Commonwealth v. Hill

202 A.3d 792

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania

v.Shawn HILL, Appellant

No. 712 EDA 2018

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted December 17, 2018

Filed January 11, 2019

Shawn Hill a/k/a Harris Hill, appellant, pro se.

Lawrence J. Goode, Assistant District Attorney, and Peter Carr, Assistant District Attorney, Philadelphia, for Commonwealth, appellee.

BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and STEVENS^* , P.J.E.

OPINION BY STEVENS, P.J.E.:

Appellant, Shawn Hill, appeals pro se from the order entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County dismissing his second petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA"), 42 Pa.C.S.A. 9541 - 9546, as untimely filed. We affirm.

In our review of Appellant's first PCRA appeal, we set forth the following pertinent facts and procedural history.¹

In April 2014, following a bench trial, Appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree, two counts of attempted murder, conspiracy, two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of Possession of a Firearm by Prohibited Person, Firearms not to be Carried Without a License, Carrying Firearms on a Public Street in Philadelphia, three counts of Recklessly Endangering Another Person ("REAP"), and Possession of an Instrument of Crime ("PIC").

Appellant was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for first-degree murder, followed by consecutive sentences of ten to twenty years for each count of attempted murder. Appellant was sentenced to ten to twenty years for conspiracy, four to eight years for Possession of Firearm by a Prohibited Person, three to six years for Firearms Not to be Carried Without a License, and six to twelve months for REAP to run concurrently with his sentence for attempted murder.

Appellant timely appealed the judgment of sentence. He challenged the sufficiency and the weight of the evidence and asserted that the Commonwealth violated Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83 [83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215] (1963). Appellant contended that the Commonwealth violated Brady by suppressing bullet fragments removed from the victim's body. See Appellant's 1925(b) Statement, 5/28/14. This Court affirmed the judgment of sentence on direct appeal. Regarding his Brady claim, this Court concluded that Appellant failed to prove that the Commonwealth suppressed evidence, or that the purported missing evidence was prejudicial. SeeCommonwealth v. Hill , 122 A.3d 1133 (Pa. Super. 2015) (unpublished memorandum), appeal denied , 128 A.3d 1205 (2015).

On January 5, 2016, Appellant timely filed [his first] PCRA petition, and counsel was appointed. In his petition, Appellant claimed to have new evidence in support of his previously raised Brady claim, specifically, a statement from Albert Einstein Medical Center ("AEMC"), describing the hospital's policy of submitting all recovered projectiles to the Philadelphia Police Department.

In July 2016, counsel submitted a no-merit letter pursuant to Commonwealth v. Turner , 544 A.2d 927 (1988), and Commonwealth v. Finley , 550 A.2d 213 (Pa. Super. 1988) (en banc ). In September 2016, the PCRA court issued a Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 notice of its intent to dismiss Appellant's petition without a hearing. On September 29, 2016, Appellant responded to the court's Rule 907 notice, raising claims of ineffective assistance of PCRA counsel. See Appellant's Response to 907 Notice at 2–8. On the same day Appellant's 907 response was received, the court issued an opinion and order, dismissing Appellant's petition and granting appointed counsel's petition to withdraw.

Appellant then filed [a] timely [PCRA] appeal. The PCRA court did not direct Appellant's compliance with Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b). Appellant timely filed a brief with this Court. In June 2017, Appellant filed a Request for Permission to File Supplemental Arguments Based on New Case Law. In July 2017, this Court granted Appellant leave to file a supplemental brief.

Preliminarily, [this Court addressed] the issues Appellant purport[ed] to raise in his supplemental brief. Appellant's supplemental brief raise[d] the following claims:

I. Whether PCRA counsel was ineffective for unreasonably narrowing its investigation to the Commonwealth's illegal suppression of vital ballistic evidence without investigation of lead detective (George Pirrone's) illegal withholding of evidence from the Commonwealth?

II. Whether trial, appellate and PCRA counsel[']s performances deprived appellant of his right to meaningful review where counsel allowed the Commonwealth to fraudulently misrepresent a material fact regarding the Commonwealth's possession of Sakima Santos and Chasity Cannon's medical records prior to trial?

III. Whether PCRA counsel was deficient in his performance where he failed to ascertain evidence of detectives (James Pitts) conviction in a civil judgment/verdict, and (Ronald Dove's) guilty plea in a murder cover-up, both of which are crucial impeachable evidence surrounding Marcella Ingrum and Rory Hill's illegal arrests, extensive detention, and illegally coerced inculpatory [sic] statements used by the [c]ourt as definitive proof of [A]ppellant's guilty [sic]?

Appellant's Supplemental Brief at v.

[With respect to such supplemental claims, we determined Appellant did not preserve them] in his original brief to this Court. Further, this Court did not grant Appellant leave to raise new issues in his supplemental brief. Order, 7/7/17. As such, these issues [were] not properly before this Court, [we concluded], and we decline[d] to review them.

Turning to those issues properly preserved, Appellant raise[d] the following issues for our review:

I. Whether the PCRA [c]ourt's final conclusion was deficient where it inexplicably quoted nearly verbatim its 1925(a) opinion issued on direct appeal without establishing independent evidentiary support for its denial of relief based on newly-discovered evidence?

II. Whether the PCRA [c]ourt's adverse conclusion on its on [sic] court ordered DNA and fingerprint analysis – of which was stipulated as an undisputed fact—survives a question of law where an interjection of personal scientific theories post-trial circumvented the stipulation and diminished the materiality of [Appellant's] Brady claim?

III. Whether the PCRA [c]ourt's conclusion on [Appellant's] Brady claim—now supported by newly discovered evidence—survives a question of law where the recent Dennis^[4] decision qualifies the final conclusion reached in this case as being contrary to, and an unreasonable application of established Federal and State precedent governing the constitutionality of illegal suppression of exculpatory evidence, versus a determination centered around a sufficiency of evidence evaluation?

Appellant's Brief at vii.

Commonwealth v. Hill , No. 3534 EDA 2016, 2017 WL 5046335, at *1–3 (Pa. Super. filed Nov. 3, 2017).

This Court rejected Appellant's preserved claims purporting to identify after-discovered evidence substantiating his Brady claim, as the evidence was neither exculpatory nor materially different from the Brady claim rejected in his direct appeal. Hill , supra at *3-4. Consequently, we affirmed the order denying Appellant PCRA relief.

Less than 30 days later, on November 30, 2017, Appellant filed pro se the present PCRA petition, his second, asserting the existence of newly-discovered facts of police corruption in highly publicized, unrelated legal matters that would likely result in a different verdict if brought to light in his case. Appellant's Second PCRA Petition, filed 11/30/17. Specifically, Appellant centered his claim on both a 2016 civil judgment entered against Philadelphia Police Detectives George Pirrone and James Pitts for manufacturing evidence against a criminal defendant and an April 2017 guilty plea entered by Detective Ronald Dove for attempting to cover up a 2011 murder committed by his longtime love interest.

A presumption arises from such recent revelations, Appellant maintains in his petition, that the detectives, who investigated the murder and attempted murders with which Appellant was eventually charged, employed similar coercive and deceptive practices in handling ballistics evidence and obtaining statements from Appellant's mother and sister implicating him as the shooter:

This PCRA action revolves around the convictions of Philadelphia Police Detectives for illegally withholding material evidence from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, lying to the D.A. Office and other authorities, maliciously prosecuting innocent persons, and illegally arresting innocent persons. The evidence is presumptive to petitioner's contention that the same illegal acts by these detectives were committed in the present case.

...

The new evidence submitted in [Appellant's] 2^nd PCRA petition as Exhibits C and D are "confirmed convictions of key detectives who played a vital role in the now questionable admissibility of statements made by [Appellant's] mother and sister under questionable coercive conditions – statements [the PCRA court] repeatedly rely on to deny [Appellant] relief. In addition, the recent confirmation at Exhibit-C attached to [Appellant's] 2^nd petition lends relevance to [Appellant's] new clams of illegal suppression of material evidence by Lead Detective George Pirrone; Detective James Pitts is a coconspirator/codefendant of Pirrone in a similar-type-case with similar-type-issues. See 2^nd PCRA Petition at Exhibit-A1. These convictions were discovered on October 31, 2017, and November 5, 2017, via newspaper articles.

Appellant's Second PCRA Petition, at 3.²

On December 18, 2017, the PCRA court issued its notice to dismiss pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 907, after finding Appellant's petition untimely and, in the alternative, meritless. Appellant filed a response arguing that his facially untimely second petition qualified under Section 9545(b)(1)(ii)'s newly-discovered facts exception³ to the PCRA's jurisdictional requirement that a petition be filed within one year of the date on which judgment of sentence becomes...