Court Opinion

ID: 9644240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:50:49.76341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:10.305707
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. Appellant’s PCHA petition should not have been dismissed without affording appellant the opportunity to amend his petition to allege facts which would excuse the failure to raise the issues presented on appeal.
Section 7 of the Post Conviction Hearing Act * provides that “[n]o petition may be dismissed for want of particularity unless the petitioner is first given an opportunity to clarify his petition.”
When a petition alleges a valid legal theory of relief, section 7 of the Act mandates that petitioner be given the opportunity to clarify the petition before it is dismissed. Commonwealth v. Gates, 429 Pa. 453, 240 A.2d 815 (1968).
Moreover, the absence of allegations in the petition to rebut the presumption that appellant waived his claims does not permit the trial court to dismiss the petition without affording the petitioner opportunity to amend. *327In Commonwealth v. Satchell, 430 Pa. 443, 451, 243 A.2d 381, 384 (1968), this Court unanimously noted:
“We can find no relevant distinction for purposes of section seven between a petition which contains no factual averments supporting the alleged constitutional deprivation and one which does but fails to allege circumstances sufficient to show, if believed, that the petitioner’s [failure to raise it in a prior proceeding] should not operate as a waiver. In either case a dismissal without giving leave to amend would be a dismissal for want of particularity and such a dismissal is prohibited by section seven.”
Since the majority does not conclude that appellant’s claims are without merit, he should be permitted to amend his petition.
MANDERINO, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

 Act of January 25, 1966, P.L. (1965) 1580, §§ 1 et seq., 19 P.S. §§ 1180-1 et seq. (Supp.1976).