The Superior Court ordered new appellate counsel after an Anders filing treated direct appeal like PCRA no-merit review and failed to demonstrate an independent examination of the complete record.
The Superior Court reversed a probation revocation because the record did not establish the conditions imposed at sentencing, leaving supervision agents without a proven foundation for the alleged violations.
The Superior Court held that unreasonable noise under Pennsylvania’s disorderly-conduct statute is judged from the totality of the circumstances, expressly rejecting a federal court’s four-factor reading of state law.
The Superior Court vacated a pretrial bail revocation because the Commonwealth presented no testimony or exhibits and the trial court relied only on an unsworn prosecutorial proffer.
The Superior Court held that a detective could not recount a stepmother’s description of a child victim’s alleged prior statement without an exception covering each layer of hearsay.
The Superior Court upheld an increased drug sentence based on a threatening letter sent after the original hearing, while vacating a no-further-penalty sentence on a merged possession count.
The Superior Court held that a guilty plea in one county did not preclude PCRA review in another county where the first court never decided the related suppression motion.
The Superior Court vacated five probation revocations and an aggregate eight-to-sixteen-year sentence after reversal of the contempt conviction that supplied the direct violation.
The Superior Court preserved a restitution contempt finding but reversed a six-month jail sanction because the court did not find beyond a reasonable doubt that Zehr could pay the $3,000 purge amount.
The Superior Court vacated a hit-and-run sentence because the trial court neither acknowledged that incarceration departed from the probationary guideline range nor gave a contemporaneous justification.
The Superior Court affirmed attempted-murder and related convictions, holding that circumstantial identification evidence and shots directed toward an officer’s torso supported the verdict.
In a precedential ruling, the Superior Court held that an officer who personally watched a suspected drug transaction could give a lay opinion informed by his training and experience.
The Superior Court held that an electronic service provider’s CyberTip report was inadmissible hearsay and ordered a new trial on the only count that depended on the report.
The Superior Court reversed suppression of a firearm, holding that a suspect had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a stranger’s pickup truck and abandoned his bag by leaving it in the open bed and fleeing.
The Superior Court held that an officer’s display of a gun, combined with credibility findings against the officer, supported treating the encounter as a seizure before the defendant abandoned a handgun.
The Superior Court held that a defendant who knew his two-week trial term and stopped communicating with counsel waived his right to attend, but it vacated an illegal minimum sentence.
The Superior Court held that Pennsylvania’s Sentencing Commission could apply the domestic-violence enhancement even when no minor witnessed the assault.
In a precedential ruling, the Superior Court held that an objection to an unreasonably delayed probation-revocation petition does not implicate sentence legality and can be waived.
The Superior Court reversed a 13-year-old’s residential placement because the juvenile court focused on firearm possession without adequately weighing his individualized needs and the availability of intensive in-home treatment.
The Superior Court held that SORNA II’s nonpunitive Subchapter I requires registration by an offender who began lifetime registration under Megan’s Law II, even though his offense predated Pennsylvania’s registration statutes.
The Superior Court held that a constitutional attack on Philadelphia’s public-carry statute was waived and could not be recast as a nonwaivable illegal-sentence claim.
The Superior Court held that cannabis odor supported extending a traffic stop and, after the driver admitted he lacked a medical-marijuana card, supplied a substantial basis for a vehicle search warrant.
The Superior Court vacated a sentence more than six years below the mitigated guideline range because the record did not support the trial court’s reasons for immediate parole and house arrest.
The Superior Court held that a juvenile’s admission to misdemeanor drug possession did not permit an automatic delinquency adjudication without evidence of a need for treatment, supervision, or rehabilitation.