Court Opinion

ID: 9629854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:51:12.279798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:25.477685
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
dissenting:
My colleagues conclude that Bronaugh is entitled to an evidentiary hearing to determine whether he instructed counsel to file a direct appeal. However, I find that Bronaugh did not properly claim in either his pro se PCRA petition or in the amended petition filed by new counsel that he instructed trial counsel to file a direct appeal. Accordingly, I find no need to remand the case for an evidentiary hearing on this matter. Thus, I must respectfully dissent.
It has been well established that counsel is under no obligation to file, nor can counsel be deemed ineffective for failing to file, a direct appeal unless petitioner specifically instructed counsel to take such action. Commonwealth v. Dockins, 324 Pa.Super. 305, 471 A.2d 851 (1984). Moreover, petitioner must specifically plead and present evidence to this Court that he in fact requested counsel to pursue a direct appeal within the requisite time period and counsel failed to do so. Commonwealth v. Velasquez, 387 Pa.Super. 238, 243, 563 A.2d 1273, 1275 (1989), appeal denied, 525 Pa. 663, 583 A.2d 793 (1990).
Bronaugh did not allege, in either his pro se PCRA petition or amended petition filed by new counsel, that he had instructed trial counsel to file a direct appeal within the requisite time period. In the amended PCRA petition, submitted by counsel on January 5,1995, Bronaugh alleged:
9. ... that he is further eligible for relief because he was denied his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel who failed to file a direct appeal to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania as desired by [Bronaugh] for the purpose of challenging the propriety of his sentence. See, Commonwealth v. Hickman, 434 Pa.Super. 633, 644 A.2d 787 (1994).
*534The petition. contains no averment that he, at any time, instructed counsel to pursue a direct appeal. On February 24, 1995 counsel filed a supplemental petition, and requested, in a footnote, that Bronaugh be “permitted to amend his petition so as to indicate that he ‘directed’ counsel to file a direct appeal”. However, an amended PCRA petition was never filed and the PCRA court never granted this footnoted request. On February 27, 1995 the PCRA court issued an order dismissing Bronaugh’s PCRA petition.
The pleadings filed and reviewed by the trial court at the time of the entry of the order denying PCRA relief did not contain the required allegation that Bronaugh requested an appeal and that trial counsel ignored or failed to respond to that request. The trial court did not err in denying PCRA relief on that record. This appeal has come to us on submitted briefs, without benefit of oral argument. I would affirm the order dismissing the PCRA petition without a hearing.
Hence, this dissent.