Pennsylvania PCRA decisions in 2026
Every 2026 decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and every published, precedential opinion of the Superior Court that turns on the Post Conviction Relief Act. Each case has its own page with the question, the holding, and what it means in practice.
By John A. Julian, Esq. Updated October 1, 2026. New decisions are added as they issue.
Scope: the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and the Superior Court's published opinions, which bind trial courts. The Superior Court's non-precedential memoranda, of which there are several hundred each month, are not included. Summaries are for general information, not legal advice.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
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Commonwealth v. Derek Lee
Whether a mandatory sentence of life without parole for second-degree (felony) murder violates the Eighth Amendment or the cruel punishments clause of Article I, Section 13 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, where the defendant did not kill or intend to kill.
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Commonwealth v. Albert Perez
Whether the PCRA court properly granted a capital defendant a new guilt-phase trial based on trial counsel's cross-examination of a jailhouse informant, Brady and Napue violations concerning that informant, and counsel's failure to seek suppression of two police statements.
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Commonwealth v. Lavar Brown (Petition of Family Members of Murder Victims)
On King's Bench review, whether the PCRA court properly granted a new trial on a facially untimely Brady claim that the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office conceded, and what safeguards apply to conceded PCRA relief.
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Commonwealth v. Marcel Emanuel Johnson
Whether a capital petitioner was entitled to guilt-phase or penalty-phase relief on a timely first PCRA petition based on Brady and Napue violations involving a jailhouse informant, multiple ineffectiveness claims, the PCRA judge's refusal to recuse, and cumulative prejudice.
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Commonwealth v. Robert W. Arnett
Whether a PCRA petition may be used to challenge the constitutionality of sexual offender registration under Subchapter I of SORNA II.
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Commonwealth v. Wayne A. Smith
Whether capital resentencing counsel was ineffective for failing to object adequately to evidence that the defendant read books about murder and aspired to be a serial killer.
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Commonwealth v. Jamie M. Brown
Whether a third-party confession can serve as a newly discovered fact under the timeliness exception in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii), and whether the petitioner must establish that fact with evidence admissible at a PCRA hearing.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania, published opinions
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Commonwealth v. Melvin Crawford
Whether a trial court may reinstate direct appeal rights nunc pro tunc by agreement of the parties when no PCRA petition requesting that relief has been filed.
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Commonwealth v. Franklin James Warfel
Whether trial counsel was ineffective for misadvising Warfel about a mandatory minimum, causing him to reject a plea of 3.5 to 7 years and receive 10 to 20 years after trial, where the offer and the mandatory minimum had been stated on the record at a pretrial hearing.
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Commonwealth v. Charles N. Sargent
Whether first PCRA counsel was ineffective for filing a Turner/Finley no-merit letter rather than pursuing claims that preliminary-hearing counsel was ineffective for stipulating to the medical examiner's testimony and that standby counsel was ineffective at a pro se murder trial.
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Commonwealth v. Tyrell Giles
Whether a PCRA court may grant nunc pro tunc permission to file an untimely PCRA petition based on prior PCRA counsel's failure to file a timely first petition, when no statutory exception was pleaded.
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Commonwealth v. Jason Harding
Whether a pro se petitioner whose first petition was dismissed after a Turner/Finley letter was entitled to relief on layered claims that PCRA counsel and PCRA appellate counsel were ineffective for failing to raise trial and appellate counsel's ineffectiveness.
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Commonwealth v. Jamal R. Sanders
Whether a PCRA court properly granted a new trial on an after-discovered-evidence claim based on a deceased witness's affidavit recanting his trial testimony, over the Commonwealth's objection that the affidavit was inadmissible hearsay.
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Commonwealth v. Leroy Kenneth Thomas
Whether a PCRA court had jurisdiction to correct an admittedly illegal probation-revocation sentence when the petition was untimely and the only claimed exception was that former direct-appeal counsel misinformed the petitioner about the PCRA deadline.
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Commonwealth v. Justin Mitchell
Whether a pro se petitioner may raise PCRA counsel's ineffectiveness for the first time on appeal when he could have raised it in a response to the Rule 907 notice but did not.
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Commonwealth v. Antoine Alphonzo Hunter
Whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to move to suppress iPhone evidence after police, without a warrant, powered on the phone and called a suspected number to confirm it rang, then used that confirmation to obtain a search warrant.
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Commonwealth v. Jose Antonio Cruz
Whether PCRA relief reinstating only the right to file a petition for allowance of appeal resets the PCRA's one-year clock so that a later petition counts as a timely first petition.
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Commonwealth v. Marcus R. Johnson
Whether Smith v. Arizona (2024) recognized a new, retroactive constitutional right satisfying the exception in § 9545(b)(1)(iii) for a second petition challenging a medical examiner's testimony under the Confrontation Clause.
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Commonwealth v. Phillip B. Baker
Whether a pro se filing attacking the IDSI statute as void for vagueness and the limitations tolling provision as ex post facto is a PCRA petition or a habeas petition, and whether the claims are cognizable in habeas.
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Commonwealth v. Raymond Charles Rowe
On remand under Commonwealth v. Hardy, whether a petitioner who pleaded guilty to a 1992 rape and murder made the prima facie showing of actual innocence required for post-conviction DNA testing under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543.1.
Related 2026 decisions
Not PCRA decisions on their face, but each reached the court through PCRA relief or changes what a PCRA petition can accomplish.
Commonwealth v. Jerome Julian Stewart
Where appellate counsel's failure to file a brief caused dismissal of a direct appeal, the Court granted allowance of appeal, vacated the dismissal, and remanded for briefing rather than requiring a PCRA petition to reinstate appeal rights, reasoning by analogy to Commonwealth v. Holmes and Pa.R.A.P. 1925(c)(3) and 1113(d). Record-apparent ineffectiveness of that kind may be cured directly, saving a year or more of collateral litigation. It is an order rather than a precedential opinion and should be cited with that in mind.
Commonwealth v. Michael Allen Stark
A direct appeal reached only because a PCRA petition reinstated appellate rights after an untimely first appeal. The court vacated a first-degree murder conviction because 25-to-30-year-old armed-robbery convictions were admitted under Rule 404(b) without any real similarity to the charged crime, and the error was not harmless in an almost entirely circumstantial case.
Commonwealth v. Leon Alexander
On a direct appeal nunc pro tunc reinstated through the PCRA, the court vacated rape and IDSI convictions under the Supreme Court's January 2026 decision in Commonwealth v. Walker, which narrowed the common-plan exception to Rule 404(b). Practitioners should examine any pending or collateral matter where other-acts evidence came in under the old logical-connection test.
Commonwealth v. Dwight M. Williams
On a PCRA-reinstated direct appeal, an as-applied constitutional challenge to 18 Pa.C.S. § 6108 under Commonwealth v. Sumpter was waived because it was not preserved in the trial court; calling it a legality-of-sentence claim did not make it one. PCRA reinstatement of appeal rights does not revive unpreserved defenses.
Commonwealth v. Kassey James Hoege, Commonwealth v. Tyree Charles Morton, and Commonwealth v. Joseph Peter Potoczny
Three published decisions applying the Act 44 amendments to 42 Pa.C.S. § 9771(c), which cap incarceration for a first technical probation violation at 14 days and require specific findings before confinement. Under the en banc decision in Commonwealth v. Seals the amendments apply retroactively to resentencings before June 11, 2024, and a violating sentence is illegal and non-waivable. Hoege reached the court only because a PCRA petition restored appeal rights. For petitioners still serving such sentences, a timely PCRA petition is the vehicle; Thomas, above, is the warning about what happens when it is late.
Commonwealth v. Bryan Robert Freeman
At a juvenile-lifer resentencing obtained through PCRA relief under Miller and Montgomery, a judge who as a prosecutor had briefed the co-defendant's appeal and prosecuted a copycat killer was required to recuse under Williams v. Pennsylvania. The court vacated the 60-years-to-life sentences and remanded before a different judge, over a dissent by President Judge Emeritus Stevens.
Commonwealth v. Thomas Chiacchio and Commonwealth v. Richard Jerome Duckett
Two decisions marking where the PCRA begins. Chiacchio held that a claim that a probation-revocation petition was filed unreasonably late is not a legality-of-sentence claim and must be raised at the revocation hearing, on direct appeal, or in a timely PCRA petition, not years later in a subsequent violation proceeding. Duckett criticized a suppression court for declaring trial counsel effective in a pretrial ruling, since findings on counsel's effectiveness belong to the PCRA court in the first instance.
Does one of these decisions affect a case you know? The window to act on a new decision can be as short as one year from the date it was announced. Request a case review or call (215) 568-0607.