Court Opinion

ID: 9719695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:00:11.393587+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:09.097239
License: Public Domain

Justice SAYLOR,
Concurring.
On the previous litigation point, I agree with the majority that our present criminal law jurisprudence lacks an adequate*79ly developed and consistently applied construct to determine whether and to what degree a claim has been previously litigated.1 I also agree that layered claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are regarded as distinct from underlying claims of trial error or ineffectiveness, in the sense that direct recourse to the underlying claim may no longer be available in light of the waiver doctrine. Nevertheless, the Court also recognizes that layered ineffectiveness claims are not wholly distinct from the underlying claims but are, in fact, derivative from those claims. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Gribble, 580 Pa. 647, 675, 863 A.2d 455, 471-72 (2004). Since proof of the underlying claim is an essential element of the derivative ineffectiveness claim, I believe that the previous litigation doctrine should apply where the underlying claim has been fully and fairly litigated and deemed meritless, and a petitioner seeks nothing more on post-conviction review than a different and more favorable resolution of precisely the same claim that was previously rejected on direct appeal, albeit via an ineffectiveness overlay.
I therefore do not believe that the Court needs to or should discard the precept, as discussed by the majority, that a post-conviction petitioner may not obtain relief by the mere fact of layering. From my perspective, the primary difficulty that has arisen in the previous litigation context is that occasionally courts have not confined the doctrine’s application to situations in which an essential element of the ineffectiveness claim has been fully and fairly addressed. Rather, courts have sometimes extended it to situations in which petitioners have sought to demonstrate that the underlying claim was not fully and fairly litigated on account of some dereliction by counsel, *80such as a failure to raise or preserve the asserted error, present essential facts, or pursue a relevant and controlling legal theory before the initial reviewing courts.
In my view, in situations in which an underlying claim has been previously addressed, what is required to determine whether or not a layered ineffectiveness claim has been previously litigated is an evaluative assessment of whether the petitioner has set forth a good faith contention that counsel’s deficient stewardship prevented a full and fair adjudication of the underlying issues. I also believe that the Court should recognize a manifest error exception to the application of the doctrine, particularly in capital cases, such that if a petitioner is able to demonstrate clear and manifest error on the part of the court in the initial review, relief should not be foreclosed by virtue of that review. Such exception would be consistent with the prudential character of the previous litigation doctrine, see supra note 1, and in furtherance of the interests of justice; moreover, I do not believe that it would unduly burden reviewing courts, particularly as the one-year limitation on the filing of post-conviction petitions has effectively limited most petitioners to a single state collateral challenge. See Commonwealth v. Williams, 566 Pa. 553, 565, 782 A.2d 517, 524 (2001).2
With regard to the balance of the majority opinion, I respectfully concur in the result.

. In this regard, I am not of the view that the Court is woodenly bound by the PCRA's statutory references to previous litigation. Significantly, the Court has determined that, given the Legislature’s desire to subsume the broadest possible range of post-conviction remedies within the PCRA's framework, the statute must in some respects yield to the Constitution's proscription against the curtailment of such remedies. See Commonwealth v. Lantzy, 558 Pa. 214, 222-25 & n. 4, 736 A.2d 564, 569-70 & n. 4 (1999). Consistent with this perspective, I do not believe that the codification of the previous litigation doctrine requires the Court to strip it of its prudential character.

. Although my position would not require the Court to abandon the understanding that mere layering alone is not sufficient to overcome previous litigation, I would not continue to employ the rubric that previous litigation can never be overcome by presenting new theories of relief, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Beasley, 544 Pa. 554, 565, 678 A.2d 773, 778 (1996), because I believe that such formulation is overbroad.