Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

The opinion reviews a capital PCRA court order granting Albert Perez a new trial based on ineffective assistance concerning cross-examination of jailhouse informant Donald Sumner, alleged nondisclosure of impeachment evidence, alleged use of uncorrected false testimony, and failure to seek suppression of portions of…

The Court held that a PSERS member is not barred from purchasing service credit for prior out-of-state service merely because she previously received a lump-sum retirement benefit for that service.

The Court held that the Drug Overdose Response Immunity Act does not protect Wilson from prosecution for drug paraphernalia discovered during a lawful inventory search conducted after he had been placed in an ambulance and the medical emergency response had ended.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that a party who wishes to appeal from a collateral order must file a notice of appeal within thirty days of the order's entry, or await the entry of a final order to raise the issue should it survive final judgment. Because Pa.R.A.P.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overruled Commonwealth v. Russo and held that Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, whose term 'possessions' includes land, affords greater protection than the Fourth Amendment to private land beyond the curtilage of a home or building where the owner has taken…

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the Superior Court's order quashing the Commonwealth's single notice of appeal from a suppression order that resolved four codefendants' motions to suppress at four separate docket numbers. The Court agreed that the Official Note to Pa.R.A.P.

The Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court held that Pennsylvania's Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) registration provisions constitute punishment despite the General Assembly's nonpunitive characterization, because four of the five Mendoza-Martinez factors given weight — affirmative…

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that the presumption that information of public record cannot be deemed 'unknown' for purposes of the newly-discovered facts exception to the PCRA time-bar, 42 Pa.C.S.

A closely divided Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that 23 Pa.C.S. § 2313(a) unambiguously mandates appointment of counsel to represent the child's legal interests in contested involuntary termination of parental rights proceedings, and that the mandate is not satisfied by an attorney serving as guardian ad litem…

The Court affirmed the denial of Cox’s second PCRA petition because he failed to satisfy the newly discovered facts exception to the PCRA’s jurisdictional time bar. The Court held that this exception requires only proof that the relevant facts were previously unknown and could not have been discovered through due…

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that the new constitutional rule announced in Alleyne v. United States — that any fact increasing a mandatory minimum penalty must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt — does not apply retroactively to cases on collateral review.

Writing for the Court in this capital PCRA appeal, Justice Stevens held that claims first raised in supplemental pleadings filed without the PCRA court's authorization — the heat-of-passion component of the guilt-phase ineffectiveness claim, the improper-hearsay claim, and the gender-discriminatory-peremptory-strikes…

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the denial of Post Conviction Relief Act relief to Stephen Treiber, who was convicted of first-degree murder for setting fire to his home while his two-year-old daughter slept inside and sentenced to death.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed a Chester County trial court order declaring 18 Pa.C.S. § 6317, the drug-free school zones mandatory-minimum statute, unconstitutional in its entirety.

The court held that the insureds' negligence claim against the insurer was not barred by the gist of the action doctrine because it alleged breach of an independent social duty not to provide negligent and misleading advice about the danger posed by mold, rather than breach of the insurance policy.

The Court held that the PCRA's requirement that a petitioner be serving a sentence when relief is granted is constitutional as applied to Turner, because due process creates no entitlement to collateral review after the petitioner is no longer subject to a state sentence.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that a reviewing court deciding a challenge to a pretrial suppression ruling is confined to the evidence presented at the suppression hearing and may consider trial evidence only where it was previously unavailable when the suppression record closed, as reflected in Pa.R.Crim.P.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reaffirmed Grant's general rule deferring ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims to PCRA collateral review, disapproved expansions of the Bomar exception, and limited Bomar to its pre-Grant, Hubbard-era facts.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the denial of relief on Stephen Rex Edmiston's second and supplemental PCRA petitions, holding every claim untimely under the jurisdictional time bar of 42 Pa.C.S.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that the Superior Court applied an incorrect standard of review when it reversed the trial court's denial of the appellees' motion for a new trial based on a claim that the verdicts were against the weight of the evidence.

The Court affirmed the denial of Sneed's remaining guilt-phase PCRA claims without an evidentiary hearing, concluding that the claims were waived, previously litigated, speculative, meritless, or unsupported by the record.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the dismissal of John Joseph Koehler's Post Conviction Relief Act petition attacking his 1996 convictions and dual death sentences for the 1995 murders of Regina Clark and her nine-year-old son, Austin Hopper, killed by William Curley at Koehler's coercion.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed in part and reversed in part in a class action alleging that model year 1997-2000 Kia Sephias were sold with a common brake-system design defect in breach of KMA's express written warranty.

The Court reversed the Superior Court’s order terminating Father’s parental rights because the Superior Court improperly treated the fact and length of his incarceration as evidence conclusively establishing parental incapacity and substituted its judgment for the trial court’s supported findings.

The court affirmed the judgment of sentence after completing the remand ordered to permit DNA testing and resolving the remaining direct-appeal claims. It held that the evidence was sufficient, the verdict did not shock the conscience, the loss of blood evidence and the telephone redial information did not establish a…

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.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the denial of Post Conviction Relief Act relief from Mark Spotz's first-degree murder conviction and death sentence for the 1995 abduction and murder of Betty Amstutz in Cumberland County, the last of four killings during a three-day crime spree.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the PCRA court's order dismissing Donnetta Hill's guilt-phase PCRA claims, but on waiver grounds rather than the merits: because her counsel never filed a court-ordered Rule 1925(b) statement despite an extension to April 30, 2007, all fifteen guilt-phase claims were…

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed a PCRA court order that had awarded capital prisoner John Lesko both a new guilt-phase trial and a new penalty hearing, and dismissed his 1999 PCRA petition.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed Dustin Briggs's convictions for two counts of first-degree murder and one count of robbery and the resulting sentence of death, finding the trial evidence legally sufficient and rejecting his challenges to the denial of four change-of-venue motions, the admission of his…

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Castille with all six other sitting justices joining, affirmed the Philadelphia PCRA court's denial of collateral relief to this death-sentenced capital inmate litigating pro se.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the PCRA court's dismissal of Alfred Albrecht's serial, pro se PCRA petition, filed more than twenty-one years after his judgment became final in 1987, holding that the PCRA's one-year time limitation is jurisdictional and strips the courts of authority to reach the merits.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the Superior Court's vacation of Curtis Jones's first-degree murder and robbery convictions, holding that the affidavit of probable cause — identifying the murdered student's last-known dormitory room, blocks from the shooting scene — gave the issuing authority a substantial…

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed Kareem Johnson's convictions for first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy, and possession of an instrument of crime, and his sentence of death, concluding the evidence sufficiently showed a premeditated, concerted shooting of Walter Smith to prevent him from testifying…

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the Superior Court’s judgment, holding that under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9765 the two firearm offenses did not merge because each contains a statutory element the other lacks, making the consecutive sentences proper.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed Brentt Michael Sherwood's first-degree murder conviction and death sentence for the beating death of his four-year-old stepdaughter, Marlee Reed.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the Superior Court's order vacating the dismissal of Dexter Pitts's Post Conviction Relief Act petition, holding that the intermediate court erred by sua sponte reviewing the sufficiency of PCRA counsel's no-merit withdrawal letter—an issue neither party raised—and by…

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court's denial of appointed counsel's petition to withdraw under Anders, but on different grounds: counsel's brief was inadequate because it never reflected counsel's own independent, advocate's review of the record for arguable issues, not because it lacked…

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania vacated a PCRA court's order granting Raymond Johnson a new trial on guilt-phase and penalty-phase ineffectiveness grounds, holding that the PCRA court committed legal error by expressly declining to assess the credibility of the petitioner's uncalled eyewitnesses and deficiently…

The court held that the Commonwealth's appeal was timely because the trial court properly vacated its earlier order within the statutory period and entered a later final order. It vacated the PCRA court's grant of new trials, concluding that appellees failed to establish prejudice from counsel's handling of the…