Court Opinion

ID: 9702965
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:34:57.915253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:44.261352
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Chief Justice,
concurring.
This record is clear that trial counsel deliberately chose not to request an instruction on unreasonable-belief voluntary manslaughter because his client had testified that the victim had been shot accidentally. Counsel’s course of action, therefore, had a “reasonable basis designed to effectuate his client’s interests,” Commonwealth ex rel. Washington v. Maroney, 427 Pa. 599, 604, 235 A.2d 349, 352 (1967), and counsel did not provide ineffective assistance. See Commonwealth v. DeBose, 501 Pa. 399, 461 A.2d 797 (1983); Commonwealth v. McGrogan, 449 Pa. 584, 297 A.2d 456 (1972).
Because counsel deliberately chose not to request an instruction on unreasonable-belief voluntary manslaughter, the record provides no basis for the majority to decide whether an instruction should have been given if it had been requested, let alone to overrule Commonwealth v. Manning, 477 Pa. 495, 384 A.2d 1197, a 1978 decision of this Court interpreting Section 2503 of the Crimes Code, which remains the same today.
Accordingly, I concur only in the result.