holding that the petitioner failed to overcome the presumption that counsel performed effectively in challenging the conviction on direct appeal where the petitioner (1) offered no persuasive authority to establish that counsel acted unreasonably in emphasizing the unreliability of the evidence, and (2) did not demonstrate that there was a reasonable probability that a challenge based instead on due process grounds would have been successful
How later courts described this case
- holding that the petitioner failed to overcome the presumption that counsel performed effectively in challenging the conviction on direct appeal where the petitioner (1) offered no persuasive authority to establish that counsel acted unreasonably in emphasizing the unreliability of the evidence, and (2) did not demonstrate that there was a reasonable probability that a challenge based instead on due process grounds would have been successful
- concluding that a witness’s written statement given to police identifying the appellant as the shooter, which was confirmed by both the witness and the detective taking the statement to have been signed by the witness, but which was repudiated by the witness at trial, was admissible as substantive evidence
- concluding that "[a]ppellant has failed to satisfy [his] burden as his reliance on speculation, and failure to assert facts, which, if believed, would support his claim cannot be equated with a genuine issue concerning a material fact that warrants an evidentiary hearing"
- holding that conjecture that an opportunity to review "homicide file" might yield exculpatory evidence is inadequate to demonstrate good cause for discovery
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice SAYLOR,
dissenting.
According to the majority opinion, it is undisputed that trial counsel performed incompetently relative to one of the two phases of Appellant’s capital trial (ie., penalty). See Majority Opinion, op. at 438. As to the other phase, Appellant reports that counsel has been uncooperative in the post-conviction investigation. Nevertheless, the case is being disposed of without a factual hearing.
In approving such treatment, the majority applies the review standard subsuming consideration of whether the disposition is supported by the record. See Majority Opinion, op. at 438. It bears repeating, however, that there simply is no evidentia-ry record concerning Appellant’s extra-record claims, such as those of deficient attorney stewardship, since he was denied a post-conviction hearing.
My thoughts concerning the appropriate treatment and frame of reference for appellate review of these dismissals have been set out at length elsewhere. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Smith, — Pa. -, -, 17 A.3d 873, 915-17 (2011) (Saylor, J., dissenting). I respectfully dissent here, as well, in favor of an evidentiary hearing.