No. 23A460

Sean M. Donahue v. Pennsylvania

Lower Court: Pennsylvania
Docketed: 2023-11-21
Status: Presumed Complete
Type: A
Tags: appellate-review constitutional-right court-appointed-counsel ineffective-assistance post-conviction-relief unitary-review
Key Terms:
FirstAmendment HabeasCorpus Privacy
Latest Conference: N/A
Question Presented (from Petition)

In states that offer unitary review of direct appeal and post conviction relief matters, when an appellant's court appointed counsel gives the appellant a choice to accept either choosing between direct appeal or PCRA or forfeiting representation by counsel, is the appellant entitled to review of the portion of the unitary review that he was wrongly denied by counsel, either by state appellate court review nunc pro tunc or through federal habeas corpus review nunc pro tunc?

In states that reject a "good faith exception to the exclusionary rule", are appellants who later discover that the evidence that was used against them at trial could only have been lawfully admitted via a "good faith exception" entitled to state appellate court review nunc pro tunc or to federal habeas corpus review nunc pro tunc?

Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether a court-appointed criminal defense counsel violates a defendant's constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel by forcing the defendant to choose between direct appeal or post-conviction relief, thereby precluding unitary review of both direct and collateral claims

Docket Entries

2023-11-27
Application (23A460) granted by Justice Alito extending the time to file until February 9, 2024.
2023-11-16
Application (23A460) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from December 11, 2023 to February 9, 2024, submitted to Justice Alito.

Attorneys

Sean M. Donahue
Sean M. Donahue — Petitioner