Court Opinion

ID: 9635307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:46:30.907511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:34.301846
License: Public Domain

Justice SAYLOR,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion. With respect to the matters deferred to post-conviction review pursuant to Commonwealth v. Grant, 572 Pa. 48, 813 A.2d 726 (2002), however, I would note that one of these claims—pertaining to evidence in the nature of victim impact testimony of two bank employees who were unrelated to the murder victim—is framed in the alternative as a preserved claim of trial court error, inasmuch as trial counsel timely objected to the introduction of such testimony and unsuccessfully requested a limiting instruction. See Brief for Appellant at 47 n. 24; N.T. 11/1/96 at 20, 40-41, 118. As the majority neither addresses the claim as such nor expressly finds it waived, see Majority Opinion, op. at 595 n. 31, 866 A.2d at 356 n. 31, it seems to me that the post-conviction court should remain free to make its own independent determination as to the proper preservation of this issue based upon the trial record and the appellate briefs that were submitted to this Court, and, if the claim is deemed preserved, its merits as a direct claim of trial court error.