Post-Conviction Relief Timeliness Equitable Tolling Pursuant to Extraordinary Circumstances

Commonwealth v. Rizvi, PICS Case No. 17-1046 (Pa. Super. June 19, 2017) Stevens, J. (10 pages).

PCRA time-bar could not be equitably tolled, and appellant failed to establish governmental interference by failing to allege correctional officials violated his constitutional rights, and in failing to timely assert the alleged interference. Order of the PCRA court affirmed.

Anwar Rizvi appealed from the order dismissing as untimely his second petition for post-conviction relief. Appellant was sentenced to 15 to 30 years' incarceration for criminal attempt-homicide. Prior to disposition of his direct appeal, appellant was transferred to a correctional institution in Virginia as part of an agreement between Pennsylvania and Virginia for the Virginia Department of Corrections to house 1,000 Pennsylvania male inmates. After the court affirmed appellant's judgment of sentence on direct appeal, appellant encountered difficulties conducting legal research at his correctional facility in Virginia. Appellant claimed that the facility contained an underequipped library that could only accommodate several inmates at a time and impeded his ability to conduct meaningful research.

Approximately one year after appellant's judgment of sentence became final, appellant filed with the PCRA court an application for notes of testimony and other in-court documents, claiming the requested documents would enable him to conduct legal research and prepare a PCRA petition. However, the PCRA court apparently never responded to appellant's application. Shortly thereafter, appellant was returned to a correctional facility in Pennsylvania, where he filed a motion to file a first PCRA petition nunc pro tunc, requesting the PCRA court apply equitable tolling principles and the PCRA's government interference exception to find his petition timely.

The PCRA court dismissed appellant's petition as meritless, and the court on appeal affirmed because appellant's motion was an untimely first PCRA petition. Appellant then filed the present second PCRA petition, again arguing that both equitable tolling principles and statutory exceptions to the timeliness requirement applied to except his patently untimely PCRA petition. The PCRA court against dismissed appellant's petition as untimely.

On appeal, appellant argued that the legislature drafted the PCRA with the intention that the one-year limitations period would be equitably tolled when extraordinary circumstances prevent the timely filing of a petition. The court first noted that the PCRA's time restrictions were jurisdictional in nature, such that if a petition was untimely the court did not have jurisdiction to consider the substantive claims. The court further held that the deadline for filing a PCRA petition could only be extended by operation of one of the statutory exceptions to the time-bar. The court rejected appellant's argument that the time-bar could be equitably tolled. The court further rejected appellant's argument to the extent it asserted the government interference statutory exception, noting that appellant's claims that the Virginia correctional facilities interfered with his efforts to invoke his rights under Pennsylvania law did not allege that Virginia administered its correctional policies in violation his constitutional rights, as required for a government interference claim. The court further noted that appellant further failed to ascertain this alleged interference and seek redress at an earlier, timely opportunity, since he waited over a year following the denial of his direct appeal to inquire about his collateral review rights.

Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of appellant's second PCRA petition.