Court Opinion

ID: 9648678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:32:15.490947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:56.816702
License: Public Domain

Justice CASTILLE
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion, but write separately to further address two points.
First, as the Majority notes, appellant is represented by new counsel upon this Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”)1 appeal, and counsel raises new claims which are cognizable under the Act (if at all) only to the extent that they sound in the ineffective assistance of previous PCRA counsel.2 In support of its determination to reach the merits of these new claims, the Majority cites, among other authorities, this author’s Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court in Commonwealth v. Jones, 572 Pa. 343, 815 A.2d 598, 609-10 (2002) (Castille, J., joined by Eakin, J., with four Justices concurring in the result and one Justice Concurring and Dissenting). In Jones, I noted that entertaining entirely new claims on PCRA appeal arguably circumvents both the PCRA’s serial petition restriction and its one-year time-bar restriction. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b). After noting this open question, I proceeded to the merits for the following reasons:
The claims of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness here ... were, with but two exceptions,[ ] not raised in the original or amended PCRA petition that is the subject of this appeal. Nor are the new claims elaborations, extensions, or deriva*549tions of those raised in the petitions below. Instead, appellant’s new and distinct claims were first raised . .. well over a year after appellant’s conviction became final in 1996. As a PCRA matter, then, these issues, not having been raised in the initial and amended petitions below, should properly be the subject of a second PCRA petition, which would be subject to the time limitation and serial petition restrictions contained in § 9545(b) of the PCRA. By reaching the merits of brand new claims never presented in the PCRA petition that was actually filed and is at issue in this appeal, this Court arguably employs the Hubbard doctrine[3] in an unintended and improper fashion—i.e., to provide an end-around the General Assembly’s unequivocal and jurisdictional restrictions upon serial post-conviction petitions. See United States v. Duffus, 174 F.3d 333, 336-38 (3d Cir.1999) (district court did not err in denying leave to amend federal habeas petition to add new claim or theory after one-year federal statute of limitations governing habeas petitions had expired; permitting such amendment would be contrary to very policy of limitations period). See also [Commonwealth v.] Pursell II, 561 Pa. 214, 749 A.2d [911, 915-16 (2000)] (“[W]hile layered claims of counsel’s ineffectiveness may avoid the waiver restrictions in the PCRA, we have repeatedly held that claims of ineffective assistance of counsel do not automatically qualify pursuant to the exceptions to the one-year time limitation provided in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(l)(i)-(iii).”) (collecting cases).
In the past, of course, this Court has had to consider the continuing viability of judicial rules that find themselves in separation of powers tension with the governing terms of the PCRA. [Commonwealth v.] Albrecht, 554 Pa. 31, 720 A.2d [693, 700 (1998)] (holding that relaxed waiver is no longer viable on PCRA appeals because, inter alia, “application of the doctrine of relaxed waiver in a PCRA proceeding runs afoul of the very terms of the [PCRA], which excludes waived claims from the class of cognizable PCRA claims”). *550Having noted the tension, however, we will not hold that the new claims of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness are unreviewable on this appeal and must be pursued in a second PCRA filing in the court below. The Commonwealth has not forwarded an argument that the claims should be deemed time-barred and, although the issue may prove to have jurisdictional consequences, that point is not yet settled and there may be more to be said on the question, on both sides. Because, as we demonstrate below, it is apparent that appellant’s new claims of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness must fail on the merits, and that alone is enough to decide this appeal, we note this pending issue without deciding it.
Jones, 815 A.2d at 610 (footnote omitted).
The case sub judice was briefed before Jones was decided and, as the Majority notes, it is in the same litigation posture as Jones: ie., there is no argument forwarded by the Commonwealth that entertaining the new claims wrongly subverts the PCRA’s time and serial petition restrictions. In addition, the Majority ultimately denies relief on the claims presented. The question which was noted and deferred in Jones, thus, remains open and deferred, and today’s Majority Opinion should not be read as having decided that new claims of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness, raised for the first time on PCRA appeal, are not subject to the restrictions of the PCRA.
Second, in discussing appellant’s layered claim of ineffective assistance of counsel respecting penalty phase mitigation evidence, the Majority Opinion accurately notes that what appellant calls “affidavits” are, in point of fact, merely “declarations” by various persons, none of which have been sworn to by the declarant before an officer authorized to administer oaths. As I noted in my Concurring Opinion in Commonwealth v. Brown, 582 Pa. 461, 872 A.2d 1139 (2005), J-70-2002, I believe that there is a significant distinction between a sworn affidavit, which is contemplated under this Court’s Criminal Rules governing PCRA practice, and a.mere unsworn declaration of a witness. Even assuming the truth of such questionable pleadings for purposes of decision, the claim of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness fails as a matter of law.

. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541 etseq.

. Since appellant had no federal right to counsel at the PCRA stage, his claims of ineffective assistance of previous PCRA counsel sound exclusively under Pennsylvania law.

. Commonwealth v. Hubbard, 472 Pa. 259, 372 A.2d 687 (1977), abrogated in Commonwealth v. Grant, 572 Pa. 48, 813 A.2d 726 (2002).