15(g)(2),[8]graded as a felony of the second degree, for knowingly failing to report a change of residence between January 30, 2015 and February 17, 2015, when he moved from Allentown, Pennsylvania to Reading, Pennsylvania. See Criminal Information, 5/18/15; Negotiated Guilty Plea, 7/27/15. On August 31, 2015, the trial court imposed a sentence of 14 to 36 months' incarceration for this conviction.[9] Appellant filed no post-sentence motions or direct appeal, thus his judgment of sentence became final on October 1, 2015. See Trial Court Opinion, 7/28/21, at 3; 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(3).
On July 19, 2017, our Supreme Court invalidated retroactive application of SORNA I's registration and notification provisions to offenders, like Appellant, who committed their predicate offenses prior to SORNA I's effective date, December 20, 2012. Commonwealth v. Muniz, 164 A.3d 1189, 1193 (Pa. 2017) (), cert. denied sub nom., Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 138 S.Ct. 925 (2018). Specifically, the Court deemed punitive the provisions of SORNA I that "increased the length of registration, contain[ed] mandatory in-person reporting requirements, [] allow[ed] for more private information to be displayed online," and included "additional lesser-graded predicate offenses triggering registration" that did not necessarily contain a sexual component. Id. at 1215-1216, 1218. Because these "additional registration requirements constituted a greater punishment than what Megan's Law would have imposed," their retroactive application violated the federal and state ex post facto clauses.[10]Commonwealth v. Horning, 193 A.3d 411, 417 (Pa. Super. 2018), Muniz, 164 A.3d at 1193-1194, 1216.
Shortly after our Supreme Court issued Muniz, Appellant filed petitions in Northampton County and Lehigh County challenging the validity of his duty to comply with sex offender registration and reporting requirements imposed under SORNA I.[11] Relevant to the current appeal, Appellant filed a petition in Lehigh County on October 6, 2017, which he framed as a "writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum" (hereinafter "2017 petition"). Among other things, Appellant's petition alleged that his claims fell outside the PCRA. In addition, Appellant asserted that, because Muniz declared SORNA I "invalid," no law authorized his conviction for failure to comply. As such, Appellant viewed his detention for failure to comply as unlawful and demanded an immediate release from prison. See generally 2017 Petition, 10/6/17. The trial court appointed the Public Defender's Office to represent Appellant and ordered counsel to file either an amended PCRA petition on behalf of Appellant or a Turner/Finley[12] no-merit letter and motion to withdraw within 90 days of the order. See Trial Court Order, 4/11/18. Counsel did not comply with this directive.
Instead, on August 25, 2020, Appellant filed pro se a petition entitled "petition to enforce plea agreement/writ of habeas corpus" (hereinafter "2020 Petition"). Within his 2020 petition, Appellant reiterated the arguments from his 2017 petition. Additionally, Appellant argued that SORNA I's "expiration provision" validly repealed all prior sex offender registration statutes; thus, Appellant was no longer subject to any registration requirements. See 2020 Petition, 8/25/20, at 3, 5-6. Lastly, he claimed that, because SORNA I was deemed an unconstitutional law, the Muniz decision rendered his plea for failure to comply with registration requirements invalid, void ab initio, and a violation of myriad provisions of the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions. Id. at 6-15.
Eventually, counsel filed a Turner/Finley brief and motion to withdraw on the basis that Appellant's petitions constituted untimely requests for collateral relief that were not subject to a timeliness exception. Turner/Finley Brief at 9-10. Counsel's motion to withdraw also alleged that, even if Appellant's request to enforce his plea agreement fell outside the ambit of the PCRA, Appellant needed to litigate that issue in Northampton County, not Lehigh County. See id. Turner/Finley Brief at 9-10. In the wake of counsel's submission, the trial court issued a Rule 907 notice of its intent to dismiss, to which Appellant did not respond.[13] Ultimately, the court treated Appellant's petition as asserting claims for collateral relief under the PCRA and, for this reason, dismissed those claims as untimely and granted counsel's motion to withdraw. This appeal followed.[14]
At the outset, before we can address Appellant's issues raised on appeal,[15] we must determine whether the trial court properly construed Appellant's petitions under the PCRA, as this implicates our jurisdiction.
Recently, our Supreme Court determined that neither "the PCRA [nor] any other procedural mechanism, is the exclusive method for challenging sexual offender registration statutes[.]"[16] Commonwealth v. Lacombe, 234 A.3d 602, 618 (Pa. 2020); accord Commonwealth v. Moose, 245 A.3d 1121, 1129 n.6 (Pa. Super. 2021) (en banc) (overruling prior holdings requiring petitioners to challenge sex offender registration requirements within a timely PCRA petition). Our Supreme Court has also determined that a challenge to a conviction for failure to comply necessarily requires an evaluation of the conditions of registration applicable to the petitioner. See Commonwealth v. Santana, 266 A.3d 528, 539 n.49 (Pa. 2021) (); see also Commonwealth v. Butler, 226 A.2d 972, 990 (Pa. 2020) ("Butler II") (). Thus, where, as here, a petitioner alleges that his failure to comply conviction stemmed from a violation of conditions unlawfully imposed upon him, Lacombe controls, and the claim may be addressed outside the strict confines of the PCRA as an indirect challenge to the underlying registration requirements.
Appellant's central claim on appeal is that his conviction and sentence for failure to comply cannot be sustained because they rest upon a retroactive application of the punitive notification and registration provisions of SORNA I in violation of the ex post facto clause of the United States Constitution.[17] "[A] conviction based on an unconstitutional statute is a nullity." Commonwealth v. Derhammer, 173 A.3d 723, 728 (Pa. 2017). Moreover, "an offense created by an unconstitutional law is not a crime and a conviction under it is illegal and void and cannot be a legal cause of imprisonment." Id. We therefore review the relevant constitutional principles.
Appellate courts in Pennsylvania recognize that there is a general presumption that all lawfully enacted statutes are constitutional. Commonwealth v. Lee, 935 A.2d 865, 876 (Pa. 2007). Moreover, as this case presents questions of law, our scope of review is plenary and we undertake de novo review of the pertinent legal determinations.
Our Supreme Court has...
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