Smith v. Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole

• Decision Date: 24 September 1996
• Parties: Ronald SMITH, Appellant, v. PENNSYLVANIA BOARD OF PROBATION AND PAROLE, Appellee.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 278

683 A.2d 278

546 Pa. 115

Ronald SMITH, Appellant, v. PENNSYLVANIA BOARD OF PROBATION AND PAROLE, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted April 30, 1996.

Decided Sept. 24, 1996.

[546 Pa. 116] John C. Armstrong, for Ronald Smith.

Arthur R. Thomas, Harrisburg, for P.B.P.P.

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

OPINION OF THE COURT

CAPPY, Justice.

We have granted allowance of appeal to review, inter alia, whether a pro se inmate's appeal to the Commonwealth Court, allegedly placed in the prison mailbox prior to the expiration of the applicable filing period, but which was not received by the Commonwealth Court prothonotary within the filing period, is deemed to be timely filed for purposes of Pa.R.A.P. 1514(a). ¹ Subsumed in this issue is whether the Commonwealth Court's decision in Turner v. Board of Probation and Parole, 137 Pa. Commw. 609, 587 A.2d 48 (1991) continues to be valid case law in this Commonwealth. For the reasons which follow, we find that a pro se prisoner's appeal will be deemed to be filed when the inmate places the document in the hands of prison officials or in the prison mailbox, and hereby reject the Commonwealth Court's decision in Turner.

The facts which gave rise to this appeal are as follows. On July 1, 1991, Appellant was sentenced to ten (10) months to five (5) years by the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County for burglary. Appellant was released on parole on March 4, 1992. On July 12, 1993, Appellant was arrested and charged with three violations of his parole after having been arrested by the Philadelphia police on May 17, 1993 and charged with two counts of receiving stolen property. ² At his July 16, 1993 hearing before the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (the "Board"), Appellant, represented by an assistant public defender, admitted that he had committed the three parole violations as charged. ³ Thereafter, on January 12, 1994, the Board recommitted Appellant as a technical violator of his parole and ordered a recalculated maximum term expiration date of October 20, 1996, which added nine (9) months and twenty-six (26) days of delinquent time to Appellant's original maximum term expiration date of December 24, 1995.

By letter dated February 8, 1994, Appellant, acting pro se, petitioned for administrative review of the Board's recalculation order. Appellant argued that the Board erred in recalculating his expiration date, alleging due process violations. On March 16, 1994, the Board mailed its notification, dated March 15, 1994, denying Appellant's petition.

Appellant alleges that on April 14, 1994, and thus, within the thirty day period for filing his appeal from the Board's decision, he placed his petition for review in the mailbox located in the State Correctional Institution at Graterford ("SCI-Graterford"). Evidently, Appellant obtained a Department of Corrections Form DC-138-A Cash Slip ("Cash Slip") which indicates that on that date, the Department of Corrections charged Appellant postage for mail sent to the Prothonotary of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas by first class mail. On April 20, 1994, the Clerk of Quarter Sessions of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas stamped Appellant's petition as having been received ⁴ and transferred it to the Philadelphia Office of the Superior Court. Apparently, the envelope containing the petition, presumably stamped with a postmark, was discarded.

On April 27, 1994, the Superior Court transferred the petition to the Commonwealth Court, which marked it as received on May 2, 1994. By order dated May 5, 1994 the Commonwealth Court dismissed Appellant's appeal as untimely. However, after receiving Appellant's request for reinstatement, the Commonwealth Court reinstated the petition for review by order dated June 3, 1994. In its en banc opinion dated June 15, 1995, the Commonwealth Court dismissed the petition as untimely filed pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1514 and its prior decision in Turner. We granted Appellant's petition for allowance of appeal to determine, inter alia, whether the Commonwealth Court's decision in Turner should remain viable case law in this Commonwealth.

At the outset we note that our rules of appellate procedure are to be "liberally construed to secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every matter to which they are applicable." Pa.R.A.P. 105. Moreover, "[t]he extreme action of dismissal should be imposed by an appellate court sparingly, and clearly would be inappropriate when there has been substantial compliance with the rules and when the moving party has suffered no prejudice." Stout v. Universal Underwriters Insurance Co., 491 Pa. 601, 604, 421 A.2d 1047, 1049 (1980).

The rules governing judicial review of governmental agency determinations are set forth in chapter 15 of our appellate rules. Specifically, Pa.R.A.P. 1512(a)(1) requires that a petition for review be filed with the prothonotary of the appellate court within 30 days after the entry of the order by the governmental agency.

Our rules of appellate procedure allow an exception to the mandate ofRule 1512(a)(1) by permitting an individual to mail his petition for review and have the date of filing be deemed to be the date that the petition is deposited in the mail, rather than the date received by the prothonotary. Specifically, Rule 1514(a) states that "[i]f the petition for review is transmitted to the prothonotary by means of first class mail, the petition shall be deemed received by the prothonotary for the purposes of Rule 121(a) (filing) on the date deposited in the United States mail, as shown on a U.S. Postal Service Form 3817 ("Form 3817") certificate of mailing."

In the case sub judice, the Commonwealth Court quashed Appellant's petition as untimely. To reach its decision, the court relied to a large degree upon the reasons offered in its prior decision in Turner. The Commonwealth Court in Turner addressed the issue of when a pro se prisoner's appeal is deemed to be timely filed. The appellant in Turner, like Appellant here, urged the court to adopt the holding of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 108 S.Ct. 2379, 101 L.Ed.2d 245 (1988). In Houston, the United States Supreme Court deemed an appeal by a pro se prisoner to be filed when it was given to prison authorities for mailing, and thus, essentially adopted a "prisoner mailbox" rule.

The Turner court rejected Houston for three reasons. First, Houston interpreted a Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure and the matter before the Commonwealth Court was pursuant to the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure. Second, the court noted that unlike in Houston, a petitioner appealing a Board order is entitled to counsel in Pennsylvania. Bronson v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 491 Pa. 549, 421 A.2d 1021 (1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 1050, 101 S.Ct. 1771, 68 L.Ed.2d 247 (1981). Therefore, the prisoner had someone who was capable of posting his appeal. Finally, the court found that even if it desired to follow Houston, such a course would be in direct violation of Rule 1514, a rule promulgated by this court. Thus, the Turner court suggested that any revision of that rule would have to come from this court.

The Commonwealth Court, in the case at bar, also rejected Appellant's argument that the Cash Slip was the functional equivalent of Form 3817 and that it was insufficient proof to indicate his date of filing. The court found that the Cash Slip only evinced that money was charged for postage, and that the Cash Slip lacked a docket number and lacked the date that the appeal was mailed to the prothonotary's office, both of which are required by Rule 1514.

Judge Friedman dissented from the majority opinion. In her dissent, Judge Friedman contended that the Cash Slip was sufficient to establish the date of mailing of Appellant's petition for review, especially considering the special circumstances attendant with being incarcerated. In support of her position, Judge Friedman pointed to the decisions in Miller v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 505 Pa. 8, 476 A.2d 364 (1984) and Sheets v. Department of Public Welfare, 84 Pa. Commw. 388, 479 A.2d 80 (1984), in which seemingly untimely appeals have been permitted to proceed, even though the requirements of Rule 1514 were not followed.

Appellant argues before this court that we should adopt the United States Supreme Court's decision in Houston, and thus, reject the Commonwealth Court's decision in Turner. The United States Supreme Court in Houston interpreted Fed.R.A.P. 4(a)(1), relating to the filing of an appeal, and found that a pro se inmate's notice of appeal is to be considered filed at the moment it is delivered to the prison authorities. ⁵ The Supreme Court made particular note of the unique circumstances of a pro se prisoner. The oft quoted passage from Houston regarding this special situation deserves repeating:

The situation of prisoners seeking to appeal without the aid of counsel is unique. Such prisoners cannot take the steps other litigants can take to monitor the processing of their notices of appeal and to ensure that the court clerk receives and stamps their notices of appeal before the 30-day deadline. Unlike other litigants, pro se prisoners cannot personally travel to the courthouse to see that the notice is stamped "filed" or to establish the date on which the court received the notice. Other litigants may choose to entrust their appeals to the vagaries of the mail and the clerk's process for stamping incoming papers, but only the pro se prisoner is forced to do so by his situation. And if other litigants do choose to use the mail, they can at least place the notice directly into the hands of the United States Postal Service (or a private carrier); and they can follow its progress by calling the court to determine whether the notice has been received and...