Justia Pennsylvania Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Appellant Collette Brown, a resident of Concord Township, Delaware County, appealed the Commonwealth Court's order affirming the trial court's dismissal of her petition to place on the November 2014 ballot, a referendum question seeking to change the Township's governmental status from second-class to first-class. Appellant's petition contained 994 signatures (8.5%) out of the Township’s 11,640 registered voters and claimed that as of the 2010 census, the Township had a population density of around 1,258 inhabitants per square mile (“IPSM”). As stated, both figures easily exceeded the statutory thresholds of 300 IPSM and 5% registered voter signatures, which Appellant believed operated as conjunctive preconditions. Seven named qualified electors (“Appellees”) filed objections and claimed the petition was substantively and procedurally defective under Pennsylvania law, which they argued was time-limited to the first municipal or general election occurring at least ninety days after the 2010 census. That same day, the Delaware County Bureau of Elections intervened and requested declaratory relief, claiming that in addition to not satisfying the statutory requirements, the petition should have been dismissed because a home rule study referendum question was already on the ballot (which voters later approved), and that if Appellant’s referendum question were successful, the subsequent change in Township government could violate the Pennsylvania Constitution. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that pursuant to 53 P.S. section 55207, second- to first-class township referendum questions shall be submitted to voters at the first general or municipal election occurring at least ninety days after fulfilling both the population density ascertainment and petition signature filing requirements as set forth in the statute. Accordingly, the Court reversed the order of the Commonwealth Court and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. View "In re: Ballot Quest to Concord Twp" on Justia Law

Appellant Shonda Walter was convicted for the 2003 first-degree murder of James Sementelli, for which she received the death penalty. Appellant timely filed a PCRA petition, raising a claim that her appellate attorney had rendered ineffective assistance of counsel in failing to develop the arguments in her brief, as well as numerous other claims. Upon the Commonwealth and Appellant’s consent, the PCRA court granted relief, reinstating Appellant’s right to file a direct appeal nunc pro tunc of the judgment of sentence of death, and thus declined to reach her other claims. Appellant timely appealed to the Supreme Court, raising ten issues, and, after an initial round of briefing, the Court entered an order noting that the trial court had not prepared an opinion in support of its decision to grant Appellant a new direct appeal nunc pro tunc or an opinion concerning Appellant’s issues on appeal, and directing it to do so. After the opinion was prepared, and the Supreme Court reviewed it, the Supreme Court found no reversible error in the lower courts' decisions, and affirmed appellant's conviction and death sentence. View "Pennsylvania v. Walter" on Justia Law

Penn Treaty Network America Insurance Company (“PTNA”) and its subsidiary, American Network Insurance Company (“ANIC”) (collectively, the “Companies”), were Pennsylvania life insurers specializing in long-term care insurance, covering skilled-nursing, nursing home, and assisted living and home health care for individuals with chronic illnesses or disabilities. In January 2009, the Commonwealth Court ordered the rehabilitation of the Companies, upon application of then-Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario, who cited the consent of both entities as the sole grounds for the orders of rehabilitation. Nine months after entry of the rehabilitation order, however, Commissioner Ario filed petitions to covert the Companies’ rehabilitations into liquidations. The Commonwealth Court, per a single-judge proceeding, conducted hearings spanning thirty days of testimony and encompassing the submission of thousands of pages of exhibits and documentary evidence. In May 2012, the Commonwealth Court entered an order denying the petitions to liquidate and directed the Commissioner to develop a plan of rehabilitation within ninety days. The Commonwealth Court concluded the Rehabilitator’s evidence did not show that a rehabilitation was tried and failed. "Rather, it showed that a rehabilitation plan was abandoned in its nascency. In short, the Rehabilitator did not prove that continued rehabilitation substantially increases the risk to policyholders, creditors and the public or is futile." A critical facet of the Commonwealth Court’s opinion concerned the degree of deference owing to a statutory rehabilitator on consideration of a conversion petition. The Commissioner challenged the Commonwealth Court’s decision in such regard, namely, that the court’s no-deference determination was, in fact, inconsistent with the case which it had referenced as being supportive. The Supreme Court affirmed: "In all events, deference does not require the courts to accede to a misuse of the process. In light of the above, and the former Commissioner’s accession at the outset of the rehabilitation proceedings that liquidations would be harmful to policyholders, as well as the Commonwealth Court’s supported finding that there is no present harm in moving forward in rehabilitation, we decline to impede that court’s review of the rehabilitation plan which it directed should be filed, and which has now been submitted. The judicial review, however, should proceed subject to a more deferential overlay relative to the new acting Commissioner." View "In Re: Penn Treaty Network" on Justia Law

Appellant Richard Laird was convicted for the 1987 killing of Anthony Milano. Appellant and a co-defendant were tried together in May 1988. Each testified and admitted he was present at the crime scene, but blamed the other for the killing. Both defendants were convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and related offenses. Both were sentenced to death. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the sentences. Appellant was unsuccessful in his state application for post-conviction relief; the federal district court granted in part his petition for habeas relief, vacating the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence. With the kidnapping conviction still in place, the Commonwealth retried appellant on the first-degree murder charge in 2007. The jury convicted appellant of first-degree murder, and he was again sentenced to death. Appellant filed an amended PCRA petition, raising thirteen claims. The PCRA court dismissed two claims without a hearing; the remainder were dismissed after a hearing in which a number of witnesses testified. Appellant appealed the PCRA's dismissal of his claims, principally arguing he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel, and the cumulative effect of counsel's alleged errors were grounds for relief. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed appellant's conviction and death sentence. View "Pennsylvania v. Laird" on Justia Law

Appellant Andre Staton was convicted in 2006 for the first degree murder of his girlfriend, for which he received the death sentence. The sentence was affirmed on direct appeal, and he applied for collateral relief pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA). The PCRA court denied the petition without a hearing, and appellant appealed that denial to the Supreme Court. Because the Supreme Court concluded the PCRA court's findings were supported by the record and that there were no reversible errors in that court's conclusions, the denial of post-conviction relief was affirmed. View "Pennsylvania v. Staton" on Justia Law

Appellants The International Association of Firefighters, Local 22, AFL-CIO, and its named officers (collectively, the Union) was the collective bargaining unit representing the City of Philadelphia’s firefighters and paramedics. It appealed a Commonwealth Court order reversing the trial court’s grant of peremptory judgment in mandamus for the Union and against the City of Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter, Richard Negrin, and Lloyd Ayers (collectively, the City), and required the City to fill vacancies immediately in the positions of Fire Captain and Fire Lieutenant. The Commonwealth Court held that neither the Home Rule Charter nor the Civil Service Regulations required vacancies to be filled immediately. The Supreme Court agreed, holding that the Union did not establish a clear legal right to relief or a corresponding duty in the City, and that it was therefore not entitled to mandamus relief. View "Phila Firefighters' Union. v. City of Phila" on Justia Law

In this capital case, the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania held that Appellant Scott Wayne Blystone was entitled to receive a new sentencing hearing after concluding that his counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and develop penalty-phase mitigating evidence in the form of institutional records and expert mental-health evidence. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed, and Appellant the new penalty-phase hearing was pending following the completion of discovery. Throughout the course of counsel’s current mitigation investigation, Appellant’s mother, Norma Blystone, refused to divulge certain "critical" information regarding Appellant’s childhood unless she was assured that the information she provided would not be made public. In an attempt to provide Mrs. Blystone with such assurances and to obtain this additional information from her, Appellant filed a motion for limited courtroom closure and temporary sealing of transcripts with respect to Mrs. Blystone’s testimony, any expert testimony addressing the information Mrs. Blystone might reveal, and any closing arguments referencing such testimony. The trial court denied the motion, and Appellant filed an interlocutory appeal. After review, the Supreme Court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to review the trial court’s interlocutory order denying Appellant’s closure motion, and, accordingly, this appeal was quashed. View "Pennsylvania v. Blystone" on Justia Law

Consolidated direct appeals to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court centered on appellees' efforts to resurrect a defunct state-run health insurance program. Appellees were recipients of state-subsidized, low-cost health insurance via the "adultBasic" program, which was previously administered by the Department of Insurance and made available to certain qualifying adults in Pennsylvania. The program received the bulk of its funding from the proceeds of a 1998 multi-state master settlement agreement between forty-seven states and several major U.S. tobacco product manufacturers. The allocation and distribution of funds received annually by the Commonwealth under this settlement was initially administered outside of the Fiscal Code, via the Tobacco Settlement Act (TSA). As relevant here, for purposes of fiscal years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012, the General Assembly used modifications to the Fiscal Code to override the TSA’s requirements for tobacco settlement monies. One effect of the amendments was to divert tobacco settlement funds more generally to other fiscal priorities of the Commonwealth. In March 2011, Appellees Cheryl Sears and seventy-four other former recipients of adultBasic filed an original-jurisdiction petition for review at the Commonwealth Court, styled as a class action. As amended, the petition contended, inter alia, that the redirection of tobacco settlement monies under Acts 46 and 26 violated the TSA’s requirements for appropriation and allocation of tobacco settlement funds. The petition also asserted that these enactments offended various provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution governing legislative processes, including the general requirement that no bill shall be passed containing more than a single subject. Appellees sought declaratory, mandamus, and injunctive relief retroactively reestablishing the adultBasic program and reimbursing the program over two hundred million dollars. Appellee Eric Weisblatt commenced a separate action, also styled as a class action, proffering materially similar allegations and claims for relief, in the relevant respects, only naming executive-branch officials and agencies as defendants. Appellees in both proceedings moved for a preliminary injunction to preclude the Treasury from disbursing the tobacco settlement monies which were due to be received that month as appropriated per Act 46. Relief was denied by the court, however, upon its finding that the harm asserted by Appellees was neither immediate nor irreparable. Several weeks after the Commonwealth Court’s issuance of its opinion in Sears, the court issued a divided decision in "Weisblatt." During the pendency of the appeals, additional omnibus amendments to the Fiscal Code were enacted into law, which, inter alia, effectuated a repeal of the allocation formula provided in the TSA; the result formally displaced adultBasic funding within the terms of the TSA itself. In light of these amendments, Appellees renewed their request for relief from the supersedeas, which was again denied. Upon review of both sides' arguments appealing the Commonwealth Court's decision, the Supreme Court held that Appellees lacked standing to pursue the relief requested in their petitions for review. View "Sears v. Wolf" on Justia Law

The Commonwealth appealed the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas' granting of appellee Edward Bracey’s Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) petition. The court determined appellee suffered from an intellectual disability, and vacated his death sentence. After review of the specific facts of this case, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found no reversible error in that decision, and affirmed. View "Pennsylvania v. Bracey" on Justia Law

In 2009, two girls were sexually assaulted. Sixteen-year-old C.J. escaped, but eleven-year-old N.O. was threatened and lured into an alleyway, where she was brutally raped and sustained severe injuries requiring hospitalization and surgery. Police investigated and arrested Appellee Jose Carrasquillo, who made inculpatory statements during interrogation. Charges were lodged in two separate criminal proceedings, which were later consolidated for trial. Appellee decided to enter open guilty pleas to various sexual offenses, including rape, as well as other crimes. At the plea colloquy, the Commonwealth proffered that the evidence against Appellee that included his own statements, identification testimony from both victims, video surveillance recordings apparently showing Appellee with or in the vicinity of each victim close in time to the assaults, and DNA and fingerprint evidence linking Appellee to the rape of N.O. The plea court advised Appellee of his pertinent constitutional rights and the implications of waiver. The plea court accepted appellee's pleas and entered verdicts. Appellee was also informed that he could seek to withdraw his guilty plea at any time before sentencing and that the court "would have to consider whether or not the reasons for you doing so are fair and necessary, fair and appropriate, compared to the prejudice that that might cause to the Commonwealth's case and to their witnesses, and particularly in this case to child witnesses." Three and a half months later, the court conducted a sentencing hearing. After the defense rested, Appellee explained in allocution that he had pled guilty to spare N.O. suffering, and he therefore expressed surprise at his portrayal during the sentencing hearing. Appellee also stated that he had entered his plea because, absent a polygraph examination, his account would not have been believed and he would not have received a fair trial. In this appeal, the issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on the criteria governing the disposition of a presentence motion to withdraw a guilty plea. The Court's decision turned on the conclusion that a bare assertion of innocence was not, in and of itself, a sufficient reason to require a court to grant such a request. The Court was persuaded by the approach of other jurisdictions: "the proper inquiry on consideration of such a withdrawal motion is whether the accused has made some colorable demonstration, under the circumstances, such that permitting withdrawal of the plea would promote fairness and justice. The policy of liberality remains extant but has its limits, consistent with the affordance of a degree of discretion to the common pleas courts. This case, in our view, illustrates why the existing per se approach to innocence claims is unsatisfactory." In this case, the Supreme Court found that the trial court acted within its discretion to refuse the attempted withdrawal of the plea. View "Pennsylvania v. Carrasquillo" on Justia Law