Court Opinion

ID: 9714239
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:33:40.805866+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:24.555217
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Judge,
concurring.
I concur with my esteemed Colleagues’ decision to reverse the order of the Board. However, I respectfully disagree with my Colleagues’ conclusion that the ineffective assistance of counsel claim raised by the Petitioner Keith M. Scott is not properly before the Court at this time. I believe that the ineffective assistance claim is one of the remaining issues that was remanded to the Court for disposition by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and that the Court has a duty to address it.
The Board mailed an order recommitting Keith M. Scott as a technical parole violator on June 16, 1994. On appeal this Court reversed the Board, holding that the Board erred in admitting evidence obtained during an illegal search of Scott’s residence because the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution required exclusion of the tainted evidence. In light of this conclusion, the Court declined to address additional claims advanced by Scott in his appeal. Scott v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 668 A.2d 590 (Pa.Cmwlth.1995) (Scott I). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted allo-catur and affirmed this Court’s order. Scott v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 548 Pa. 418, 698 A.2d 32 (1997) (Scott II). The Supreme Court held that a parole officer who is aware or has reason *1147to be aware of a suspect’s parole or probationary status must have reasonable suspicion of a parole violation before conducting a search; otherwise, the exclusionary rule will apply to the parole revocation hearing. Id.
In reaching its conclusion, the Supreme Court noted that although the Pennsylvania exclusionary rule serves a broader purpose than its federal counterpart, Scott had not raised a claim under the Pennsylvania Constitution, and accordingly the court’s decision was premised solely on federal constitutional grounds. Id. The United States Supreme Court granted cer-tiorari and thereafter reversed the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, holding that parole boards are not required by federal law to exclude evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 118 S.Ct. 2014, 141 L.Ed.2d 344 (1998) (Scott III). The United States Supreme Court remanded the matter to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which then remanded to this Court to dispose of Scott’s remaining issues. Scott now requests that this Court consider whether his former counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to raise and preserve the issue of whether Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution required suppression of the evidence obtained in the illegal search.
The majority suggests that Scott should not be permitted to raise his ineffective assistance of counsel claim before this Court on remand because it was not one of the issues which the Court declined to consider in Scott I. Scott’s current counsel was retained after Scott’s former counsel prevailed before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule argument. When the United States Supreme Court remanded the matter to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Scott filed a petition before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which raised his ineffective assistance claim. Thus Scott raised his ineffective assistance of counsel claim at the first available opportunity when he was no longer represented by the attorney whose effectiveness is in question. It is well settled that an ineffective assistance of counsel claim is properly preserved in a parole revocation proceeding when it is raised at the earliest stage in the proceedings after the counsel whose effectiveness is in question no longer represents the parolee. Vereen v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 101 Pa.Cmwlth. 63, 515 A.2d 637 (1986). Therefore, Scott’s claim was properly preserved.
In opposition to Scott’s petition, the Board argued, in the alternative, that the matter should be remanded for this Court to hear the ineffective assistance claim in the first instance, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court then remanded the matter to this Court. The Supreme Court’s remand order was not limited to disposition of the issues which the Court declined to consider in its November 30, 1995 opinion and order as the majority suggests. Rather, the Supreme Court merely refused Scott’s request for that court to affirm Scott’s claims on state constitutional grounds. The court thereupon remanded the matter to this Court “for disposition of Petitioner’s remaining issues.” Because Scott’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim was properly preserved, it is one of the remaining viable issues in this case, and therefore it is encompassed by the Supreme Court’s remand order. This result is particularly clear in light of the Board’s argument before the Supreme Court that the ineffective assistance claim should be remanded to this Court for disposition. All other issues have been conceded by the Board or waived by Scott.
The majority next suggests that the Court cannot consider the ineffective assistance claim because the question of whether Scott’s counsel had a reasonable basis designed to effectuate Scott’s interests must first be considered by the Board, even if the question is purely legal. However, there is a plethora of case precedent *1148in which Pennsylvania appellate courts have resolved that issue in ineffective assistance claims raised for the first time on appeal. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Wayne, 558 Pa. 614, 720 A.2d 456 (1998), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 120 S.Ct. 94, — L.Ed.2d - (1999) (finding no reasonable basis for a counsel’s action in an ineffective assistance of counsel claim raised for the first time before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court); Commonwealth v. Ervin, 456 Pa.Super. 782, 789, 691 A.2d 966, 970 (1997) (“When the certified record is sufficient to permit us to review an ineffectiveness claim raised for the first time on direct appeal, we need not remand for an evidentiary hearing.”); Vereen (vacating the Board’s revocation order and remanding for a new hearing where the petitioner established ineffective assistance of counsel in a claim raised for the first time on appeal to this Court).
Moreover, if the question required additional factual findings for resolution, the proper procedure would be to remand the matter to the fact finder for the necessary findings rather than to fail to address the claim. Commonwealth v. Davis, 499 Pa. 282, 453 A.2d 809 (1982) (remanding for an evidentiary hearing where the record was insufficient for the court to determine whether counsel had some reasonable basis designed to effectuate the client’s interests). However, like the Pennsylvania Superior Court, I can conceive of no reasonable basis upon which a counsel could assert a Fourth Amendment claim without likewise asserting the client’s rights under Article 1, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, and thus I discern no basis for a remand for factual findings. See Commonwealth v. Kilgore, 719 A.2d 754 (Pa.Super.1998). Accordingly, I respectfully concur in the result.