COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. JAMES R. CRUZ, JR.
No. 110 MDA 2019
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
NOVEMBER 15, 2019
2019 PA Super 342
J-S47031-19
Appeal from the PCRA Order Entered December 18, 2018 in the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-14-CR-0001246-1993
BEFORE: DUBOW, J., NICHOLS, J., and MUSMANNO, J.
James R. Cruz, Jr. (Cruz), appeals from the Order dismissing his second Petition for relief filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA). See
This Court previously set forth the relevant factual background as follows:
Cruz was convicted of criminal homicide and theft on June 14, 1994[,] and was sentenced to life imprisonment. At trial, the Commonwealth entered evidence relating to a number of hairs, recovered during the underlying criminal investigation, which implicated Cruz in the murder. Specifically, hair identified as belonging to the victim was found in the cab of Cruz’s truck, and hair identified as belonging to Cruz was found on the ropes that had been used to bind and fatally strangle the victim.
To establish that the recovered hairs belonged to Cruz and to the victim, the Commonwealth relied, in part, on microscopic hair analysis. [Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)] Agent Chester Blythe [(Agent Blythe)] testified at trial regarding the use of microscopic hair analysis as a forensic method. In [his] testimony, Agent Blythe drew scientific conclusions that implicated Cruz in the murder of the victim. ...
Commonwealth v. Cruz, 178 A.3d 208 (Pa. Super. 2017) (unpublished memorandum at 1). On December 22, 1995, this Court affirmed Cruz’s judgment of sentence. See Commonwealth v. Cruz, 674 A.2d 313 (Pa. Super. 1995) (unpublished memorandum), appeal denied, 544 Pa. 673 (Pa. 1996).
On March 10, 1997, Cruz filed his first PCRA Petition. The PCRA court dismissed Cruz’s Petition, and this Court affirmed the dismissal. See Commonwealth v. Cruz, 120 A.3d 1047 (Pa. Super. 2015) (unpublished memorandum), appeal denied, 633 Pa. 753 (Pa. 2015). On April 20, 2015, the [FBI] issued a press release admitting, for the first time, that testimony by FBI analysts regarding microscopic hair analysis in criminal trials was erroneous in the vast majority of cases (hereinafter, FBI press release). Commonwealth v. Chmiel, 173 A.3d 617, 619 (Pa. 2017).
On September 10, 2015, Cruz filed the instant, pro se, PCRA Petition, alleging that he had received a letter from the Department of Justice (the DOJ letter), advising him that Agent Blythe’s testimony at his trial contained erroneous statements.1
After filing a
Notably, the Cruz Court, relying on Commonwealth v. Edmiston, 65 A.3d 339 (Pa. 2013), held that the information within the DOJ letter was not a newly-discovered fact, but was instead, a new source of previously knowable facts. Cruz, 178 A.3d 208 (unpublished memorandum at 3). The Cruz court stated that the FBI press release was merely new analysis of old facts, and therefore, did not support a timeliness exception under
Cruz sought allowance of appeal with our Supreme Court. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted Cruz’s Petition for allowance of appeal, vacated this Court’s order, and remanded to the PCRA court, in light of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Chmiel, 173 A.3d at 628 (holding that the FBI press release is a newly-discovered fact upon which [appellant]’s underlying claim is predicated, as that phrase is defined in the PCRA’s exception to the one-year filing requirement,
On remand, the PCRA court dismissed Cruz’s Petition without a hearing, finding that, even in light of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s holding in Chmiel, Cruz’s Petition was untimely. See PCRA Court Opinion, 12/14/18, at 1-2 (unnumbered). The PCRA court reasoned that Cruz’s sixty-day time limit for asserting the newly-discovered fact exception started on April 20, 2015, the date of the FBI press release. The PCRA court determined that Cruz’s PCRA Petition, dated September 10, 2015, was untimely. Cruz filed a timely Notice of Appeal and a
On appeal, Cruz presents the following questions for our review:
- Did the PCRA [c]ourt misinterpret the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s remand for compliance with [Chmiel, supra,] and improperly dismiss the PCRA Petition as untimely?
- Did the PCRA [c]ourt fail to recognize the PCRA Petition was timely filed within 60 days of counsel’s receipt of the FBI letter identifying the flawed DNA analysis and acknowledging that the United States was waiving any default defense to permit resolution of legal claims?
Brief for Appellant at 4. We will address Cruz’s issues together, as they both challenge the PCRA court’s application of Chmiel.
Cruz alleges that the PCRA court misinterpreted our Supreme Court’s holding in Chmiel, 173 A.3d 617. See Brief for Appellant at 10-17. According to Cruz, he relies on new facts from the DOJ letter, not the FBI press release. Id. at 10-14.
filed his PCRA Petition on September 10, 2015, within the PCRA’s sixty-day time limit, see
The standard of review of an order dismissing a PCRA petition is whether that determination is supported by the evidence of record and is free of legal error. Commonwealth v. Weimer, 167 A.3d 78, 81 (Pa. Super. 2017). The PCRA court’s findings will not be disturbed unless there is no support for the findings in the certified record. Id. (citation omitted). Further, a PCRA court has discretion to dismiss a PCRA petition without a hearing if the court is satisfied that there are no genuine issues concerning any material fact; that the defendant is not entitled to post-conviction collateral relief; and that no legitimate purpose would be served by further proceedings. Commonwealth v. Brown, 161 A.3d 960, 964 (Pa. Super. 2017) (citations omitted).
Section 9545(b)(1)(ii) states that
(1) Any petition under this subchapter, including a second or subsequent petition, shall be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final, unless the petition alleges and the petitioner proves that:
* * *
(ii) the facts upon which the claim is predicated were unknown to the petitioner and could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence....
In Chmiel, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court distinguished the appellant’s case from the facts in Edmiston. Chmiel, 173 A.3d at 626. The Chmiel Court stated that whereas the newly-discovered facts asserted in Edmiston were not new, and had existed in various sources prior to publication of the report,
the FBI press release is not old wine in a new bottle ...; it was a public admission by the FBI, as the nation’s premier law enforcement agency and the proponent of this forensic technique, of widespread error. It is this concession, not the suspected unreliability of the forensic evidence as developed through scientific advancements, that triggers the sixty-day window within which [the appellant] was required to file his claim.
Id. Therefore, the FBI press release triggered the appellant’s sixty-day window to file his PCRA petition. Id. at 628.
Here, Cruz’s newly-discovered fact is the DOJ and FBI’s specific admission that Agent Blythe’s testimony, in particular, contains erroneous statements, not the DOJ and FBI’s general admission that Cruz’s case might be one of the thousands of cases that was based on bad science. Thus, the July 27, 2015 DOJ letter, and not the FBI press release, triggered the sixty-day time limit. See, e.g., Chmiel, 173 A.3d at 625-26;
the Order of the PCRA court dismissing Cruz’s Petition as untimely, and we remand for further proceedings.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 11/15/2019