Court Opinion

ID: 9712602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:57:01.499994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:13.205274
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge
(concurring).
I agree with the majority that appellant should not have been assigned counsel from the Lancaster County Public Defender Office at his PCIIA hearing when he alleged in his petition that his trial attorney, also from the Public Defender Office, had not effectively represented him. Relying on Commonwealth v. Via, 455 Pa. 373, 316 A.2d 895 (1974), where our Supreme Court said that when ineffective representation is alleged, Public Defenders from the same office should be treated as attorneys associated with the same firm, the majority finds that that case “obviously imputes a relationship to associates which may preclude zealous advocacy.” Slip opinion at 2. I would go further. In my view, when ineffective representation and conflicts of interest are alleged, we are constitutionally prohibited from applying different standards to public law firms like the Defender and private firms. To do so would impermissibly weaken the Supreme Court’s extension of legal representation to the poor I have discussed this more fully in my concurring and dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Westbrook, - Pa.Super.Ct. -, A.2d- (1976).