Court Opinion

ID: 9648683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:32:20.356824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:04.385077
License: Public Domain

Justice CASTILLE,
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion, except for its discussion of appellant’s layered claim of ineffective assistance of counsel deriving from counsels’ failure, at trial and on direct appeal, to challenge his mental competence to be tried. See Majority op. 582 Pa. at 484-91, 872 A.2d at, 1153-57. I respectfully disagree with the Majority’s conversion of this ineffectiveness claim into the underlying and waived claim of competency itself, based upon the Majority’s conclusion that competency claims are not subject to the waiver provision of the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541 et seq. In so doing, the Majority has ignored relevant legislation by creating a judicial relaxed waiver rule that defeats the PCRA’s waiver provision and assures that there will never be finality in appeals from criminal convictions. I also write separately to address a concern I have with the proper characterization and effect of unsworn witness statements which appellant proffers to this Court as if they were the “affidavits” of those witnesses.
Following the approach taken in the recent plurality opinion in Commonwealth v. Santiago, 579 Pa. 46, 855 A.2d 682 (2004) (plurality opinion by Cappy, C.J.), the Majority dismisses the fact that appellant’s claim is posed as one sounding in the layered ineffective assistance of his previous counsel, see Brief for Appellant, 42-43; converts and reviews the claim as the *495underlying waived claim of incompetency itself; holds that such claims are immune from the PCRA’s waiver provision; and then proceeds to evaluate the merits of the waived claim as if this appeal were appellant’s second direct appeal, rather than a collateral attack upon his final judgment. In my Concurring Opinion in Santiago, I addressed the propriety of the Court approaching a competency/ineffectiveness claim in such a fashion and I rely upon that Concurring Opinion as the primary basis for my disagreement with the Majority’s approach in the case sub judice. See Santiago, 579 Pa. at 82-94, 855 A.2d at 704-11 (Castille, J., joined by Eakin, J., concurring). The Majority, however, has articulated on appellant’s behalf new theories in support of the Santiago plurality’s conclusion that claims deriving from a defendant’s alleged mental incompetence to stand trial are exempt from the PCRA waiver provision. I write to address the new theories the Majority poses.
The Santiago plurality declared that mental competency claims are an exception to the statutory command that issues not raised at trial or on appeal are waived under the PCRA, citing as sole support a 1970s-era judicial non-waiver doctrine crafted by this Court in direct appeal cases. See 579 Pa. at 63 n. 9, 855 A.2d at 691-92 n. 9. The Majority in the ease sub judice takes a step forward from the Santiago plurality and at least acknowledges that PCRA matters are not the same as direct appeals. The Majority nevertheless “reaffirms” the unexplained position in the Santiago plurality, putting forth two new theories to support the plurality’s assumption that competency to stand trial claims are forever subject to relaxed waiver treatment. First, the Majority argues that, as a matter of statutory construction, the PCRA waiver provision was not intended by the General Assembly to apply to defaulted claims of mental competency to be tried. Second, the Majority argues that a trio of 1980 decisions from this Court under the Post Conviction Hearing Act (“PCHA”),1 the statutory predecessor of the PCRA, empowers and requires this *496Court to craft a judicial “relaxed waiver” exception despite the PCRA’s explicit waiver provision. In my view, neither of these new-found theories remotely supports the judicial usurpation represented by the Majority’s relaxed waiver holding and its conversion of the layered ineffective assistance of counsel claim actually posed here.
The most basic tenet of Pennsylvania statutory interpretation is that courts must ascertain and effectuate the intention of the General Assembly. 1 Pa.C.S. § 1921(a); In re Canvass of Absentee Ballots of November lh 2003 General Election, 577 Pa. 281, 241-43, 843 A.2d 1223, 1230 (2004); Hannaberry HVAC v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Snyder, Jr.), 575 Pa. 66, 77-79, 834 A.2d 524, 531 (2003). The plain language of a statute is generally the best indication of legislative intent. Commonwealth v. Gilmour Manufacturing Co., 573 Pa. 143, 148-49, 822 A.2d 676, 679 (2003). Thus, the Statutory Construction Act mandates that, “[w]hen the words of a statute are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of it is not to be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing its spirit.” 1 Pa.C.S. § 1921(b); see also Canvass of Absentee Ballots, 577 Pa. at 241—43, 843 A.2d at 1230 (citing Scheipe v. Orlando, 559 Pa. 112, 117, 739 A.2d 475, 478 (1999)); Pennsylvania Financial Responsibility Assigned Claims Plan v. English, 541 Pa. 424, 429-31, 664 A.2d 84, 87 (1995) (“Where the words of a statute are clear and free from ambiguity the legislative intent is to be gleaned from those very words.”). Courts may resort to other considerations to divine legislative intent only when the words of the statute are not explicit. 1 Pa.C.S. § 1921(b). Thus, this Court has consistently held that the rules of statutory construction are to be utilized only where the statute at issue is ambiguous. Canvass of Absentee Ballots, 577 Pa. at 241-43, 843 A.2d at 1230 (citing O’Rourke v. Commonwealth, Dept. of Corrections, 566 Pa. 161, 172-74, 778 A.2d 1194, 1201 (2001)); see also Ramich v. Worker’s Compensation Appeal Bd. (Schatz Electric, Inc.), 564 Pa. 656, 662-64, 770 A.2d 318, 322 (2001); English, 664 A.2d at 87.
The PCRAs waiver provision is drafted in plain and unambiguous terms: “an issue is waived if the petitioner could have raised it but failed to do so before trial, at trial, ... on appeal *497or in a prior state postconviction proceeding.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9544(b). This Court has construed the waiver provision according to its plain terms. E.g., Commonwealth v. Bond, 572 Pa. 588, 598-600, 819 A.2d 33, 39 (2002) (issues are waived under PCRA if appellant could have presented them on direct appeal but failed to do so); Commonwealth v. Bracey, 568 Pa. 264, 273-74, 795 A.2d 935, 940 (2001) (same). The statute contains no “relaxed waiver” exception. Here, the Majority actually recognizes that the always-counseled appellant unquestionably “could have raised” a mental competency claim at trial or on direct appeal. Indeed, because such a claim would have been shielded from ordinary judicial waiver principles on direct review by a judicial “relaxed waiver” rule governing direct appeal review of competency claims, see Commonwealth v. Tyson, 485 Pa. 344, 402 A.2d 995 (1979); Commonwealth v. Marshall, 456 Pa. 313, 318 A.2d 724 (1974), appellant and his lawyers had a uniquely broad opportunity to raise a competency claim. Because appellant did not do so, under the plain and unambiguous language of the statute, any claim sounding in competency is waived and is therefore unavailable on collateral attack.
The Majority nevertheless concludes that the waiver provision cannot be applied according to what the provision plainly says, because the General Assembly had a different, but unexpressed, intention with respect to some defaulted claims. In its invocation of principles of statutory construction to defeat the plain meaning of the statute the Majority fails to identify any ambiguity in the statute. Since the polestar of ambiguity is lacking, there is no room for the Majority’s statutory construction. Absent constitutional infirmity—and none has been argued by appellant or by the Majority on his behalf—the plain language of the statute controls.
To achieve its preferred non-waiver result, the Majority in effect rewrites the post conviction relief statute. The Majority states that the statute must be read as if it said that the only defaulted claims waived for PCRA purposes are those claims that “are required to be preserved” at trial. But the statute does not say this. Indeed, the statute does not speak *498in terms of ephemeral judicial issue preservation doctrines at all. Instead, the PCRA waiver provision—contained in a statute that affords criminal defendants that which is afforded to no other litigant, ie., a chance to undo a final judgment— rationally speaks only in terms of previous opportunities to raise a claim, ie., whether the petitioner could have raised the claim before, but failed to do so. There is no absurdity in reading this sensible restriction upon collateral review according to its plain language'. The appropriate and preferred time to raise claims either monumental or small, constitutional or otherwise, is when they are ripe-when the record is fresh, when a fair opportunity to respond exists, and when a fair and timely resolution is possible. A claim which could have been raised at a point where relief could have been afforded and error averted, but was not, is properly deemed defaulted and merges into the final judgment. Such a foregone claim should be reviewable on collateral attack only as the collateral attack that it is, and as authorized by the General Assembly. The quintessential collateral claim, one specifically deemed cognizable under the PCRA, is a claim of counsel ineffectiveness. This form of the claim is the only logical way to retroactively inquire into a defaulted competency issue:
Instantly no competency hearing was held, nor was one requested. The issue as it had survived for us, then, is not whether appellant would have passed the two-pronged test for competency, it is rather only whether his counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the claim that he would not.
Commonwealth v. Nelson, 489 Pa. 491, 414 A.2d 998, 1001 (1980) (plurality opinion) (footnote omitted).
Moreover, even if judicial “construction” of this plain and unambiguous statute were appropriate, it is the Majority’s rewriting of the provision to include relaxed waiver which will lead to absurdity. Under the Majority’s rewriting, issues which had to be objected-to at trial in order to be reviewable on direct appeal are subject to PCRA waiver, while issues which did not have to be objected-to at trial in order to be reviewable on direct appeal are “not subject to the waiver provision of the PCRA.” Op. at 486-88, 872 A.2d at 1154. In *499other words, claims which would have been subject to “relaxed” judicial waiver rules on direct appeal carry their relaxed waiver status forevermore, rendering the claims immune from PCRA waiver. But, if the Majority is correct in this reconstruction of the statute, then this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 554 Pa. 31, 720 A.2d 693 (1998), is demonstrably wrong.
The rather esoteric direct appeal relaxed waiver rule innovated for competency claims in Marshall and Tyson is not the most familiar of this Court’s historic relaxed waiver rules: that status belongs to the relaxed waiver rule formerly applicable in direct capital appeals.2 When Albrecht, a capital PCRA appeal, was decided, the capital relaxed waiver rule still existed. That doctrine provided that this Court would review claims for which the record permitted review even if those claims would otherwise have been waived—i.e., even if they were not preserved below. Thus, under that issue preservation scheme, record-based claims of error were not “required to be preserved” in order to be reviewed. 720 A.2d at 700. For purposes of reviewability, such defaulted claims were treated in the same manner as defaulted claims of competency to stand trial. And yet, the Albrecht Court abrogated relaxed waiver on PCRA review—unequivocally and without exception—thereby rendering the previously nonwaivable claims defaulted. Moreover, the Albrecht Court emphasized that it was so limiting the judicial relaxed waiver rule in part because “application of the doctrine of relaxed waiver in a PCRA proceeding runs afoul of the very terms of the Post-Conviction Relief Act, which excludes waived issues from the class of cognizable PCRA claims.” Accordingly, claims subje ct to PCRA waiver would be reviewed only when raised under the guise of ineffective assistance of counsel. Id. Thus, Albrecht recognized the proper role of the General Assembly on the question of PCRA waiver.
*500If the PCRA waiver provision truly was “intended to mean” what today’s Majority says—i.e., once relaxed waiver, always relaxed waiver—then the principled underpinning of Albrecht has just been eviscerated. Contrary to the Albrecht Court’s understanding, a PCRA court’s declining to deem waived claims which were not required to be preserved at trial because of relaxed waiver principles could not run afoul of the PCRA waiver provision because that provision was “intended to apply” only to claims which were “required to be preserved.” And yet, countless capital PCRA petitioners since Albrecht have seen their previously “nonwaivable” claims dismissed upon PCRA waiver grounds. If the Majority believes that relaxed waiver must be resurrected on PCRA review in this instance, it should squarely address and overrule Albrecht, instead of creating a hopelessly contradictory PCRA waiver jurisprudence.
The Majoritys construction of the PCRA waiver provision also ignores the fact that until now this Court has not interpreted the PCRA as affording special treatment to defaulted claims of mental competency to be tried. As I noted in my Concurring Opinion in Santiago, the plurality’s approach there (which is now echoed by the Majority here) is squarely inconsistent with this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Marrero, 561 Pa. 100, 748 A.2d 202 (2000) (layered claim of counsel ineffectiveness arising from defaulted competency claim addressed and rejected on Sixth Amendment merits, without converting claim into supposedly-non-waivable claim of incompetency itself). Marrero represents the prevailing PCRA interpretation in this Court. In cases decided under the PCRA (including Albrecht itself), this Court has routinely applied waiver principles to claims involving competency and/or it has routinely analyzed ineffectiveness claims deriving from defaulted competency issues as cognizable ineffectiveness claims, without converting them into waived competency issues whose waiver must be “relaxed” under the PCRA. See Commonwealth v. Judge, 568 Pa. 877, 385-86 n. 12, 797 A.2d 250, 256 n. 12, 259-60 (2002) (per Newman, J.) (holding that all PCRA claims—including claim asking “Is Appellant entitled to *501relief because counsel failed to request, and the court failed to order, a competency evaluation when appellant manifested extreme mental and emotional disturbance during his guilt-stage testimony”—were waived because they could have been raised on direct appeal, but were defaulted in light of appellant’s prior fugitive status); Commonwealth v. Bracey, 568 Pa. 264, 281-84, 795 A.2d 935, 945-46 (2001) (per Nigro, J.) (deciding on merits claim that counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge appellant’s competency to stand trial, without converting claim into non-waivable underlying claim of incompetency itself); Commonwealth v. Basemore, 560 Pa. 258, 271-73, & 275 n. 8, 744 A.2d 717, 725 & 727 n. 8 (2000) (per Saylor, J.) (claim of counsel ineffectiveness in failing to develop and present evidence of incompetence or request incompetency hearing was waived because not raised in PCRA court; and specifically declining to address appellant’s argument that claims implicating competency cannot be deemed waived); Commonwealth v. Breakiron, 556 Pa. 519, 538-41, 729 A.2d 1088, 1098-99 (1999) (per Newman, J.) (claim of ineffectiveness for failing to litigate competency issue reviewed as ineffectiveness claim, not as unwaivable underlying claim of incompetency itself); Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 554 Pa. at 56 & n. 13, 720 A.2d at 706 & n. 13 (per Cappy, J.) (PCRA claim sounding in ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to “determine whether the defendant’s competency to assist in his own defense was affected by the heavy medication he was receiving during the trial” was waived for want of development); Commonwealth v. Cross, 535 Pa. 38, 44-46, 634 A.2d 173, 176 (1993) (per Montemuro, J.) (claim of ineffectiveness for failing to adequately investigate appellant’s competence evaluated as ineffectiveness claim, not converted into underlying competency claim).3,4
*502Equally unpersuasive is the Majority’s reliance upon three 1980 decisions from this Court decided under the PCHA—Commonwealth v. Fernandez, 487 Pa. 493, 410 A.2d 296 (1980), Nelson, 489 Pa. 491, 414 A.2d 998, and Commonwealth v. Giknis, 491 Pa. 215, 420 A.2d 419 (1980). Indeed, these cases are so problematic as a jurisprudential matter—in their failure to account for one another despite being decided within months of each other, while outlining no less than three distinct approaches to the waiver question under the PCHA— that it is unwise in the extreme to hold them up as if they established some harmonious PCHA precedent, much less to suggest that they operated prospectively to preempt the waiver options available to the General Assembly when it adopted the PCRA.
The Majority is mistaken in deeming these three cases to inform, much less control, the waiver question under the PCRA. The Majority declares that the PCHA and PCRA statutory waiver paradigms “are nearly identical.” This is not so. The PCHA waiver provision at issue in Fernandez, Nel*503son, and Giknis provided that an issue was waived under that Act only if “[t]he petitioner knowingly and understandingly failed to raise it and it could have been raised before the trial, at the trial, on appeal,” etc. See Fernandez, 487 Pa. at 494-98, 410 A.2d at 297-98 (quoting 19 P.S. § 1180—4(b)(1)) (now repealed by PCRA) (emphasis supplied). Even if an issue was knowingly and understandingly waived, the PCHA permitted the petitioner to negate the waiver if he could “prove the existence of extraordinary circumstances to justify his failure to raise the issue.” Fernandez, 487 Pa. at 496-98, 410 A.2d at 298 (quoting 19 P.S. § 1180—4(b)(2)).5 In contrast, the PCRA waiver provision contains no requirement whatsoever that the failure to raise a claim must be knowing and understanding, nor does it allow a waiver of an issue to be negated by proof of extraordinary circumstances. This Court’s precedent under the distinctly different waiver language of the PCHA simply cannot control the question of how properly to interpret the far different language of the PCRA. Perhaps this fact explains why this Court in practice has not previously treated mental competency claims as if they were impervious to PCRA waiver.
This distinction in the PCHA’s waiver standard as opposed to that found in the PCRA is not merely academic; indeed, it was essential to the unanimous decision in Fernandez, the first-in-time of the trio of cases cited by the Majority. As a matter of statutory interpretation, the Fernandez case is the only one of the three 1980 cases that makes any remote sense, since it is the only one which purports to apply the language of the statute, and thereby to recognize that the General Assembly is permitted a role in post-conviction matters. In holding that the defaulted competency claim in Fernandez could be renewable under the PCHA, the Court specifically invoked the distinct “knowing and understanding” language of the PCHA. Moreover, the Fernandez Court ultimately concluded that the competency claim was waived. The relevant analysis and holding reads as follows:
*504Fernandez’s contention here, that his plea was invalid due to his mental incapacity, is an issue that could have been raised on direct appeal and would, thus, be waived unless he rebuts the presumption that his failure to file a direct appeal was knowing and understanding or proves that extraordinary circumstances existed excusing his failure to file a direct appeal. Yet, proof that a defendant lacked the mental capacity to “knowingly and intelligently” enter a plea of guilty would be sufficient to rebut the presumption of a “knowing and understanding” failure to appeal where the incapacity shown is non-transitory. Mental incapacity, sufficient to prevent the entering of a valid guilty plea, would also prevent a “knowing and understanding” failure to appeal.
In the present case, the PCHA court concluded Fernandez did possess the mental capacity to enter a valid plea of guilt. Our examination of the record persuades us that this conclusion is warranted by the evidence. Fernandez has, therefore, failed to overcome the presumption that his failure to appeal was knowing and understanding. Thus, his claim was waived.
487 Pa. at 496-98, 410 A.2d at 298 (footnotes omitted).
The Majority’s reliance upon the Nelson case is misplaced for distinct and multiple reasons peculiar to it. First, despite the fact that Nelson involved a similar issue and was decided a mere two months after the unanimous decision in Fernandez, neither the Nelson plurality opinion nor the responsive opinions ever cited to Fernandez; it is as if there were two different jurisdictions at work. Second, despite the Majority’s argument to the contrary, the notion that Nelson is a precedential decision is plainly erroneous. A “majority opinion” is “[t]he opinion of an appellate court in which the majority of its members join.” Black’s Law Dictionary (6th ed.1990), at 955 (emphasis added). In contrast, a “plurality” opinion is “[a]n opinion of an appellate court in which more justices join than in any concurring opinion (though not a majority of the court)....” Id. at 486-88, 872 A.2d at 1154. The key to precedential status in an appellate opinion is the tally of *505“joining” votes. Agreement with, or concurrence in a mandate, is not a “joinder,” much less is it a joinder in the crucial ratio decidendi of the case. Indeed, even a joinder in a “disposition” is just a more polite way of saying, “I join in the result only”—it is not a joinder for purposes of establishing precedent.
In Nelson, only three of the six participating Justices joined in the plurality opinion; the other three were in a dissenting posture. The Majority nevertheless argues that Nelson is precedential “for the rule of law at issue here”—i.e., apparently, a rule that this Court has the power to dictate to the General Assembly that defaulted mental competency claims are beyond its power to deem waived on collateral attack—by relying upon the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Roberts as the crucial fourth vote. Op. at 488 n. 12, 872 A.2d at 1155 n. 12. But, Justice Roberts’ dissent did not join in any part of the Nelson plurality opinion, nor was it even a concurring and dissenting opinion, which might indicate joinder in the disposition, if not the rationale. All that Justice Roberts indicated was his “agreement” to remand the record for further proceedings on the competency-based claim, without explaining what further proceedings he contemplated. Justice Roberts never signed on to the rationale of the lead opinion and we cannot pretend that he did. Plurality opinions, by definition, establish no binding precedent for future cases. E.g., Commonwealth v. Bethea, 574 Pa. 100, 110-12, 828 A.2d 1066, 1073 (2003); Hoy v. Angelone, 554 Pa. 134, 143-45, 720 A.2d 745, 750 (1998); see also Interest of O.A., 552 Pa. 666, 676 n. 4, 717 A.2d 490, 496 n. 4 (1998) (Opinion Announcing Judgment of Court by Cappy, J.) (“While the ultimate order of a plurality opinion, i.e. an affirmance or reversal, is binding on the parties in that particular case, legal conclusions and/or reasoning employed by a plurality certainly do not constitute binding authority.”).
Third, even if Justice Roberts’ agreement that a remand was required in Nelson could be deemed a joinder in the “rule of law” Nelson “established,” it requires noting that the rule thereby “established” by Nelson was that a waived claim of mental incompetency is reviewable only as a claim sounding in ineffective assistance of counsel. Thus, in the very next *506paragraphs following the Majority’s abbreviated quotation from Nelson, the plurality actually disposed of the case as follows:
Instantly no competency hearing was held, nor was one requested. The issue as it had survived for us, then, is not whether appellant would have passed the two-pronged test for competency, it is rather only whether his counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the claim that he would not.
Accordingly, the case is remanded for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether trial counsel had “any reasonable basis” for foregoing a claim of “arguable merit.” ... Following such hearing should the court determine trial counsel was ineffective for not requesting a competency hearing, it should order such a hearing.... If no ineffectiveness is found, the judgment of sentence is affirmed.
414 A.2d at 1001 (footnote and citations omitted). Thus, if Nelson is truly precedential, it stands for the proposition that where, as here, a competency claim has been defaulted at trial without a hearing, a collateral claim implicating competency is reviewable only as a claim sounding in the ineffective assistance of counsel. Coincidentally, that is how appellant in this case poses his claim, and it is how the appellant in Santiago posed his claim. Both the Santiago plurality and today’s Majority act contrary to Nelson in converting the claim.
The third 1980 case, Giknis, was filed five months after Nelson and was written by the author of the Nelson plurality opinion. Like Fernandez, Giknis was a unanimous decision in a case involving a defendant who had pleaded guilty to murder and belatedly sought to challenge his competency on PCHA review. The Giknis Court, like the Nelson Court, inexplicably failed to cite or even to acknowledge the unanimous opinion in Fernandez. In addition, the Giknis Court approached the competency/waiver question differently than either Fernandez or Nelson—without purporting to distinguish, limit, or overrule those decisions. Thus, although Giknis quoted the PCHA waiver provision, including its “knowing and understanding” standard, Giknis did not follow Fernandez. Indeed, the Giknis Court did not inquire into the circumstances of the *507waiver at all. Nor did the author of Giknis follow his plurality opinion in Nelson and remand for an ineffectiveness hearing on the question of why trial counsel failed to challenge his client’s competency to be tried.
Instead, the Giknis Court cited that portion of the Nelson plurality opinion which had cited Marshall and Tyson for the tangential proposition that competency claims are not waivable on direct appeal and concluded, without further explanation, that the two competency issues raised on collateral review in Giknis therefore must be reached on the merits. This rather remarkable, truncated analysis never acknowledged or realized that: (1) Tyson and Marshall involved direct appeals; (2) Nelson was a non-binding plurality opinion; (3) in any event, the language quoted from Nelson did not reflect the Nelson Court’s disposition, which considered the defaulted competency claim to be reviewable only as an ineffectiveness claim; (4) Fernandez was recent, unanimous precedential authority which took a different, statutorily-based approach to the PCHA waiver question; and (5) the Nelson plurality had recognized that Marshall and Tyson were direct appeal cases, not PCHA cases. To further add to the confusion on the Court in these cases, Giknis then went on to analyze the competency question both as a direct review matter and as an ineffectiveness matter, ultimately citing to the PCHA testimony of trial counsel as justifying his decision not to challenge competency: “[a]s counsel would best be in a position to judge the ability of a client to communicate to aid in a defense and the ability to comprehend the nature of the charges, we cannot find that counsel was ineffective.... ” Giknis, 491 Pa. 219-21, 420 A.2d at 421-22.
I would avoid reliance upon these quarter-century old PCHA cases because, to put it mildly, they are uneven. No less than three distinct and conflicting approaches to PCHA waiver can be gleaned from the cases, and yet, the Court which issued all three rulings closely in time made no attempt to harmonize the divergent rulings. Moreover, the cases involved a very different statutory waiver standard, and thus, they are not relevant to the inquiry under the PCRA. And *508finally, the cases are frankly useless as a jurisprudential matter because they never explain or justify the crucial separation of powers issue of how it is that a Court faced with unambiguous statutory language may simply manufacture a judicial exception to that explicit language.
It is obvious that some Justices feel very strongly about mental competency claims, and would prefer that the General Assembly had afforded special relaxed waiver status to claims sounding in competency to be tried. But, the General Assembly clearly did not do that, and I would not rewrite the statute to indulge a different judicial preference. Moreover, I would not conclude that this Court has existing rational precedent which acts to prohibit the General Assembly from deeming defaulted competency claims to be unavailable for review under the PCRA. None of the cases cited by the Majority purport to hold that the General Assembly lacks constitutional authority to deem claims sounding in competency to be waivable, just like the vast majority of claims of constitutional and non-constitutional dimension. Moreover, the PCRA’s review paradigm is not irrational. A defaulted competency claim can be litigated in a far more rational fashion through the lens of a claim sounding in counsel ineffectiveness—counsel, after all, is in the best “position to judge the ability of a client to communicate to aid in a defense and the ability to comprehend the nature of the charges.... ” Giknis, 420 A.2d at 422.
In a system of separated powers, the only theoretically legitimate question which could arise from the sua sponte concern of the Santiago plurality and today’s Majority is whether application of the PCRA waiver provision to claims sounding in competency to be tried would be unconstitutional. Such an argument—which itself would pose a distinct (and presumably waivable) procedural claim of constitutional dimension—is not before us. If the question of constitutionality is the Majority’s true concern, it should await the case where the claim is raised directly, and decide it then. In the absence of a finding of unconstitutionality, we should not resurrect the PCRA relaxed waiver rule to negate proper legislative authority.
*509The Majority’s radical and unwise rewriting of the PCRA waiver provision will prove particularly harmful given this Court’s recent relaxed waiver decision in Commonwealth v. Roney, 581 Pa. 587, 866 A.2d 351 (2005). In Roney, this Court was faced with the question of whether a waived penalty phase jury instruction claim, premised upon the new procedural rule in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000) and Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), could be reached and decided on the merits on direct appeal. Roney afforded the appellant the retroactive benefit of the new rule, notwithstanding his waiver of the claim, reasoning that “because the challenge to a sentence premised upon Apprendi implicates the legality of that sentence, it cannot be waived on appeal.” 581 Pa. 600-01 n. 32, 866 A.2d at 359 n. 32 (citing Commonwealth v. Aponte, 579 Pa. 246, 250 n. 1, 855 A.2d 800, 802 n. 1 (2004)).
Roney apparently will dictate that all sentencing claims of alleged constitutional dimension now implicate “legality” and therefore need not be preserved in order to be raised on direct appeal. By the logical operation of the Majority’s tortured statutory interpretation in the present case, such non-waivable constitutional sentencing claims will also no longer be subject to the PCRA’s waiver provision. And so, constitutional sentencing claims, like competency claims, are impervious to waiver. Such claims not only need never be preserved, but they may be raised will-nilly: for the first time in a PCRA petition; or as late as PCRA appeal; or, in light of unfortunate cases such as Fajohn v. Commonwealth, 547 Pa. 649, 692 A.2d 1067 (1997), anytime in the future when the defendant feels like filing an “illegal sentence” motion nunc pro tunc. Indeed, there is nothing in the ad hoc relaxed waiver review reemerging in cases such as this and Roney to prevent entirely prospective procedural rules of constitutional dimension affecting sentencing to become retroactively enforceable, and thus available to upset a proper final judgment.
Since the waiver in question on direct appeal derives from judicial doctrines, it is certainly within this Court’s power to craft such exceptions, as it did in Roney—albeit unwisely in *510my view. See 581 Pa. at 603-11, 866 A.2d at 362-66 (Castille, J., concurring). But, the waiver at issue on PCRA review is statutory, and this Court does not have the same power of negation or suspension. The presumptively constitutional legislative waiver standard is entitled to deference. Because the Majority refuses to respect the clear mandate of the PCRA statute, I do not join in its treatment of appellant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel based on mental incompetence.
On the merits of appellant’s cognizable and non-waived claim that prior counsel were ineffective for failing to litigate the question of appellant’s competency to stand trial, Brief for Appellant, 42-43, I would conclude that appellant’s proffer did not establish a claim of even arguable merit. Hence, I agree that appellant is not entitled to PCRA relief, albeit my conclusion is premised upon considering the claim he actually raises.
Turning to the question of “affidavits,” the Majority notes that appellant supports a number of his claims by attaching unsworn “declarations” of would-be witnesses, which appellant characterizes as “affidavits” in his brief. The Majority accurately recognizes that these “affidavits” in fact are merely unsworn “declarations.”
I realize that this Court has been uniformly lax in recent PCRA appeals and has appeared to accept and adopt defense characterizations of these sorts of attachments as “affidavits.” But, in point of fact, these “declarations” are nothing of the sort and coming to terms with that fact should make for a more precise legal analysis in PCRA appeals. An affidavit is not self-certifying nor does it become certified by adoption once an attorney attaches it to a legal pleading. “By definition an affidavit is a statement of facts confirmed by oath before a judicial officer having authority to administer the oath.” Commonwealth v. Chandler, 505 Pa. 113, 117-19, 477 A.2d 851, 853 (1984) (search warrant affidavit). See also 1 Pa.C.S. § 1991 (Affidavit is “[a] statement in writing of a fact or facts signed by the party making it, sworn to or affirmed before an officer authorized by the laws of this Commonwealth to take acknowledgments of deeds, or authorized to administer oaths, or before the particular officer or individual designated *511by law as the one before whom it is to or may be taken, and officially certified to in the case of an officer under his seal of office.”); Black’s Law Dictionary (7th ed.1999), at 58 (defining affidavit as “[a] voluntary declaration of facts written down and sworn to by the declarant before an officer authorized to administer oaths”). Appellant’s proffered “affidavits” in this case, including those from his former counsel, were not sworn before an officer authorized to administer an oath, they were not certified by such a qualified officer, and they bear no seal or other confirmation of certification. The statements are not even witnessed. Instead, the “affidavits” consist of “declarations” committed to paper, allegedly signed by the named declarants, and containing would-be self-certifications.6
I am aware that, in 1976, the definitions section of the Judicial Code adopted a more lax definition of the term “affidavit.” The Code provides that, subject to additional, more specific usages, the term affidavit when used in the Code, “[ijncludes an unsworn document containing statements of fact and a statement by the signatory that it is made subject to the penalties of 18 Pa.C.S. § 4904 (relating to unsworn falsification to authorities).” 42 Pa.C.S. § 102. Although the declarations in this case do not cite to Section 102, and appellant does not otherwise advert to a reliance upon the relaxed definition, his declarations conform to Section 102.
The PCRA, of course, is contained within the Judicial Code, but it never employs the term affidavit.7 The term is used in this Court’s Rules of Criminal Procedure governing post-conviction proceedings, see Pa.R.Crim.P. 902(D), but the Criminal Rules do not specifically define the term.8 Since the *512PCRA does not employ the term, and the Criminal Rules do not approve a “relaxed” approach to affidavits, the Section 102 definition is not implicated, and the traditional definition must govern the construction of this Court’s Criminal Rules.
What makes an affidavit distinct from any other out of court statement, rumor, innuendo or falsehood is the oath and the certification. These elements are not mere formalities. The oath conveys to the declarant a sense of the very real consequences of a falsehood, including the potential for a felony perjury prosecution, 18 Pa.C.S. § 4902, while the oath and certification alike convey to the tribunal at least some level of assurance that the declarant is who he says he is, that his declaration is not fraudulent in whole or in part, and that he will be willing to stand behind his statement in court.9 Absent such assurances, out of court witness “declarations” have little to distinguish them from other hearsay or irrelevant chatter. If the witness’s statement is indeed an account that the witness will be willing to stand behind under oath in a court of law—which is the only relevant purpose for which such a statement could be proffered under the PCRA—it is a simple matter to remove the statement from the realm of rumor by having it sworn-to and certified before an appropriate officer. The fact that a witness would refuse or decline to so certify his account and subject the witness to sanctions may say volumes about its reliability. Moreover, it should be particularly easy *513to secure a statement in affidavit form from members of the bar of this Court.
The Majority does not address the relevance or value of appellant’s declarations, instead finding that, even assuming their truth, they do not warrant substantive relief or an evidentiary hearing. Like the Majority, Mr. Justice, recognizes that appellant’s affidavits in fact are mere declarations and would conclude that the declarations of lead trial counsel and his associate counsel, along with other witness “affidavits” and defense proffers in this case, are enough to warrant an evidentiary hearing. Mr. Justice Nigro, on the other hand, concludes that the purported declarations of lead and associate counsel establish trial counsel’s ineffectiveness as a matter of law as to one issue, thus negating the need for an evidentiary hearing and cross-examination on that question. In my view, where a contested claim for PCRA relief is premised upon the sworn affidavits of witnesses and the truth of those accounts is a necessary element to the success of the claim, the greatest relief available is the award of an evidentiary hearing. A mere affidavit cannot possibly prove the ultimate merit of a contested matter which may turn upon a faulty memory or a credibility assessment. This is so even where the putative witnesses are members of the bar: in a system of laws and not men, no witness’s memory, analysis, and credibility is beyond prodding and challenge and even manipulation. Absent concession or stipulation of the material point by the Commonwealth, the most that an affidavit can demonstrate is an issue of material fact warranting an evidentiary hearing and ultimate judicial determination.
Unwitnessed and unsworn non-affidavits, such as are at issue in the case sub jtidice, are of considerably less value than sworn affidavits. In addition to being insufficient to prove the ultimate merit of a claim, it is questionable, in my view, whether such pleadings should even be deemed relevant to the question of an entitlement to a PCRA evidentiary hearing. Criminal Rule 902, which governs the content of PCRA petitions, directs that “[t]he defendant shall attach to the petition any affidavits, records, documents, or other evi*514dence which show the facts stated in support of the grounds for relief, or the petition shall state why they are not attached.” Pa.R.Crim.P. 902(D) (emphasis added). Arguably, when the account of a witness is the basis for the “facts stated,” the only sufficient proffer which could warrant an evidentiary hearing is an affidavit; unsworn declarations “show” nothing. Having said this, I nevertheless recognize that there is considerable discretionary authority vested in the PCRA trial judge to determine what sort of proffer may warrant an evidentiary hearing. Although the PCRA judge would certainly be warranted in requiring reliability in the form of a sworn affidavit, it may well be that, in an appropriate case,-the court could order an evidentiary hearing based upon mere unsworn declarations and, perhaps, that course might be acceptable if the declarant is a member of the bar.
Ultimately, for purposes of decision in this case, I am prepared to assume the truth of appellant’s witnesses’ “declarations” (as the PCRA court did and as the Majority does) and I join in the Majority’s substantive analysis, which rejects the claims dependent upon those declarations as a matter of law.
Justice EAKIN joins this concurring opinion.

. Act of January 25, 1966, P.L. (1965) 1580, codified at 19 P.S. § 1180-1 et seq. The PCHA was repealed in part, modified in part, and renamed the Post Conviction Relief Act, effective April 13, 1988.

. This Court has since abrogated the direct capital appeal relaxed waiver rule. See Commonwealth v. Freeman, 573 Pa. 532, 827 A.2d 385 (2003), cert. denied,--U.S.--, 125 S.Ct. 30, 160 L.Ed.2d 31 (2004).

. The Majority would distinguish these cases on the ground that the competency issue allegedly was presented in them only in the guise of ineffective assistance of counsel. Op. at 490 n. 14, 872 A.2d at 1156 n. 14. Respectfully, this is simply not so. Appellant’s Brief in this case poses this claim in the very same fashion that capital PCRA claims have typically been raised to this Court in all of these cases: the underlying waived claim is developed and it is then accompanied by a boilerplate or near-boilerplate assertion of counsel ineffectiveness, in an effort to overcome the obvious waiver. It is a relic of relaxed waiver briefing. *502A series of law review articles could be written on this Court’s struggles the last five years over the "pleading and proof” complications in PCRA appeals arising from this manner of pleading and this Court’s non-prospective abrogation of PCRA relaxed waiver in Albrecht. See generally Commonwealth v. McGill, 574 Pa. 574, 832 A.2d 1014 (2003); see also Commonwealth v. Ford, 570 Pa. 378, 809 A.2d 325, 337 (2002) (Saylor, J., concurring), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1150, 124 S.Ct. 1144, 157 L.Ed.2d 1044 (2004). The unfortunate truth is that there is no material distinction in the briefing in these cases, only a distinction in the way the Majority in this particular case has elected to treat the pleadings.

. Footnote 4 appears on page 502.
*5024. As a final point concerning statutory construction, it is also worth noting that the Majority's assumption that the General Assembly intended special treatment for claims involving mental competency is contradicted by the overall structure of the Act. Competency claims are not the only claims which have been afforded special treatment against judicial waiver doctrines. Claims implicating the jurisdiction of the court and claims of sentencing illegality have also been shielded from waiver. These claims, unlike competency claims, involve the very legitimacy of the court's asserted power over the individual. It is notable that the PCRA specifically deems cognizable claims involving the jurisdiction of the court and sentences exceeding the lawful maximum, see 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(vii) & (viii), while no such special status is afforded to claims involving mental competency. Instead, for PCRA purposes, it is plain that the General Assembly intended such claims to be treated precisely the same as other claims of error.

. Claims of ineffective assistance of counsel soon proved to be the most common “extraordinary circumstance’’ invoked to negate the PCHA waiver.

. Notably, the declarations do not even state that the witnesses would be willing to repeat their allegations under oath in court.

. The nearest the PCRA comes to addressing the substance of pleadings is in Section 9545(d), governing requests for evidentiary hearings. That provision requires that the request include “a signed certification as to each intended witness stating the witness’s name, address, date of birth and substance of testimony and shall include any documents material to that witness’s testimony." 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(d) (emphasis added).

. In contrast, the Rules of Civil Procedure have adverted to and adopted the Judicial Code’s relaxed definition of affidavit. See Pa. *512R.C.P. 76 (defining "affidavit” in alternative as including both traditional (sworn) definition and relaxed (unsworn) definition); id., Explanatory Comment-1981 (noting that, "[i]n 1976, Section 102 of the Judicial Code introduced the concept that an affidavit ‘includes an unsworn document containing statements of fact and a statement by a [sic] signatory that it is made subject to the penalties of 18 Pa.C.S. § 4904 (relating to unsworn falsification to aurhorities).' ”). Accord Rule 4006, Explanatory Comment-1981.

. In contrast, upon reviewing the Crimes Code provisions governing falsification crimes, see 18 Pa.C.S. § 4901 et seq., it is not readily apparent whether falsehoods in unsworn and unwitnessed "declarations” such as are at issue here would be subject to prosecution. Indeed, it may well be that the form of "declaration” here was chosen because of the uncertainty as to whether a falsehood in such a declaration would expose the declarant to any significant legal consequence.