The Pennsylvania Superior Court has decided the case of Commonwealth v. Myers, holding that the trial court properly denied the defendant’s PCRA petition because the defendant failed to show that unrelated corruption by the trial judge tainted the conviction in his case. Myers shows the importance of actually linking subsequent misconduct by police and court officials to the defendant’s individual case. Where the defendant can show only that the police or judge did something wrong that was unrelated to the case, the defendant is unlikely to prevail in PCRA litigation.

The Facts of Myers

Myers pleaded guilty to third-degree murder. Pursuant to a negotiated guilty plea, he received a sentence of 20 – 40 years’ incarceration. His co-defendant also pleaded guilty and received a shorter sentence. Two or three years later, the trial judge resigned from the bench because he had been caught stealing drugs from an evidence room in the courthouse. The judge pleaded guilty to related crimes, and the Supreme Court permanently disbarred him.

About seven years later, Myers filed a Post-Conviction Relief Act Petition arguing that he should receive a new trial as a result of the judge’s corruption. Myers invoked the newly discovered evidence exception. Ordinarily, a PCRA petition must be filed within a year of a defendant’s sentence becoming final. There is an exception, however, for when a defendant uncovers new evidence which could not have been discovered prior to trial through the exercise of due diligence and that evidence calls the validity of the conviction in to doubt. In that case, the statute allows the defendant a new one year window in which to file a PCRA petition and seek a new trial based on the new evidence.

Here, the judge resigned from the bench in 2012 and was convicted in 2015. The defendant, however, did not file his PCRA petition until 2022. He claimed that he did not learn of the judge’s corruption until shortly before he filed his petition because he did not have access to many resources while in prison.

The trial court denied the petition. It found that 1) the judge’s conviction had been a matter of public record since at least 2015, so the defendant should have filed a petition within the 60 day deadline for new evidence that applied at the time, 2) the defendant admitted in his petition that he found out about the conviction in March 2021 but did not file the petition within the old 60 day deadline, and 3) the defendant failed to link the judge’s conviction to his own case or show how the judge’s drug theft and issues affected his ability to accept the negotiated guilty plea. The defendant appealed.

The Superior Court’s Decision

The Superior Court affirmed the denial of the PCRA petition. The Court rejected the trial court’s first two reasons but accepted the third. Specifically, the defendant was not required to file anything within 60 days of the conviction becoming public because the public records presumption no longer applies. Recognizing that inmates do not necessarily have access to the news or legal databases, the Supreme Court eliminated the presumption that inmates are aware of public records like court documents in a case called Commonwealth v. Small in 2020. Therefore, the defendant was not expected to know about the judge’s conviction or resignation.

Second, a PCRA based on newly discovered evidence must be filed within a year based on a 2018 amendment that extended the deadline from 60 days to one year. As the trial court denied the petition for not having been filed within 60 days, the Superior Court found that the trial court erred for that reason, as well. The court simply failed to recognize the amendment to the law.

The Superior Court affirmed on the third reason, however. The Court found that the defendant failed to show that anything about the judge’s illegal behavior tainted his own case. The defendant had accepted a negotiated guilty plea, meaning he agreed to plead guilty and that he and the Commonwealth would recommend the same sentence to the judge. The judge accepted that negotiated plea. Thus, even if the judge had significant corruption or personal issues, there was nothing about those issues that would have affected the guilty plea or the defendant’s decision to plead guilty. In other words, the defendant was unable to show that anything about the judge’s behavior actually affected the case.

Finally, although the Court did not apply the old public records presumption, it did express skepticism that the defendant would not have heard about the judge’s behavior for so long. Although the presumption no longer applies, a defendant must be able to plead and prove that they acted with due diligence and could not reasonably have learned of the new evidence sooner. Here, the defendant failed to do so. Therefore, the Court affirmed the denial of the petition.

The Impact of Myers

The Court’s ruling shows the importance of linking a judge or police officer’s misconduct to the defendant’s specific case. In many cases, detectives or police officers get arrested long after a defendant has been found guilty and sentenced. In those cases, the arrest is often not the officer’s first incident of misconduct, and the Commonwealth and/or police may have had information in their files as to other acts of misconduct that should have been disclosed prior to trial. In that case, it may be possible to invoke the newly discovered evidence exception and allege a Brady violation. In other cases, there may not have been anything that the Commonwealth should have disclosed at the time, but the misconduct may have been so similar to something that happened in the defendant’s case that it calls the legitimacy of the defendant’s conviction into question. For example, if a witness claimed that the police coerced them into giving a statement and the officer involved is later disciplined for doing something similar, it may be possible to argue that the behavior is so similar that it should allow for a new trial under the newly discovered evidence exception.

Ultimately, the mere fact of a subsequent arrest or disciplinary action against someone involved in the case does not automatically result in a new trial. When a detective, judge, or prosecutor gets arrested after someone has been convicted, it is critical to understand when the exception applies and when it does not. It is also important to re-investigate the case thoroughly in order to establish any possible links between the misconduct and the defendant’s case.

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