Court Opinion

ID: 9634532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:16:02.288208+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:04.600127
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring.
Once again this Court is called upon to review one in a string of apparently endless P.C.H.A. petitions from an appellant convicted of murder of the first degree. The present P.C.H.A. petition is appellant’s third, and in it appellant argues that both trial counsel and post-conviction counsel were ineffective. All of the claims are without merit and one of them has been finally litigated. To date, this case has received two post-conviction appellate reviews. As stated in my dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Watlington, 491 Pa. 241, 420 A.2d 431 (1980), absent extraordinary circumstances, the Post Conviction Hearing Act gives *93an appellant convicted of a crime the right to file one — not three — P.C.H.A. petitions. Following my position in Watlington, I would deny the present petition because appellant does not raise colorable due process claims significantly implicating the truth determining process which, if unaddressed by the Court, might have the effect of imprisoning an innocent person.
KAUFFMAN, J., joins this concurring opinion.