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A former Altoona man serving time in a state correctional institution is having trouble obtaining a hearing before the Pennsylvania Superior court.
Gregory McQueen, 54, contends that he was told by his trial attorney that if he pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated assault, illegal possession of a firearm and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, an additional sentence for violation of parole on a former charge would run concurrently, or at the same time, as his new sentence.
Blair County Judge Timothy M. Sullivan on April 12, 2019, sentenced McQueen to a term of five to 20 years in a state correctional institution on his new charges.
At the time of his guilty pleas and sentencing, the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole had not imposed any additional time behind bars stemming from McQueen's parole violation.
However the state agency eventually imposed a two-year "hit" due to the new charges, according to a recent opinion issued by the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
According to the opinion, the prosecution during the sentencing hearing indicated that any parole sanction and the sentence for his guilty pleas would run consecutively, or in addition to his new sentence.
McQueen, during the April 12 hearing, allegedly said he understood the parole violation sanction "may" run consecutively with his new sentence.
But on April 29, 2020, McQueen on his own filed a post-conviction petition "challenging the validity of his plea and alleging plea counsel's ineffectiveness for telling him his guilty plea sentence and parole violation sanction would run concurrently."
Sullivan appointed an attorney to represent McQueen, and at a hearing on Oct. 27, 2020, he told the judge that initially his counsel told him the two sentences would run consecutively but later told him they would run concurrently.
On Nov. 2, 2020, the Blair County judge dismissed his petition.
On March 11, 2021, McQueen filed an appeal to the Nov. 2 order, at which point the judge found the appeal "untimely."
McQueen on Nov. 5 filed a second post-conviction petition asking that his appeal rights be restored.
On Nov. 10, the judge reinstated McQueen's right to appeal the dismissal of the first petition.
At that point, McQueen's appointed counsel asked to withdraw from the case because, he claimed, there were no valid issues he could raise before the Superior Court.
A Superior Court panel that included Maria McLaughlin. Daniel D. McCaffery and Dan Pelligrini, in mid-October refused to allow the attorney to withdraw because he had not followed the proper procedure.
The panel directed McQueen's appeals' attorney to file a new application to withdraw and to send McQueen a copy of the brief within 30 days (by mid-November).
The appeals court panel then gave McQueen 30 days (by mid-December) to file his own brief to support his attempt to withdraw his original guilty pleas, "if he wishes," the court stated.
McQueen initially landed in prison as the result of an April 2018 shooting incident on the 800 block of Fifth Avenue.
After a dispute with two other men, he was charged with firing a shot at their pickup truck.
Police also charged him with a drug offense that day.
According to the Pennsylvania Inmate Locator, McQueen is incarcerated in the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale.