"As successive PCHA petitions are the exceptions, concrete allegations of actual prejudice should be expressed in those petitions. Abstract assertions will not suffice . . . petitioner must be able to demonstrate a specific factual predicate for prejudice caused by alleged errors. . . ."
How later courts described this case
- "As successive PCHA petitions are the exceptions, concrete allegations of actual prejudice should be expressed in those petitions. Abstract assertions will not suffice . . . petitioner must be able to demonstrate a specific factual predicate for prejudice caused by alleged errors. . . ."
- waiver of issues raised in sixth PCHA petition filed twenty-four years after entry of guilty plea
- opinion announcing the judgment of the court
- Opinion by Larsen, J.
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but in the circumstances of this case — involving the sixth PCHA petition — I reaffirm the view expressed in my dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Watlington, 491 Pa. 241 , 420 A.2d 431 (1980). The dissent in Commonwealth v. Watlington, joined by Mr. Justice Kauffman, was reasserted in the Opinion in Support of Affirmance in Commonwealth v. Lowenberg, 493 Pa. 232 , 425 A.2d 1100 (1981), joined by Messrs. Justices Nix and Kauffman.
I cannot accept the majority’s cumbersome list of factors for the PCHA court to consider in deciding whether to hold a hearing in a second or successive PCHA petition, not so much because I disagree with the items in the list, which in any event is incomplete, but because it introduces an unnecessary complexity into the area of law that badly needs simplification. Most importantly, the list attempts no articulation of general principles, thus leaving the lower courts substantially without guidance, which exacerbates the present problem of multiple PCHA petitions. Finally, I object to the list because it accomplishes nothing that the two-part test in the Watlington dissent and the Opinion in Support of Affirmance in Lowenberg does not accomplish.
The dissenting Watlington standard is that a second or successive PCHA petitioner must, in order to be heard on the merits of his claim, raise a colorable due process issue *42 that significantly affects the truth determining process. I would deny the petition in the instant case because it does not meet this test.
KAUFFMAN, J., joins this opinion.