Court Opinion

ID: 9706192
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:33:45.070823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:19.742484
License: Public Domain

Justice BAER,
dissenting.
Ever since this Court construed the time limits provided by the Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541, et seq. (PCRA), as “jurisdictional” in Commonwealth v. Peterkin, 554 Pa. 547, 722 A.2d 638, 641 (1998), it has felt compelled to tolerate constitutional violation upon constitutional violation, sacrificing fundamental rights at the altar of finality. The United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions, however, do not countenance finality at the expense of constitutional rights; rather, as a matter of due process, they promise convicted *368defendants one substantive appeal of their convictions,1 see Commonwealth v. Wilkerson, 490 Pa. 296, 416 A.2d 477 (1980),2 and also the effective assistance of counsel through that appeal, see Commonwealth v. Liebel, 573 Pa. 375, 825 A.2d 630, 635 (2003).3 In the instant case, the Majority nonetheless denies Appellant his constitutionally mandated direct appeal, citing ineffective assistance of counsel as though it justified the deprivation of this right. But see Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 399-400, 105 S.Ct. 830, 83 L.Ed.2d 821 (1985)(“A system of appeal as of right is established precisely to assure that only those who are validly convicted have their freedom drastically curtailed. A state may not extinguish this right because another right of the appellant — the right to effective assistance of counsel — has been violated.” (emphasis added)).
In his Concurring Opinion in Commonwealth v. Hall, 565 Pa. 92, 771 A.2d 1232 (2001), Justice Nigro expressed the *369following reservation regarding our increasingly narrow reading of the time constraints under the PCRA:
1 am troubled by the prospect that a defendant who, for example, instructed counsel to file a direct appeal, was told by counsel that an appeal was being filed, was subsequently reassured by counsel that the appeal was filed, but later found out after the [PCRA’s] one-year time limitation period expired that counsel never filed the appeal, is forever precluded from receiving at least one appellate review of his case. In my view, a rule that penalizes a defendant who reasonably relies in good faith upon his counsel to protect his appellate rights is contrary to the purpose of the PCRA, and such a defendant should be entitled to, at a bare minimum, one appellate review.
Id. at 1237 (Nigro, J., concurring). The instant case presents a circumstance materially identical to that foreseen by Justice Nigro, one in which Appellant was denied even one appellate review of his judgment of sentence through no fault of his own and due to no want of diligence in seeking to protect his appellate rights. While I do not dispute that our reading of the PCRA has, in effect, painted us into a corner in cases such as this, I do not believe that the General Assembly had the intent or authority4 to eviscerate the commonlaw remedy of habeas corpus to the extent that relief is precluded under the facts of this case.5 That being said, however, in this case, *370Appellant fails to invoke habeas corpus, which I conclude in the following analysis would furnish an appropriate basis for relief. Instead, he argues exclusively that our misleading decision in Commonwealth v. Murray, 562 Pa. 1, 753 A.2d 201, 203 (2000), entitles him to relief. I believe that under the facts of this case, Appellant should prevail under Murray, and dissent from the Majority’s ruling on that basis. I also take this opportunity to discuss our PCRA jurisprudence and habeas corpus.
I agree in large part with the Majority’s recounting of the case. See Maj. Op. at 357-60, 943 A.2d at 266-67. The Majority acknowledges that Murray sent conflicting signals to litigants, on the one hand suggesting that the PCRA time limit begins to run upon the actual occurrence of finality of the judgment of sentence, but then suggesting, albeit in dictum, that the relevant limitations period did not begin to run until the Superior Court had quashed the appeal in question as untimely. In Murray, as the Majority notes, on either analysis the appellant was not entitled to relief, as his PCRA petition was untimely in either case. I disagree with the Majority, however, in refusing to acknowledge the inequity and thereby punishing Appellant for his fully justified reliance on Murray and its progeny.
In this Court’s recent decision in Commonwealth v. Bennett, 593 Pa. 382, 930 A.2d 1264 (2007), among several factors that led us to find that the appellant had duly pleaded an exception to the PCRA’s one-year time limit was what we held to be his reasonable reliance on an extant Superior Court practice, called “the extension theory,” which we had invalidated during the pendency of Bennett’s appeal but after his reliance on that practice. See id. at 1268-69 (citing Commonwealth v. Robinson, 575 Pa. 500, 837 A.2d 1157 (2003)(invalidating the extension theory)). In so doing, we recited a number of cases in *371which we had declined to foreclose review to petitioners who had a reasonable basis to believe that their actions were proper under then viable precedents. Id. (discussing Commonwealth v. McGill, 574 Pa. 574, 832 A.2d 1014 (2003); Commonwealth v. Hernandez, 572 Pa. 477, 817 A.2d 479 (2003)).
While I agree with the Majority that Murray misstated the law in the passage relied upon by Appellant, the fact remains that the language was sufficiently misleading to fool not only Appellant, but also a distinguished panel of the Superior Court. See Commonwealth v. Mazzarone, 856 A.2d 1208 (Pa.Super.2004) (interpreting the same passage in Murray as binding precedent for precisely the proposition Appellant now asserts). As in Bennett, I would find that such reliance on then-valid law supports a grant of relief. Thus, I would apply the Majority opinion in this case solely prospectively, and afford Brown relief, rather than punish him for our error.
This case, however, presents an occasion that compels me to address the slow erosion of the rights once protected by the writ of habeas corpus, a problem that is neither faced nor remedied by such incremental, case-specific palliatives, as is suggested above to return Brown’s appellate rights; and one that goes to the very heart of our PCRA jurisprudence. It is to this alarming diminution of fundamental rights that I now turn.
As noted, in Evitts, the United States Supreme Court held that, when counsel fails to perfect an appeal for a client who seeks it in a criminal case, his representation is constitutionally inadequate.6 In this case, there is no dispute that Appellant sought to appeal his conviction. Moreover, there is no dispute that it was counsel’s failure to file a written post-sentence *372motion that caused the time limit for an appeal to lapse. In the Majority’s view, this resulted in forfeiture of Appellant’s constitutional right to direct appellate review of his criminal conviction. This is necessitated, the Majority holds, because our PCRA, whose clear time limits have been held by this Court to be jurisdictional, see Peterkin, 554 Pa. 547, 722 A.2d 638, slammed the door on Appellant’s appeal before Appellant even realized that his direct appellate process was fatally flawed and destined for procedural dismissal.
Appellant failed to understand his predicament because Appellant’s counsel failed to understand his predicament; Appellant’s error, on this account, lay in his faith that counsel understood the governing law. It is not his counsel, however, who pays the price. Where counsel’s constitutionally defective representation results in forfeiture of a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to a direct appeal, • and where the loss cannot be fairly traceable to the defendant’s own want of diligence in seeing to his own interests, I simply cannot accept that the law, be it statutory or decisional, denies that defendant’s constitutionally derived fundamental right to appeal his conviction. See Evitts, 469 U.S. 387, 105 S.Ct. 830, 83 L.Ed.2d 821.
Vindication of this fundamental right to one appeal and to effective representation of counsel through that event can occur either through the PCRA or around it, but it is simply inescapable that a solution must be found that entails restoration of Appellant’s right to a direct appeal. Since this Court long has construed the PCRA to reflect the General Assembly’s intention to encompass the broadest possible category of collateral relief — including habeas corpus, coram nobis, and any other commonlaw remedies — within the Act’s confines, see Commonwealth v. Cruz, 578 Pa. 263, 851 A.2d 870, 877 (2004), I first consider whether relief is available through the PCRA.
This examination requires very little effort, however, because our caselaw and the PCRA facially preclude relief in this case. Just as the Majority holds, the one-year time limit for filing a PCRA petition commences not upon expiration of a faultily pursued direct appeal, but, rather, upon the finality in *373fact of the judgment of sentence. See Maj. Op. at 267 (citing Murray, 753 A.2d at 203); 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(3). In this case, notwithstanding Appellant’s argument to the contrary, his judgment of sentence became final thirty days after the date by which counsel was bound to file with the trial court, in writing, any post-sentence motion he sought to forward. He failed entirely to do so, however, and that omission triggered the running of the PCRA clock.7 Consequently, Appellant’s PCRA petition was untimely under the one-year rule, just as the Superior Court noted in quashing his appeal and this Court’s Majority ably explains.8
Thus, bearing in mind the foregoing constitutional rights that hang in the balance, Appellant simply must be entitled to relief outside the PCRA, for while this Court has acknowledged that the General Assembly intended with the Act to sweep into its purview as many aspects of collateral review as possible, neither that body nor this Court has the authority to deny federal constitutional rights. Commonwealth v. Cruz, 578 Pa. 263, 851 A.2d 870, 877 (2004). Moreover, we have held that there remain cases that fall outside the PCRA’s ambit and thus are subject to traditional habeas corpus analysis. Commonwealth v. West, 595 Pa. 483, 938 A.2d 1034 (2007)(citing 42 Pa.C.S. § 6501); Peterkin, 554 Pa. 547, 722 A.2d 638. In this regard, our recent decisions in Commonwealth v. Judge, 591 Pa. 126, 916 A.2d 511 (2007), and West are instructive.
*374In Judge, we held that habeas corpus, rather than the PCRA, applied when a petitioner challenged his incarceration not on the basis that he was actually innocent or that his sentence was illegal, see 42 Pa.C.S. § 9542 (reciting these as the injuries the PCRA is designed to address), but rather on the grounds that his deportation from Canada to Pennsylvania to serve his capital sentence violated international law. This Court began by acknowledging the intended breadth of the PCRA’s sweep. We observed that so broadly did the act sweep that, beyond mere assertions regarding guilt or innocence, claims of ineffective assistance arising from counsel’s failure to perfect a direct appeal also were “cognizable” under the act. Judge, 916 A.2d at 520 (citing Lantzy, 736 A.2d at 569-70). We acknowledged, however, that “the boundaries of cognizable claims under the PCRA can only be extended so far as is consistent with the purposes of the statute,” and concluded that the petitioner’s claim, derived from international law, fell outside “the intended scope of the PCRA.” Id. Thus, we agreed with the petitioner in that case that traditional principles of habeas corpus, rather than the statutory remedy furnished by the PCRA, applied to the case, and analyzed the merits of petitioner’s case on that basis, ultimately denying relief.
Similarly, in West this Court found another scenario as to which the PCRA provided no solution, and analyzed it instead pursuant to principles of substantive due process by way of habeas corpus. In that case, due to an administrative oversight, petitioner had managed to remain free for nine years following the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment for a criminal conviction. When the error finally was discovered and brought to the attention of the sentencing court, an arrest warrant was issued. Soon thereafter, petitioner was taken into custody, whereupon he challenged his incarceration based upon what he averred were violations of his substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He brought these claims in filings that jointly invoked, and alternatively argued, principles of habeas corpus and the PCRA.
*375As in Judge, we emphasized that “the PCRA subsumes all forms of collateral relief, including habeas corpus, to the extent a remedy is available under such enactment.” West, 938 A.2d 1034, (citing Peterkin, 722 A.2d at 640)(emphasis in West). Having so established our guiding principles, however, we emphasized that neither had the writ of habeas corpus been suspended, nor had we ever held that the remedy “does not exist for the rare instance where the PCRA offers no remedy.” Id. Thus, in West, as in Judge, we analyzed the merits of the claim at hand and denied relief, not pursuant to the PCRA but under habeas corpus.
From these cases I conclude that the critical question presented in this case and others of its ilk must concern what constitutes the “availability” of a remedy (or the “cognizability” of a claim) under the PCRA. I cannot dispute that this case is distinguishable from Judge and West inasmuch as the General Assembly clearly sought to encompass allegations of ineffectiveness of counsel within the remedies — and subject to the restrictions — established by the PCRA, as we held in Lantzy. Where I believe the Majority errs — and where I concede this Court has, in the past, erred as well, even in cases T have joined — is in defining as cognizable all claims that fall within a category as to which the vast majority of such claims will become apparent within the time limit provided by the PCRA.9 Thus, we have effectively held that, because garden-variety ineffective assistance of counsel will emerge to support a viable PCRA claim well within the stringent time limits of the PCRA, and because those sorts of claims are clearly intended to be encompassed by the PCRA, all ineffective assistance of counsel claims necessarily are cognizable *376under the PCRA and therefore are subject to its time limits and not amenable to any relief outside the PCRA. In essence, it is a one-size-fits-all jurisprudence that disregards the very real prospect of individual injustice, as in this case where Appellant is acknowledged by all to be blameless, yet nevertheless must accept that his blamelessness will not salvage the direct appeal to which he is constitutionally entitled; at least absent federal court intervention.10
It should go without saying that this status quo is unsustainable to the extent it runs afoul of overriding sources of law such as the Pennsylvania and United States Constitutions, the supremacy of which is beyond cavil. Pursuant to the principles outlined and cases cited above, see Evitts, 469 U.S. 387, 105 S.Ct. 830, 83 L.Ed.2d 821; these hallowed charters secure a fundamental right in Pennsylvania state criminal proceedings to a direct appeal of a conviction and to due process in the provision of that direct appeal, including assuring the effective assistance of counsel. Where statutory law, or our interpretation of same, leads to manifest constitutional violations, either the statute or our interpretation must yield.
It would be more consonant with our constitutional duty to determine the availability of PCRA relief not exclusively as a function of categories defined too broadly to remain sensitive to anomalous cases — such as all ineffectiveness of counsel— but rather with sufficient care to accommodate certain recurring problems. The instant case is one such case, and, indeed, is emblematic of the type of case Pennsylvania courts see all too often, where diligent criminal defendants are denied their constitutional rights to direct appeal and the effective assistance of appellate counsel because of the continuance of ineffective assistance of counsel and the passage of time. We should not be construing • every sort of collateral claim as “cognizable” under the PCRA, and therefore subject to its *377one-year time limitations and limited exceptions, when to do so violates our constitutional duties.11
I do not believe, however, that the solution is to overturn our prior precedent. Indeed, it is our habeas corpus precedent of recent vintage that provides the solution. As in Judge and West, I believe that the PCRA simply is an inadequate device to address constructive abandonment of counsel when it leads to complete forfeiture of direct appellate rights due to a failure to seek or perfect a desired appeal — at least where such abandonment could not reasonably have been discovered by a petitioner until after the PCRA’s one-year time limit had run. Such a claim simply should not be deemed “cognizable” under the PCRA; it simply makes no sense to suggest that it is when to do so is tantamount to defining “cognizable” as “available, but not to you.” Accordingly, I would find such a claim subject to review as a matter of habeas corpus.
In this case, it is undisputed that counsel’s failure properly to understand the law, or failure to abide by it, led to the forfeiture of defendant’s right to a direct appeal of his conviction. Where counsel’s dereliction costs his client a constitutionally sanctioned direct appeal, counsel is ineffective, and the proper remedy is to restore his direct appeal rights nunc pro tunc. While that remedy has not been sought here, I believe that is because this Court has signaled continuously and unremittingly its unwillingness to consider such arguments, a position that is constitutionally unsustainable, and thus should be abandoned. When next a party seeks relief under these circumstances and raising these constitutional arguments, I would grant relief.

. See Pa. Const. Art. V, § 9 ("There shall be a right of appeal in all cases to a court of record from a court not of record; and there shall also be a right of appeal from a court of record or from an administrative agency to a court of record or to an appellate court, the selection of such court to be as provided by law; and there shall be such other rights of appeal as may be provided by law.”).

. While the United States Constitution does not demand that states provide a forum for direct appeals of criminal convictions to raise claims of trial court error, "if a State has created appellate courts as an integral part of the system for finally adjudicating the guilt or innocence of a defendant, the procedures used in deciding appeals must comport with the demands of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution.” Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 393, 105 S.Ct. 830, 83 L.Ed.2d 821 (1985)(internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

. Appellant’s claim in this case sounds not in mere ineffectiveness but in constructive denial of counsel. See Commonwealth v. Halley, 582 Pa. 164, 870 A.2d 795, 801 (2005); Commonwealth v. Lantzy, 558 Pa. 214, 736 A.2d 564, 571 (1999)(”[T]he failure to perfect a requested appeal is the functional equivalent of having no representation at all.”). Accordingly, this Court must presume prejudice in counsel’s failure to ensure that Appellant's appeal was considered on the merits by an appellate court, see Commonwealth v. Haag, 570 Pa. 289, 809 A.2d 271, 282-83 (2002), and Appellant need not demonstrate that the legal claims he sought to raise on appeal were meritorious. Lantzy, 736 A.2d at 572; Wilkerson, 416 A.2d at 479 ("[The] requirement that counsel protect the appellate right of an accused extends even to circumstances where the appeal is totally without merit.”).

. Under our rules of statutory construction, we presume that the General Assembly does not intend to enact a law that violates the constitutions of the United States or Pennsylvania. See 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(3).

. See Commonwealth v. Cruz, 578 Pa. 263, 851 A.2d 870, 877 (2004)(ac-knowledging the statutory bar against post-conviction litigation of claims that were or could have been raised on direct appeal, but noting that, “by its effort to channel the broadest category of post-conviction claims into the statutorily prescribed procedures, the Legislature implemented a scheme that must necessarily be deemed to take into account facets of traditional habeas corpus jurisprudence”); cf. Commonwealth ex rel. Levine v. Fair, 394 Pa. 262, 146 A.2d 834 (1958)(finding that the Llabeas Corpus Act of 1937 did not displace the more extensive habeas corpus remedy found at commonlaw, which “may issue in all sorts of cases where it is shown to the court that there is probable cause for believing that a person is restrained of his liberty unlawfully or against the due course of law”); id. at 846 (“The writ of habeas corpus in *370Pennsylvania may bp molded to suit the exigencies of any particular case. It is an implied common-law power, not created by the habeas corpus act of February 18, 1785, 2 Sm.L. 275, sec. 13, but existing before and since the passage of that act in every court of record, invested with extensive appellate or supervisory jurisdiction; and, in a proper case, it is always grantable .... ” (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added)).

. In Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 120 S.Ct. 1029, 145 L.Ed.2d 985 (2000), the Court qualified this holding by observing that even when an appeal lias not been filed, the possibility remains that counsel had a basis for declining to file and requiring that possibility to be examined where called for by the circumstances of the case. Clearly, this is not such a case, because it presents not the failure to file an appeal, but the failure to comply with governing rules to perfect that appeal.

. The trial court's eventual order purporting to deny Appellant's oral post-sentence motion was a nullity and does not alter this analysis. Presumably effective counsel would have understood that post-trial motions must be in writing, and would have filed at least a protective PCRA petition within the one-year time limit.

. Of course, the PCRA does provide enumerated exceptions to its one-year time limit, see 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1), but they must be pleaded and proved; this Court does not raise any exception sua sponte on behalf of litigants. Appellant pleads no exception, maintaining instead and exclusively that this Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Murray, 562 Pa. 1, 753 A.2d 201 (2000), renders his petition timely within the one-year time limit, thus requiring no exception. Accordingly, I need go no further in concluding that Appellant's petition was untimely under the PCRA, subject to no raised exception, and that the courts below therefore lacked jurisdiction to address it on the merits.

. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Bryant, 579 Pa. 119, 855 A.2d 726, 735 (2004)(finding cognizable under the PCRA claims of ineffectiveness of trial and direct appellate counsel citing, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(B)); Commonwealth v. Liebel, 573 Pa. 375, 825 A.2d 630, 636 (2003)(finding claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to file a petition for allowance of appeal to be cognizable under PCRA); Commonwealth ex rel. Dadario v. Goldberg, 565 Pa. 280, 773 A.2d 126, 129-130 (2001)(holding all constitutionally-cognizable claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, including those relating to the plea bargaining process, are cognizable under the PCRA).

. I acknowledged above that our Court has painted itself into the proverbial corner, and note here that perhaps it will take federal intervention to remove us from this interminable dilemma. Relying on federal authorities to protect acknowledged constitutional rights seems to me to be an abrogation of our obligations.

. Nor would vindicating the right to appeal in this fashion overburden the courts. While this occurrence is too common, it is not so common that it will be unduly burdensome to determine where such a claim has merit and where it does not. Courts are quite practiced at identifying and swiftly dispensing with frivolous petitions. Indeed, this is what we do when we regularly dismiss untimely multiple PCRA petitions.