# Commonwealth v. Staton

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

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4969794

## 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 Todd
- **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/4969794

## 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

Justice TODD,
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion in full. I write separately to address Chief Justice Saylor’s reference, in his concurrence, to my dissent in Commonwealth v. Lucarelli, 601 Pa. 185 , 971 A.2d 1173 (2009). See Concurring Opinion at 295 (Saylor, C.J.). *296 As the majority herein discusses in Part II, in Lucarelli , this Court recognized the distinction between the waiver of the right to counsel and the forfeiture of the right to counsel, noting the former requires a knowing act (and thus a colloquy before it may be found to have been waived), while the latter does not. Majority Opinion at 285-86. My dissent in that case took little issue with those broad principles; rather, I disagreed that the defendant’s conduct— his failure to obtain counsel in the nearly nine months leading up to his trial despite the ability to do so — constituted a forfeiture of the right to counsel, as the majority therein found. Nonetheless, I cited with approval cases in which the right to counsel was deemed to be forfeited, including where a defendant assaulted his lawyer. See Lucarelli, 971 A.2d at 1183-84 (Todd, J., dissenting) (discussing cases). Thus, my joinder in the forfeiture holding in the instant case, where counsel was brutally attacked by his client, is entirely consistent with my position in Lucarelli .

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4969794. Public record. Not legal advice.