Commonwealth v. Taliaferro

287 A.3d 856 (Table)

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania

v.Jacob Michael TALIAFERRO, Appellant

No. 1671 MDA 2021

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Filed October 13, 2022

MEMORANDUM BY LAZARUS, J.:

Jacob Michael Taliaferro appeals,¹ nunc pro tunc , from the judgment of sentence, entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Lebanon County, after entering an open guilty plea to first-degree murder.² After careful review, we affirm.

On June 6, 2016, Taliaferro, 17-years-old at the time, called 9-1-1 to report that his mother had been murdered. Taliaferro ultimately confessed to authorities that he had planned the murder for over one year, thinking of multiple ways to end his mother's life, including using an ax, rope, and knife. Taliaferro related that he entered his mother's bedroom late at night, hid his mother's phone so she could not call for help, stabbed her in the chest and torso four times with a knife, and, when he realized she was not dying quickly, placed a Hydrocodone pill in her mouth. Taliaferro then took a rope,³ placed it around the victim's neck, and strangled her for five minutes until she died.

On July 16, 2018, Taliaferro entered a guilty plea to first-degree murder; he was sentenced on May 14, 2019, to 65 years to life in prison. Prior to sentencing, on May 29, 2019, Taliaferro filed a pro se motion⁴ to withdraw his plea claiming that he had made several attempts to contact plea counsel to have his plea withdrawn and received no response. A counseled motion to withdraw guilty plea, also time-stamped May 29, 2019, is in the original record. The court ultimately denied Taliaferro's motion to withdraw his guilty plea on April 1, 2019. Sentencing hearings took place over eight non-consecutive days in August 2018, September 2018, October 2018 and February 2019. On May 14, 2019—302 days after Taliaferro entered his guilty plea, the court sentenced him to a period of incarceration of 65 years to life, restitution in the amount of $6,500, a $500 fine, and the costs of prosecution.

Taliaferro filed a post-sentence motion claiming that his plea was not entered knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily, and that the court erred in denying his request to withdraw the plea. The court denied the motion in part, granted it in part by vacating the $500 fine, and deferred the request to withdraw Taliaferro's guilty plea to post-conviction proceedings. On February 26, 2021, Taliaferro filed a timely pro se petition pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541 - 9546, alleging, among other things that his guilty plea was entered unknowingly, unintelligently, and involuntarily based on plea counsel's ineffectiveness and that his plea was unlawfully induced. SeePro Se PCRA Petition, 2/26/21, at 2. On March 10, 2021, the court noted that there was a conflict of interest with Taliaferro's current counsel and, accordingly, entered an order appointing Michael Bechtold, Esquire, as Taliaferro's PCRA counsel. The court also ordered Attorney Bechtold to file an amended PCRA petition, or, in the alternative a Turner /Finley⁵ no-merit filing.

Counsel filed an amended petition on July 21, 2021, in which he raised, among other issues, that, prior to sentencing, Taliaferro had "attempted to communicate with the Lebanon County Public Defender's Office, to withdraw his guilty plea, to which no response was given." Amended PCRA Petition, 7/21/21, at 2. Counsel also noted in the amended petition that "[t]he [c]ourt deferred the issue of Defendant's ability to withdraw his guilty plea until an appropriate PCRA Petition had been filed." Id. at 3 n.2.

On November 4, 2021, the trial court entered an order granting the parties’ joint stipulation to reinstate Taliaferro's appellate rights nunc pro tunc.⁶ Taliaferro filed a notice of appeal and court-ordered Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) concise statement of errors complained of on appeal.

Taliaferro raises the following issues for our consideration:

(1) Whether the trial court erred and/or abused its discretion when it imposed a sentence of sixty-five (65) years to life[,] when such sentence is excessive in light of the evidence presented and as the trial court allowed the nature of the crime to outweigh the rehabilitative/treatment needs of [Taliaferro].

(2) Whether the trial court erred and/or abused its discretion when it imposed an illegal sentence upon [Taliaferro].

(3) Whether the trial court erred and/or abused its discretion in refusing to permit [Taliaferro] to withdraw his guilty plea after numerous indications by [Taliaferro] that he wished to withdraw his guilty plea.

(4) Whether the trial court erred and/or abused its discretion in denying [Taliaferro] relief[,] as [Taliaferro's] sentenc[ing] took place outside of ninety (90) days, and in a protracted/scattered fashion, from the date of the entry of his guilty plea[,] thereby violating his procedural due process rights in that ([a]) the trial court was prevented from fairly examining the entirety of the evidence; ([b]) the trial court was caused to improperly highlight certain testimony over other relevant testimony; and ([c]) the protracted/scattered manner of sentencing would not have been permitted to occur if a jury [had] been impaneled.

Appellant's Brief, at 4-5.

In his first issue, Taliaferro contends his sentence of sixty-five (65) years to life is excessive where the court placed undue weight on the nature of the crime, failed to take the confluence of his youth and mental illness into account, and did not give due consideration to his rehabilitative/treatment needs.⁷ See Appellant's Brief, at 24. This issue implicates the discretionary aspects of Taliaferro's sentence.

Preliminarily, "[c]hallenges to the discretionary aspects of sentencing do not entitle an appellant to review as of right." Commonwealth v. Moury , 992 A.2d 162, 170 (Pa. Super. 2010). Prior to reaching the merits of a discretionary aspects of sentencing issue, this Court conducts

a four-part analysis to determine: (1) whether appellant has filed a timely notice of appeal, see Pa.R.A.P. 902 and 903 ; (2) whether the issue was properly preserved at sentencing or in a motion to reconsider and modify sentence, see Pa.R.Crim.P. 720 ; (3) whether appellant's brief has a fatal defect, Pa.R.A.P. 2119(f) ; and (4) whether there is a substantial question that the sentence appealed from is not appropriate under the Sentencing Code, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9781(b).

Moury , 992 A.2d at 170 (citation and brackets omitted). Here, Taliaferro filed timely pro se post-sentence motions indicating that his guilty plea was not voluntary, knowing, or intelligent. In addition, he was granted the right to appeal nunc pro tunc and filed a timely notice of appeal. See supra at n.1. However, Taliaferro has failed to include in his brief a Rule 2119(f) statement and the Commonwealth has objected to its omission. Thus, we find this claim waived.⁸ Moury , supra .

Taliaferro next claims that the court imposed an illegal de facto life without parole (LWOP)⁹ sentence on him as a juvenile offender. Specifically, Taliaferro asserts that since he will not be eligible for parole until the age of 81, he is effectively deprived of any opportunity for quality of life upon parole.

In Roper v. Simmons , 543 U.S. 551 (2005), the United States Supreme Court concluded that the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution forbids capital punishment for individuals who were juveniles at the times of their crimes. Next, in Graham v. Florida , 560 U.S. 48 (2010), the Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits life without parole for juvenile offenders who did not commit homicide. Finally, in Miller v. Alabama , 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the Court barred mandatory sentencing schemes for juveniles convicted of homicide. Id. at 489. See also Montgomery v. Louisiana , 577 U.S. 190 (2016) (Supreme Court concludes Miller represented substantive rule of constitutional law that applies retroactively to cases on collateral review).

In Commonwealth Batts , 163 A.3d 410 (Pa. 2017) ("Batts II "), our Supreme Court "devise[d] a procedure for the implementation of [ ] Miller and Montgomery [ ] in Pennsylvania" Id. at 451. In Commonwealth v. Felder , 269 A.3d 1232 (Pa. 2022), our Supreme Court recently reiterated the procedural safeguards established for LWOP juvenile offenders in Batts II :

[In Batts II , w]e adopted a presumption against the imposition of a sentence of life without parole for juveniles and imposed on the Commonwealth the burden of proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a juvenile offender is incapable of rehabilitation. We determined these procedures were necessary to effectuate what we believed then was the central mandate of Miller and Montgomery : that "for a life-without-parole sentence to be constitutionally valid, the sentencing court must find that the juvenile offender is permanently incorrigible and that rehabilitation would be impossible." Still, even after establishing this comprehensive set of legal criteria to guide juvenile sentencing, other questions remained.

Id. at 1232 (internal citations omitted).

Our Supreme Court granted review in Felder , supra , to consider whether "a discretionary term-of-years sentence may be so long as to amount to a de facto life sentence, thereby triggering the substantive and procedural protections afforded by Miller and its progeny." Id. at 1235. In affirming Felder's 50-years-to life sentence, the Supreme Court "dissolved those procedural requirements [espoused] in Batts II that are not constitutionally required—namely, the presumption against sentencing a juvenile homicide offender to life without parole, and the imposition on the Commonwealth of the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the juvenile is permanently incorrigible." Felder , supra at 1244. The Court held that "as long as [a term-of-years sentence that may amount to a de facto life] sentence was the product of a discretionary sentencing system that included consideration of the juvenile's...