Boyd v. Pa. Sent'g Scheme

311 A.3d 63

Francis BOYD and David Bradley, Petitioners

v.PENNSYLVANIA’S SENTENCING SCHEME FOR SENTENCING 18 YEAR OLD’S TO MANDATORY LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE Attorney General, Respondent

No. 543 M.D. 2022

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted on Briefs December 4, 2023

Decided February 16, 2024

Original Jurisdiction

Francis Boyd and David Bradley, Petitioners, Pro Se.

Karen M. Romano, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Harrisburg, for Respondent.

BEFORE: HONORABLE ANNE E. COVEY, Judge, HONORABLE STACY WALLACE, Judge, HONORABLE MARY HANNAH LEAVITT, Senior Judge

OPINION BY JUDGE COVEY

Before this Court are the Office of Attorney General’s (AG) preliminary objections (Preliminary Objections) to Francis, Boyd’s (Boyd) and David Bradley’s (Bradley). (collectively, Petitioners) pro se petition for review filed in this Court’s original jurisdiction (Petition). After review, this Court sustains the AG’s Preliminary Objection¹ and dismisses the Petition with prejudice.

[1] Petitioners are inmates currently incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Chester.² Boyd was convicted, inter alia, of second-degree murder, an offense he committed when he was 18 years old.³ See Petition at 11; see also Commonwealth v. Boyd, 2018 WL 3616364 (Pa. Super. No. 2104 EDA 2017, filed July 30, 2018) (Boyd I). As a result of his conviction, Boyd is serving a mandatory sentence of life without parole (LWOP). See Petition at 11; see also Boyd I.

On June 25, 2012, the United States (U.S.) Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012), that "mandatory [LWOP] for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution’s (Eighth Amendment)⁴] prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments."⁵ Id. at 465, 132 S.Ct. 2455 (quotation marks omitted). On January 7, 2016, in Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190, 136 S.Ct. 718, 193 L.Ed.2d 599 (2016), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Miller was a new substantive constitutional rule that was retroactive on state collateral review. See Commonwealth v. Cobbs, — Pa. —, 256 A.3d 1192 (2021).

Among various amended filings Boyd made between May 2012 and August 2016 in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas (trial court/PCRA court), he sought relief under the. Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA)⁶ pursuant to Miller.⁷ See Boyd I. However, on May 30, 2017, the trial court denied Boyd’s PCRA filings as untimely and, on July 30, 2018, the Penn- sylvania Superior Court affirmed the trial court’s denials on appeal. See Boyd I. On August 28, 2018, Boyd filed a petition for allowance of appeal in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court denied on July 2, 2019. See Commonwealth v. Boyd, 216 A.3d 227 (Pa. 2019). Thereafter,⁸ according to the Petition, Boyd filed an Application for Permission to File a Second or Successive Petition Pursuant to Section 2254(b) of the U.S. Code, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b) (relating to federal habeas corpus applications) (Application), in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which that court denied on January 14, 2022.⁹ See Petition at. 2.

On November 14, 2022, Petitioners filed the Petition in this Court, asserting that Pennsylvania’s scheme under which 18-year-olds may be sentenced to mandatory LWOP for second-degree murder violates the Eighth Amendment and article I, section 18 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.¹⁰ Petitioners represent in the Petition:

[Boyd] is not claiming that he falls within the holding of Miller. He concedes that the [U.S.] Constitution does not protect 18-year[-]olds from receiving a mandatory sentence of [LWOP] and that under the current federal precedent, the Eighth Amendment … does not prohibit such sentences. [Boyd] is claiming that under Pennsylvania [s]tate [statutes and the Pennsylvania Constitution, he was not considered an "adult" during the time that he committed his crime, and therefore fall[s] within the ambit of the rationale of Miller [(i.e., the immature brain theory)] …. Every Court in the land is bound by the Supremacy Clause [of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2].

Petition at 13 (italic emphasis added). Petitioners specifically contend that since an adult is defined under Pennsylvania law as "[a]n individual 21 years of age or over[,]" Section 1991 of the Statutory Construction Act of 1972, 1 Pa.C.S. § 1991, an 18-year-old is a minor to whom the Miller rationale should apply. See Petition at 11-12. Petitioners add that Miller and Montgomery do not preclude Pennsylvania from establishing its own standards to LWOP sentences, see Jones v. Mississippi, 593 U.S. 98, 141 S.Ct. 1307, 209 L.Ed.2d 390 (2021), and they urge this Court to "draw its own line" for persons who were 18 years old when they committed their crimes. Petition at 2.

On January 12, 2023, the AG filed its Preliminary Objections and a brief in support thereof, asserting: (1) Petitioners failed to effectuate proper service on the AG pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure (Rule) 1514(c); (2) this Court lacks jurisdiction to hear a collateral challenge to Petitioners’ criminal sentences because Petitioners’ claims fall outside Section 761 of the Judicial Code, 42 Pa. C.S. § 761; (3) the AG is not a proper party to this action because the AG cannot set the date on which Petitioners would be eligible for parole; (4) Petitioners failed to exhaust their administrative remedies under the PCRA; and (5) Petitioners failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted (demurrer). On February 15, 2023, Petitioners filed an answer opposing the AG’s Preliminary Objections. Petitioners did not file a brief opposing the Preliminary Objections.¹¹

[2–7] Initially, Rule 1516(b) authorizes the filing of preliminary objections to an original jurisdiction petition for review. See Pa.R.A.P. 1516(b).

In ruling on preliminary objections, [this Court] must accept as true all well-pleaded material allegations in the petition for review, as well as all inferences reasonably deduced therefrom. The Court need not accept as true conclusions of law, unwarranted inferences from facts, argumentative allegations, or expressions of opinion. In order to sustain preliminary objections, it must appear with certainty that the law will not permit recovery, and any doubt should be resolved by a refusal to sustain them.

A preliminary objection in the nature of a demurrer admits every well-pleaded fact in the [petition for review] and all inferences reasonably deducible therefrom. It tests the legal sufficiency of the challenged pleadings and will be sustained only in cases where the pleader has clearly failed to state a claim for which relief can be granted. When ruling on a demurrer, a court must confine its analysis to the [petition for review].

Torres v. Beard, 997 A.2d 1242, 1245 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2010) (citations omitted). Nonetheless, "[c]ourts reviewing preliminary objections may not only consider the facts pled in the [petition for review], but also any documents or exhibits attached to it." Foxe v. Pa. Dep’t of Corr., 214 A.3d 308, 310 n.1 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2019) (quoting Allen v. Dep’t of Corr., 103 A.3d 365, 369 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2014)).

[8] Because it is dispositive, this Court first addresses whether this Court lacks jurisdiction over this matter (Second Preliminary Objection). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has articulated:

Article V, [s]ection 4 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, adopted April 23, 1968, created the Commonwealth Court and stated that [it] shall "have such jurisdiction as shall be provided by law." [Pa. Const. art. V, § 4.] The General Assembly enacted Section 761 of the Judicial Code, which conferred the Commonwealth Court with original and exclusive jurisdiction over certain cases, including civil actions or proceedings against government agencies and officials. The conferral of original and exclusive jurisdiction creates subject[ ]matter jurisdiction in the Commonwealth Court for the specified classes of claims.

Scott v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole, — Pa. —, 284 A.3d 178, 186 (2022). Section 761(a) of the Judicial Code provides, in relevant part:

The Commonwealth Court shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions or proceedings:

(1) Against the Commonwealth government, including any officer thereof, acting in his official capacity, except:

(i) actions or proceedings in the nature of applications for a writ of habeas corpus on post-conviction relief not ancillary to proceedings within the appellate jurisdiction of the court.¹²

42 Pa.C.S. § 761(a) (bold and underline emphasis added).

Correspondingly, the General Assembly created the PCRA as "the sole means of obtaining collateral relief and encompasses all other common law and statutory remedies for the same purpose that exist when this subchapter takes effect, including habeas corpus and coram nobis." Section 9542 of the PCRA, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9542. Moreover, Section 9545(a) of the PCRA Specifies, in pertinent part: "Original jurisdiction over a proceeding under [the PCRA] shall be in the court of common pleas." 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(a) (emphasis added). Accordingly, this Court lacks jurisdiction to decide this matter and may transfer it to the proper trial court. See Dockery v. Wolf, 259 A.3d 566 (Pa. Cmwlth, 2021).

However, Section 9545(b)(1) of the PCRA provides that petitions filed pursuant to the PCRA, including a second or subsequent petition, generally "shall be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final." 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). Section 9545(b)(1) of the PCRA offers exceptions to the PCRA petition filing deadline only when

the petition alleges and the petitioner proves that:

(i) the failure to raise the claim previously was the result of interference by government officials with the presentation of the claim in violation of the Constitution or laws of this Commonwealth or the Constitution or laws of the [U.S.];

(ii) the facts upon which the claim is predicated were unknown...