Frederick Burton appeals the dismissal of his serial petition for relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. Burton was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy in 1972, receiving a life sentence. His initial appeal was denied by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1974. After a six-year hiatus, he filed his first post-conviction petition in 1981, which was denied in 1984. He subsequently filed two additional petitions in 1991 and 2004, both of which were dismissed as untimely.
In his third petition, Burton claimed he had discovered new evidence undermining the credibility of a key witness, Marie Williams. This evidence included a hearing transcript related to her immunity, her prior incriminating statements, and a letter contesting the immunity petition, alleging police coercion. The court affirmed the dismissal of this petition, ruling that Burton had not adequately demonstrated an exception to the PCRA's timeliness requirements and noting that the evidence he cited had been accessible for over thirty years.
Burton's petition for allowance of appeal was denied by the Supreme Court, as noted in Commonwealth v. Burton, 959 A.2d 927 (Pa. 2008). On July 31, 2018, he filed his fourth PCRA petition, claiming newly discovered evidence related to Commonwealth witness Ms. Williams. He asserted a Brady violation, alleging the Commonwealth withheld Ms. Williams’s response to an immunity petition, where she stated her incriminating statements against Burton were coerced and opposed the immunity petition. Additionally, Burton claimed due process violations under the Fourteenth Amendment, arguing that the Commonwealth knowingly presented false testimony at trial.
An evidentiary hearing was held from August 17 to August 25, 2020, but the PCRA court dismissed the petition on May 24, 2021, citing it as facially untimely by over forty years. The court determined that relevant documents were available to Burton since 1970, and he failed to demonstrate an exception to the PCRA's timeliness requirement, thus lacking jurisdiction. Burton appealed, raising several legal issues regarding the PCRA court's application of the law-of-the-case doctrine, the Commonwealth v. Small analysis, the after-discovered evidence standard, the requirement to prove non-disclosure of immunity documents for a Brady violation, and the exclusion of the Immunity Answer from materiality analysis.
The standard of review for PCRA dismissals involves examining the record for factual support and ensuring legal conclusions are free from error. The jurisdiction over a PCRA petition depends on its timeliness, which must be filed within one year of the final judgment date, as per 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1). Timeliness is jurisdictional; thus, a court cannot address merits if the petition is not timely filed.
Burton’s judgment of sentence became final on May 6, 1975, after the expiration of the time for filing a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. He had until May 6, 1976, to file a timely Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) petition, making any petitions filed afterward facially untimely. Burton's latest PCRA petition, submitted on July 31, 2018, is deemed facially untimely. However, Pennsylvania courts can consider untimely petitions if the petitioner pleads and proves one of three exceptions outlined in section 9545(b)(1)(i)–(iii). Specifically, section 9545(b)(1)(ii) allows for an exception if the facts supporting the claim were unknown to the petitioner and could not have been discovered with due diligence, focusing on newly discovered facts rather than new sources for previously known facts.
Burton contends that documents he received in July 2018, including the Commonwealth's immunity petition and Ms. Williams's answer, present newly discovered facts that support his claims. He argues these documents demonstrate that the Commonwealth sought immunity for Ms. Williams to compel her testimony against him, and he asserts that Ms. Williams opposed this immunity. However, he acknowledges having a letter from Ms. Williams from 2003, which makes similar claims about police coercion of her statements, but he argues that this letter lacked substantive evidentiary value until the 2018 documents were received, which he claims authenticate it.
Burton also attempted to argue another exception under section 9545(b)(1)(i) in his PCRA petition but has not developed this argument in his appellate brief, effectively abandoning it.
Burton argues that the Commonwealth obstructed his efforts related to the "due diligence" requirement under section 9545(b)(1)(ii), but the PCRA court rejected his claim regarding newly discovered evidence. The court noted that Burton had previously raised concerns about Ms. Williams’s opposition to the Commonwealth’s immunity petition in his third PCRA petition and that the relevant documents were accessible to him as early as 1970. Consequently, Burton failed to demonstrate that he was unaware of the facts in the immunity answer or that he could not have discovered them through due diligence.
The reviewing court concurred with the PCRA court’s decision that Burton did not adequately plead or prove an exception to the PCRA’s timeliness requirement, although their reasoning varied. Although Burton referenced section 9545(b)(1)(i) in his reply brief, this claim was considered undeveloped and thus waived. The PCRA court, bound by the law of the case doctrine, erroneously treated a prior opinion as binding, despite that opinion being dictum and non-binding, as established in Commonwealth v. Wallace.
Burton acknowledged that the immunity answer, which he claims to have discovered in 2018, contains the same information present in Ms. Williams’s letter from at least 2003. Both documents indicate that Ms. Williams recanted her statements to police implicating Burton, claimed coercion by police, and was unwilling to testify for the Commonwealth. Thus, the immunity answer does not present new facts but rather a new source for facts that were already known to Burton. The Supreme Court has clarified that the exception under section 9545(b)(1)(ii) necessitates newly discovered facts, not merely a new source for existing facts. Since Burton was aware of the facts in the immunity answer as early as 2003, he has not introduced any genuinely new evidence.
Ms. Williams’s immunity claim does not meet the newly discovered facts exception as outlined in section 9545(b)(1)(ii), resulting in the PCRA court lacking jurisdiction to assess the merits of Burton's claims. Consequently, the dismissal of Burton's petition is affirmed. The court reiterates that an untimely PCRA petition precludes jurisdiction over its substantive merits, citing Commonwealth v. Albrecht, where it was established that neither the PCRA court nor appellate courts can address untimely petitions. Furthermore, although Burton submitted a post-submission communication under Pa.R.A.P. 2501(b), it was not accompanied by the necessary application as required by Pa.R.A.P. 2501(a), leading to its dismissal. This communication references a federal case, Bracey v. Superintendent Rockview SCI, which deals with due diligence in federal collateral attacks but does not pertain to whether Burton demonstrated newly discovered facts under Pennsylvania law.
