For the second time, a three-judge state Superior Court panel has upheld the conviction and state prison sentence of a Berks County man who twice sold crack cocaine in Pottsville.
Alfred A. Mayo, 39, of Reading, provided no reason for the panel to reverse either his conviction or sentence, Senior Judge Robert E. Colville wrote in a 10-page opinion filed Tuesday in Pottsville.
As a result, Mayo must serve six to 12 years in a state correctional institution, the total prison time imposed on him by county Judge Charles M. Miller on May 17, 2010, following the defendant's conviction of two sets of drug-related crimes.
After a two-day trial, a jury convicted Mayo on March 2, 2010, of two counts each of delivery of a controlled substance, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and criminal use of a communication facility.
Pottsville police had charged Mayo with selling $100 worth of crack cocaine to a confidential informant on July 5, 2008, in a supermarket parking lot in the city, and with selling another $100 worth of crack cocaine to another confidential informant on Aug. 16, 2008, also in the city.
Miller imposed consecutive sentences of three to six years in state prison on Mayo for the separate incidents, and also made those sentences consecutive to one Mayo is serving in an unrelated case from Berks County.
Mayo is an inmate at State Correctional Institution/Dallas in Luzerne County.
In his opinion, Colville wrote that Mayo had to prove that Miller erred in not granting him a new trial, and the defendant failed to do so.
Mayo alleged his previous lawyer gave him bad recommendations that made him choose not to testify, cross-examined witnesses ineffectively and incorrectly advised him during plea negotiations, and that prosecutors committed misconduct. However, Colville wrote that Mayo did not develop and prove those claims, and that it was his burden to do so.
"This Court will not act as counsel and will not develop arguments on behalf of an appellant," he wrote. "Having not shown prejudice, (Mayo) has not given us cause to disturb the (county) court's decision."
Of the other panel members, Judge Jacqueline O. Shogan agreed with Colville's opinion, while Judge Sallie Updyke Mundy concurred only in the result.
In 2011, a different three-judge state Superior Court panel rejected Mayo's first appeal.