If you’ve been convicted of a crime in Pennsylvania, you need to know your options.
Pennsylvania’s Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) is one such option for relief from a criminal conviction. Philadelphia appellate attorney Todd Mosser breaks down what a PCRA petition is and the process for filing for one.
Mosser Appeals has handled over a thousand criminal appeals, Habeas Corpus petitions, and PCRA petitions. No one deserves to be convicted of a crime due to legal or procedural errors or misconduct during trial.
Learn how the PCRA process works in Pennsylvania so you can get the relief you deserve.
Frequently Asked Questions About Pennsylvania’s PCRA Process
I’ve been wrongly convicted of a crime. What can I do about it?
In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you can take any or all of three actions:
- File a direct appeal to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania or if convicted of a federal crime, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals;
- File a PCRA petition;
- File a Writ of Habeas Corpus appeal in federal District Court.
How does a PCRA hearing work? What happens at a PCRA hearing?
Once we file your PCRA petition, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania generally has 30 days to respond but is often given an extension of time to do so. Often the Commonwealth will file a motion to dismiss your petition. We must then respond with a legal brief explaining why the motion to dismiss should be denied.
The judge will either decide the motion on the pleadings or hold a hearing. If the judge decides to dismiss the case on the pleadings, the judge will issue what is called a 907 Notice, giving us notice that the court intends to dismiss your petition and giving us another 20 days to convince the judge that you are entitled to relief and that your petition should not be dismissed. If your petition is dismissed anyway, you have 30 days to file an appeal.
If the judge holds a PCRA evidentiary hearing, we will gather all of your witnesses and other evidence and attend the hearing. A PCRA hearing is basically a mini-trial, where our goal is to get you a new trial because the errors in your original trial caused you to be wrongly convicted. If the judge decides in your favor, most commonly, you’ll get a new trial. If the PCRA hearing is decided against you, then you can appeal.
What is a PCRA petition?
The PCRA meaning is a request for relief from a criminal conviction, under the Post Conviction Relief Act in Pennsylvania. In other states, this form of relief is called a PCR petition.
Sometimes a defendant files a PCRA petition immediately after conviction and sentencing. Under different circumstances, a defendant files a PCRA petition after the regular appeals process fails to give him or her the relief they seek. Your attorney will help you decide which course of action is best for you, considering the unique circumstances of your particular case.
What can a PCRA petition address?
A PCRA petition can effectively address the following legal circumstances:
- Ineffective Assistance of Counsel: A PCRA petition can address cases where the trial lawyer’s performance was so deficient that it is considered ineffective assistance and compromised the integrity of the trial, preventing a reliable verdict.
- Constitutional Violations: If a conviction or sentence violated constitutional rights under the U.S. or Pennsylvania Constitution, a PCRA petition can be used to challenge these legal errors.
- Issues with Guilty Pleas: PCRAs address situations where a guilty plea was entered based on coercion or deception or when significant evidence suggests that the plea was incorrect or unjust.
- Excessive Sentencing: If the sentence handed down exceeds the statutory maximum for the alleged offense, a PCRA petition can address and potentially correct the oversight.
- Obstruction of the Right to Appeal: A PCRA petition may be filed if there were unlawful actions by the prosecution that interfered with the defendant’s right to appeal a conviction or sentence.
- Newly Discovered Evidence: If compelling newly discovered evidence emerges that could significantly alter the outcome of the original trial, a PCRA petition can be filed to potentially overturn the conviction based on this new information.
How Long Do You Have to File a PCRA Petition?
You must file a PCRA petition within a year from the day the judgment of the sentence becomes final. If you’ve filed an appeal from your conviction, that year does not start to run until all of your appeals are exhausted. If you do not appeal your conviction, you have a year from the thirtieth day after you were sentenced to file your PCRA petition.
What are the PCRA Exceptions?
The term “PCRA exceptions” refers to the exceptions to the rule that a PCRA petition must be filed within a year. The exceptions include:
- Governmental interference;
- Newly discovered evidence;
- A newly-recognized Constitutional right.
A petitioner has one year from the discovery of the exception from the time he or she learned of the exception to file a PCRA petition.
Is post-conviction relief an appeal?
No. They differ both in the procedure and the type of relief that is available.
What is the difference between an appeal and post-conviction relief?
A direct appeal addresses errors made at the trial, most often by the trial judge. A PCRA petition raises the issues that are listed in the Post Conviction Relief Act statute. The most common PCRA issues are ineffectiveness of counsel or some form of newly discovered evidence.
The relief that is available also differs. On appeal, a defendant might be acquitted entirely or exonerated, or the conviction overturned and the case remanded to the lower court for a fair trial. If a PCRA petition is successful, a defendant usually just gets a new, fair trial.
What are reasons a convicted criminal can appeal a case?
Those convicted of a crime have an absolute right to appeal. Common reasons to appeal a conviction include:
- Legal error
- Admitting inadmissible evidence
- Erroneous evidentiary rulings
- Ineffective assistance of counsel
- Juror misconduct
- Prosecutorial misconduct
- Incorrect jury instructions
- Lack of sufficient evidence to support a guilty verdict
Those entering a guilty plea do not have an automatic right to an appeal. If their request for an appeal is denied, they can however file a PCRA petition.
How Long Does a PCRA Petition Take
Under PA’s Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 902, a notice of appeal must be filed with the clerk of the lower court within 30 days of being sentenced or within thirty days after a post-sentence motion is denied.
After that, it largely depends upon the congestion of the docket of the body you are appealing to, the complexity of your case, and whether you pursue appeals all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. This could take years.
What is a post-conviction review?
“Post-conviction review” is not the name of any legal proceeding but may refer to the process a defendant and his PCRA attorney go through to investigate the case and prepare the PCRA petition.
“Post-conviction review” might also informally refer to the time that the judge takes to review the PCRA petition, or the entire PCRA process, as in, “My case is currently under post-conviction review.”
How long does a post-conviction petition take?
In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it depends upon what county you are in. In Philadelphia County, for example, the PCRA process takes about a year. In some other counties, a PCRA petition is filed and decided within five months. It depends upon how congested the docket is of the judge you’ve been assigned.
How Much Does it Cost to File a PCRA Petition?
Of course, it varies. The bigger and more complicated the case, the more expensive it will be to prepare and file a PCRA petition. For example, a guilty plea or a one day trial will be much less expensive than a first-degree murder case, on trial for two weeks.
Aspects of a case that make a PCRA more expensive include:
- The need to locate witnesses
- The length and number of transcripts
- The need to hire an investigator
- The nature of the legal issues – how complicated or novel are they?
During our initial talks when we get an idea of the nature of your case, we will be able to give you an idea of how much it will cost.
What is the most common type of post-conviction relief?
The most common kind of post-conviction relief is getting a new trial. This means that the results of the old trial are thrown out completely, you get a new trial, the prosecutor must mount a new prosecution, and the successful PCRA petitioner must mount a new defense. Alternatively, you could be in a better plea bargaining position and may elect to negotiate a satisfactory plea deal.
How do you prepare a PCRA petition?
First, you meet with your attorney and talk about what happened at the trial and how the trial attorney, prosecutor, and judge handled the case. We want to hear what you think went wrong with your case. We generally meet with clients via a conference call or an email exchange over the prison’s email system.
Our legal team then obtains transcripts of the trial or guilty plea and sentencing. We then investigate to uncover any errors. We then file a PCRA petition, which is a pleading that talks about the history of your case, sets forth the facts as persuasively as possible to show innocence, and lays out your legal claims to give you the best opportunity at a successful PCRA petition.
