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IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA Edward Merricks, Petitioner v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, Respondent : : : : : : : :

No. 563 C.D. 2011 Submitted: October 26, 2012

BEFORE: HONORABLE BONNIE BRIGANCE LEADBETTER, Judge HONORABLE P. KEVIN BROBSON, Judge HONORABLE ROCHELLE S. FRIEDMAN, Senior Judge OPINION NOT REPORTED MEMORANDUM OPINION BY JUDGE BROBSON FILED: December 19, 2012

Petitioner Edward Merricks (Merricks)1 petitions for review of an order of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (Board), which denied his request for administrative relief. Additionally, the Board filed a motion to dismiss Merricks' petition for review based upon an alleged lack of jurisdiction. Because we agree with the Board's assertion that we lack jurisdiction, we will grant the Board's motion and dismiss the petition for review.2
Various documents in the record refer to Petitioner's last name as "Merrick." Petitioner himself identifies his last name as "Merricks," and we will refer to him by that name in this opinion. In an earlier decision, this Court denied Merricks' counsel's petition for leave to withdraw as counsel, without prejudice to file an amended petition for leave to withdraw. Merricks v. Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole, (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 563 C.D. 2011, filed July 9, 2012). Counsel elected to file a brief on the merits, and the Board responded with its
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Between December 1985 and March 1986,3 Merricks was found guilty of numerous crimes, including several counts of robbery, burglary, and criminal conspiracy.4 The Board paroled Merricks by decision recorded March 16, 1993, with an actual release date of April 14, 1993. At the time of his release, the Board identified Merricks' respective minimum and maximum dates as August 25, 1992, and August 25, 2008. Merricks was arrested on May 24, 1993, by the Philadelphia Police and placed in Philadelphia County Prison on two charges of violating the Uniform Firearms Act.5 According to Merricks' initial petition for review, he posted bail on these new criminal charges.6 The Board issued a warrant to commit and detain on May 26, 1993. On August 18, 1993, the Board rendered a decision directing that Merricks, who was still being held in Philadelphia County Prison while awaiting disposition of the new criminal charges, continue to be detained. As the Certified Record (C.R.) reflects, the United States Attorney's Office became interested in the matter. (C.R. at 32.) The federal authorities filed an indictment against Merricks and issued a bench warrant for him on (continued...)
motion to dismiss. The Board's brief addresses the issues raised in its motion to dismiss as well as the issues Merricks raises on the merits of his petition for review. The record indicates that Merricks had been convicted and paroled before these 1985-86 convictions, but those earlier convictions are not part of the record and are not pertinent to our review of this matter. The robbery convictions included concurrent sentences of six-to-twenty years. The burglary and criminal conspiracy convictions included sentences of one-to-three years, which are to run consecutively to the robbery sentences. Thus, the minimum and maximum of the two groups of sentences is seven-to-twenty-three years.
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18 Pa. C.S.

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Pennsylvania Law