Court Opinion

ID: 9636570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:33:31.147901+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:46.943951
License: Public Domain

*218NIX, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I continue to maintain the view that Appellant should have been granted a new sentencing hearing based on the ineffectiveness of trial counsel. Appellant previously asserted on direct appeal to this Court that trial counsel should have objected to portions of the prosecution’s cross-examination which implied that Appellant’s mental illness was a fabrication and that he was beyond rehabilitation. The prosecution emphasized these points in its closing argument during the penalty phase in which it asked the jury to impose a sentence of death. The majority conceded that trial counsel should have objected, but declined to find counsel ineffective because it concluded that Appellant was not prejudiced by counsel’s failure. Commonwealth v. Christy, 511 Pa. 490, 504-05, 515 A.2d 832, 839 (1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1059, 107 S.Ct. 2202, 95 L.Ed.2d 857 (1987). In my view, such a failure was clearly prejudicial, especially since Appellant’s death sentence was supported by the existence of a single aggravating circumstance.1 The attempt by the prosecution to imply that Appellant’s mental illness was contrived might have precluded the jury from finding a mitigating circumstance that would have resulted in a life sentence. However, because a majority of this Court previously decided that Appellant was not prejudiced by trial counsel’s failure to object, I am constrained to conclude that this issue was finally litigated, and therefore, Appellant is not entitled to relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(3); 42 Pa.C.S. § 9544(a)(2).
ZAPPALA, J., joins this concurring opinion.

. This Court declared one of the two aggravating circumstances found by the jury invalid because it was not supported by evidence in the record. Commonwealth v. Christy, 511 Pa. at 509, 515 A.2d at 842.