Opinion ID: 2365503
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scope of the Post Conviction Hearing Act

Text: The basic error of the court below and of this Court, as I see it, lies in a misconception of the scope and proper function of the Post-Conviction Hearing Act. That Act was designed to allow a defendant to assert after trial and conviction the existence of some egregious fault or flaw in the prior proceedings which denied him the benefits of a fair trial and thus deprived him of due process of law or equal protection of the laws or both. PCHA procedure was intended to take the place in Pennsylvania of petitions for writs of habeas corpus, coram nobis and the like, following conviction. Act of January 25, 1966, P.L. (1965) 1580, §§ 2, 3, 19 P.S. §§ 1180-2, 3. One of the situations frequently recurring in PCHA proceedings is the inability of the Commonwealth to prove that a defendant-petitioner has been advised of his right to file post-trial motions, Commonwealth v. Norman, 456 Pa. 252, 318 A.2d 351 (1974), of his right to appeal the judgments of sentence against him, Commonwealth v. Mumford, 430 Pa. 451, 243 A.2d 440 (1968), and of his right, if indigent, to the services of legal counsel on appeal without cost to himself, Commonwealth v. Sprangle, 442 Pa. 271, 275 A.2d 114 (1971); Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811 (1963). In such cases the post-conviction court recognizes the right of the defendant to an appeal, and to that end allows the filing and arguing of post-trial motions with the same effect as though this had been done in a timely fashion (nunc pro tunc). [11] That, of course, was not the situation here, as Sullivan concedes. Appellant's brief at Nos. 121 and 122, pp. 9-10. Nor did the lower court grant the right to file post-trial motions nunc pro tunc, for such motions had long since been filed and denied. It purported to grant, instead, a nunc pro tunc appeal, apparently accepting defendant's contention that his purported appeal of 1969 was not an appeal after all because counsel's brief had not been carefully prepared and oral argument had been waived. [12] Whether legal services of counsel for a criminal appellant in this Court have been so slip-shod, so careless, so faulty as to add up to ineffectiveness is and must be for this Court, and no other court, to determine. [13] John Sullivan was correct in seeking relief in this Court on the theory of ineffective counsel, first in his reargument petition and then more explicitly in the petition for reconsideration. [14] This Court having denied relief, the court of common pleas should not have undertaken to hear the case at all insofar as the competence of appellate counsel was concerned. Its action in so doing, while undoubtedly taken with the best of intention, was clearly ultra vires under the circumstances. [15]