A prison inmate who has been contesting charges that he assaulted several corrections officers while in the State Correctional Institution at Smithfield, Huntingdon County, has lost yet another appeal, according to an opinion issued last week by the Pennsylvania Superior Court .

Ronald T. Stockton was incarcerated in SCI Smithfield in 2013 on charges of robbery and assault that occurred in Philadelphia.

On Dec. 20 of that year, he wandered outside his cell when an officer accidentally opened the wrong set of doors, the state appeals court explained.

Officers told Stockton to return to his cell, but when he ignored the order, an officer approached him and attempted to place him in handcuffs.

Stockton resisted and, according to the charges, he “took a defensive stance, pushed away one officer, and threw multiple punches to the officer’s head and neck area.”

It took five officers to bring him under control, according to the Superior Court summary of the incident.

After a jury convicted Stockton on one count of aggravated assault, Huntingdon County Judge George N. Zanic sentenced him to an additional prison term of 27-100 months.

Stockton, now 37, is presently incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution in Fayette County.

In petitions filed since his sentencing, Stockton has taken issue with one officer’s description of what happened during the incident — that during the scuffle, he “leaped toward him and struck him in the face and neck area with a closed fist several times.”

The defense claimed that Stockton had no intent to harm any of the officers, but fought back only to defend himself.

In a pretrial petition, Stockton contended the defense did not have the opportunity to review all of the videos of the event, but Zanic concluded that the defense had seen all the videos that were available.

Since he was sentenced, Stockton has filed four post-conviction petitions challenging the fairness of his trial.

He contended, for instance, that two of the officers received verbal reprimands for their actions, one for turning off the video camera and the other for using inappropriate language during the struggle to restrain him.

This information, the defense contended, was withheld by the prosecution during the pretrial discovery stage.

The defense claimed also that the tapes had been tampered with.

The petition before the Superior Court last week argued that additional video footage had been withheld, and the defense stated, “it would have shown multiple correctional officers provided false reports and testimony at trial.”

Zanic determined that Stockton’s latest challenge to his conviction was untimely.

State court rules mandate that a defendant file an appeal from a lower court ruling within a year of the date his conviction becomes final.

In Stockton’s case, his sentence became final on July 19, 2016. The petition before the Superior Court panel last week was filed on Dec. 4, 2023, meaning “it is facially untimely,” the panel pointed out in its 13-page opinion.

But, as the Superior Court panel that included Judges Anne E. Lazarus, Mary Jane Bowes and Tamika Lane confirmed, there are several recognized exceptions to the timeliness rule.

Stockton, in challenging the timeliness rule, cited two of the exceptions — government interference and new facts that, had they been known at the time of trial, could have resulted in a different verdict.

The government interference exception, Stockton argued, was due to the alleged withholding of and “doctoring” of tapes (only recently discovered) that were used to convict him.

Zanic, in his review of the case, rejected both exceptions.

The Superior Court panel upheld Zanic’s conclusion that the claim of a controversial new video was not made known to court within a year of its discovery and the panel stated Stockton “did not plead, much less prove, that the governmental exception applied, and because he did not do so, … his second issue is waived.”

The opinion concluded, “As we determine that Stockton’s fourth petition was untimely filed and that he failed to satisfy any exception to the (post-conviction) time bar, neither this court nor the (county court) had jurisdiction to address it.”

Stockton can seek further review of his argument by petitioning the state Supreme Court.