Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. Jules Jette, Appellee

Summary

The court vacated the Superior Court’s order adopting the Battle procedure, which required appointed PCRA appellate counsel to litigate a represented appellant’s pro se allegations of counsel ineffectiveness and could result in appointment of new counsel. It held that the procedure improperly permits hybrid representation, conflicts with counsel’s professional judgment in selecting appellate issues, and risks creating an additional round of collateral review. The proper response to a pro se filing by a represented appellant is to forward it to counsel and take no further action unless counsel files an appropriate motion; once counsel’s brief is filed, the appellant may no longer insist on self-representation. Justice Baer, concurring and dissenting, would have allowed a thirty-day period after filing of the PCRA appellate brief to elect self-representation, while the other separate opinions agreed with rejecting the Battle procedure but expressed additional concerns about the majority’s reasoning.