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Commonwealth v. Brown4/29/2005
ver on PCRA review --unequivocally and without exception -- thereby rendering the previously non-waivable claims defaulted. Moreover, the Albrecht Court emphasized that it was so limiting the judicial relaxed waiver rule in part because "application of the doctrine of relaxed waiver in a PCRA proceeding runs afoul of the very terms of the Post-Conviction Relief Act, which excludes waived issues from the class of cognizable PCRA claims." Accordingly, claims subject to PCRA waiver would be reviewed only when raised under the guise of ineffective assistance of counsel. Id. Thus, Albrecht recognized the proper role of the General Assembly on the question of PCRA waiver.
If the PCRA waiver provision truly was "intended to mean" what today's Majority says -- i.e., once relaxed waiver, always relaxed waiver -- then the principled underpinning of Albrecht has just been eviscerated. Contrary to the Albrecht Court's understanding, a PCRA court's declining to deem waived claims which were not required to be preserved at trial because of relaxed waiver principles could not run afoul of the PCRA waiver provision because that provision was "intended to apply" only to claims which were "required to be preserved." And yet, countless capital PCRA petitioners since Albrecht have seen their previously "non-waivable" claims dismissed upon PCRA waiver grounds. If the Majority believes that relaxed waiver must be resurrected on PCRA review in this instance, it should squarely address and overrule Albrecht, instead of creating a hopelessly contradictory PCRA waiver jurisprudence.
The Majority's construction of the PCRA waiver provision also ignores the fact that until now this Court has not interpreted the PCRA as affording special treatment to defaulted claims of mental competency to be tried. As I noted in my Concurring Opinion in Santiago, the plurality's approach there (which is now echoed by the Majority here) is squarely inconsistent with this Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Marrero, 748 A.2d 202 (Pa. 2000) (layered claim of counsel ineffectiveness arising from defaulted competency claim addressed and rejected on Sixth Amendment merits, without converting claim into supposedly-non-waivable claim of incompetency itself). Marrero represents the prevailing PCRA interpretation in this Court. In cases decided under the PCRA (including Albrecht itself), this Court has routinely applied waiver principles to claims involving competency and/or it has routinely analyzed ineffectiveness claims deriving from defaulted competency issues as cognizable ineffectiveness claims, without converting them into waived competency issues whose waiver must be "relaxed" under the PCRA. See Commonwealth v. Judge, 797 A.2d 250, 256 n.12 & 259-60 (Pa. 2002) (per Newman, J.) (holding that all PCRA claims -- including claim asking "Is Appellant entitled to relief because counsel failed to request, and the court failed to order, a competency evaluation when appellant manifested extreme mental and emotional disturbance during his guilt-stage testimony" -- were waived because they could have been raised on direct appeal, but were defaulted in light of appellant's prior fugitive status); Commonwealth v. Bracey, 795 A.2d 935, 945-46 (Pa. 2001) (per Nigro, J.) (deciding on merits claim that counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge appellant's competency to stand trial, without converting claim into non-waivable underlying claim of incompetency itself); Commonwealth v. Basemore, 744 A.2d 717, 725 & 727 n.8 (Pa. 2000) (per Saylor, J.) (claim of counsel ineffectiveness in failing to develop and present evidence of incompetence or request incompetency hearing was waived because not raised in PCRA court; and specifically declining to addre
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