Opinion
No. 739 CAP
10-15-2020
COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Henry DANIELS, Appellant
ORDER
PER CURIAM.
AND NOW, this 15th day of October, 2020, the appeal is QUASHED. See Commonwealth v. Reid, ___ Pa. ___, 235 A.3d 1124 (2020) (quashing serial appeal after concluding Williams v. Pennsylvania, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S.Ct. 1899, 195 L.Ed.2d 132 (2016), does not provide exception to timeliness requirements of Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546, and thus PCRA court lacked jurisdiction to reinstate appellate rights nunc pro tunc).
Justice Donohue files a concurring statement.
Justice Wecht files a concurring statement.
JUSTICE DONOHUE, concurring.
I join the order as I am constrained to do as a result of this Court's precedential opinion in Commonwealth v. Reid, ___ Pa. ___, 235 A.3d 1124 (2020). For the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Reid, I continue to hold the view that Williams v. Pennsylvania, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S.Ct. 1899, 195 L.Ed.2d 132 (2016), mandates that this defendant receive a de novo appeal to this Court because former Justice Castille, while the District Attorney of Philadelphia, authorized the pursuit of the death penalty in his case and later participated in the appeal of the imposition of that sentence. Williams should have been retroactively applied to this defendant and the two other defendants similarly situated. I continue to believe that the preservation of the integrity of this Court demanded no less.
JUSTICE WECHT, concurring.
In Commonwealth v. Reid, ___ Pa. ___, 235 A.3d 1124 (2020), a majority of a special panel of this Court determined that the Supreme Court of the United States' decision in Williams v. Pennsylvania, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S.Ct. 1899, 195 L.Ed.2d 132 (2016), could not serve as a basis to establish timeliness for purposes of the Post Conviction Relief Act. I joined the dissent in Reid, and I continue to believe that it correctly explained why Reid had properly established jurisdiction in the PCRA court. This disagreement notwithstanding, Reid is now on the books. Accordingly, I am constrained to join the Court's order to quash the instant appeal.