Opinion ID: 1906630
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: appellant's augmentation of amended pcra petition

Text: Appellant requested, and was provided with, court-appointed counsel to prepare an amended PCRA petition, and counsel decided to advance three issues before the PCRA Court. Appellant now seeks to argue, in addition to those three issues raised by PCRA counsel, twenty-seven other issues framed as layered ineffectiveness of counsel claims, contending that PCRA counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the other instances of prior counsel's ineffectiveness, as stated in Appellant's initial pro se petition. Because the PCRA court did not address these issues, we do not have the benefit of a complete record or the reasoning of that court. We recognize that the Appellant attempted to raise these issues pro se while counsel in the PCRA proceedings represented him. A defendant has the constitutional right to proceed without counsel if the decision to do so is knowing and voluntary. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975), accord, Commonwealth v. Davis, 479 Pa. 274, 388 A.2d 324 (1978). The same constitutional right does not apply to a defendant like the Appellant, who was represented by counsel but also wanted to be his own co-counsel. Commonwealth v. Ellis, 534 Pa. 176, 626 A.2d 1137 (1993). This court's Opinion in Ellis reiterated the following policy reasons stated by the Superior Court concerning why that court will not review pro se briefs when an appellant is represented by counsel:

4. reviewing pro se briefs of counseled appellants would lead to procedural confusion and delay in the appellate process because of the need for the court and the Commonwealth to review and evaluate additional pro se briefs. Ellis, 534 Pa. at 179-180, 626 A.2d at 1138-1139. This Court held in Ellis that a defendant in a criminal case may not confuse and overburden the courts by filing his own pro se briefs at the same time his counsel is filing briefs for him. Id. There is no right to that type of hybrid representation at trial or on appeal, and the decision whether to allow such hybrid representation is within the sound discretion of the trial court. Id. This Court further explained the Ellis decision in Commonwealth v. Rogers, 537 Pa. 581, 645 A.2d 223 (1994), in which we held that the Superior Court may prohibit the filing of pro se briefs by appellants represented by counsel on appeal. In Rogers, our decision stated that we may require that appellants remain with counsel through the appeal once counsel has filed a brief because to do otherwise would result in the confusion and overburdening of the court described in Ellis. The rationale of our decisions in Ellis and Rogers applies equally to PCRA proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas. We will not require courts considering PCRA petitions to struggle through the pro se filings of defendants when qualified counsel represent those defendants. After reviewing the entire record of this case, there is no basis for this Court to conclude that the PCRA court abused its discretion when it refused to consider the issues raised in the Appellant's pro se pleading. To the contrary, the Appellant's long history of filing extensive pro se pleadings while counsel in this litigation represented him should weigh heavily against a court considering the merits of his filings. We therefore conclude that the PCRA court properly denied the Appellant's request to supplement the Amended PCRA Petition.