# Commonwealth v. Staton

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · July 20, 2015 · 632 Pa. 400

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4969793

## Case

- **Full name:** COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Andre STATON
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** July 20, 2015
- **Citations:** 632 Pa. 400; 120 A.3d 277; 2015 Pa. LEXIS 1535
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Saylor
- **Judges:** Baer, Eakin, Saylor, Stevens, Todd
- **Cited by:** 45 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4969793

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that Staton’s “fierce physical assault of his counsel in the presence of the court” established forfeiture of the right to counsel
- finding no ineffectiveness from opening and closing remarks that supported a defense theory that the defendant committing criminal homicide but lacked the specific intent to kill
- holding that counsel cannot be deemed ineffective for failing to pursue a meritless claim

## Opinion text

Chief Justice SAYLOR,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion, except for its treatment of the forfeiture-of-counsel issue in Part II. I obviously have reservations about this subject,' as I joined Madame Justice Todd’s dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Lucarelli, 601 Pa. 185 , 971 A.2d 1173 (2009). Given the importance of the right to counsel, the Lucarelli dissent favored implementation of procedural safeguards relative to at least one strain of forfeiture, as are considered necessary in a number of other jurisdictions. Id. at 201-07 , 971 A.2d at 1183-87 (Todd, J., dissenting); cf. Commonwealth v. Means, 454 Mass. 81 , 907 N.E.2d 646, 661-62 (2009). See generally Sarah Gerwig-Moore, Gideon’s Vuvuzela: Reconciling the 'Sixth Amendment’s Promises With the Doctrines of Forfeiture and Implicit Waiver of Counsel, 81 Miss. L.J. 439 , 452 (2012) (surveying various approaches employed by courts in addressing waiver and forfeiture scenarios).
In light of the above, I am circumspect about injecting a forfeiture rationale into a case at the appellate-review stage, where such forfeiture simply was not the basis for the disposition of the court of original jurisdiction. Rather, as the majority otherwise recognizes, the PCRA court’s decision on the relevant point rested on its conclusion that Appellant expressly waived his right to counsel.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4969793. Public record. Not legal advice.