Court Opinion

ID: 9710254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:05:17.577502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:55.395201
License: Public Domain

Justice NEWMAN,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the lead opinion. However, I write separately because I am concerned that, in our attempts to resolve the difficulties posed by appellate review of layered claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in PCRA capital cases, this Court gives too much significance to the need for adequate “layering,” i.e., the articulation of the three-part test from Commonwealth v. (Charles) Pierce, 515 Pa.153, 527 A.2d 973 (1987), needed at each level of representation by new counsel. While I agree with the lead opinion that each level of representation gives rise to distinct claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, and that appellants should recognize this and frame their petitions and briefs accordingly, nevertheless this Court should not impose too onerous a standard on how appellants must plead these claims in order to obtain substantive review of them.
In this case, the lead opinion states, “[t]o prove [direct appeal counsel] ineffective under the Sixth Amendment, *377PCRA counsel would have had to prove not only the underlying merit of each waived claim ... but satisfy the entire [Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) ] standard.” Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court, Op. pp. 612-13. The lead opinion then states that “appellate counsel is not constitutionally obliged to raise every conceivable claim for relief’ and that counsel “may forego even arguably meritorious issues in favor of claims which, in the exercise of counsel’s objectively reasonable professional judgment, offered a greater prospect of securing relief.” Id. at 613. I read this portion of the lead opinion as suggesting, as an example, that even though a waived claim of trial counsel’s ineffectiveness would, if not waived, have entitled a defendant to some form of relief, a claim of ineffectiveness of subsequent appellate counsel could fail because appellate counsel may have had a “reason” for foregoing the particular claim of the ineffectiveness of trial counsel on appeal.
I do not subscribe to the position of Mr. Justice Castille on this question. When appellate counsel fails to advance an issue that would, if raised, have entitled his or her client to a new trial, or a new sentencing hearing in a capital case, I simply cannot see how this strategy would ever be reasonable. Although I realize that trial lawyers, in arguing a case to a jury, often forego meritorious objections for a variety of strategic reasons (for example, not wishing to confuse the jury on a technical issue, the possibility of defense theories appearing to conflict, credibility with the jury, etc.), appellate litigation presents entirely different considerations. As an adjunct to the lawyer’s responsibility to represent his or her client zealously, an appellate lawyer must be expected to pursue every avenue for his or her client, even where two appellate issues rest on conflicting legal theories, with the understanding that appellate courts are capable of digesting inconsistent claims in the same appeal without suffering from the confusion or incredulity to which juries are occasionally subject. In brief, if the underlying claim of error is of such an important magnitude that it would have entitled a defendant to relief had *378it been raised on appeal, there can be no justification for the failure of appellate counsel to pursue the claim that would ever qualify as a reasonable professional judgment.
Consequently, I do not believe that this Court should insist on elaborate arguments from appellants as to each level of post-trial counsel’s ineffectiveness in these cases. As long as an appellant has sufficiently layered his or her claim, even in boilerplate fashion, to overcome waiver, this Court should undertake as much as possible to determine the significance of the underlying claim that appellate counsel defaulted (i.e., whether it possesses merit and/or establishes how the- appellant was prejudiced), rather than dismiss the claim because the appellant inadequately pled the ineffectiveness of each level of counsel with reference to the Strickland test. This is the course that this Court followed in Commonwealth v. (Michael) Pierce, 567 Pa. 186, 786 A.2d 203 (2001), and, in my view, represents an approach that places fairness above formalism.