Commonwealth v. Payton
Commonwealth v. Payton
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
This is an appeal from the denial of a PCHA petition by the Common Pleas Court of Dauphin County. Appellant contends that the lower court erred in denying his petition without affording him an evidentiary hearing on the allegations presented by his petition for collateral relief.
Appellant was sentenced in 1947 after entering pleas of guilty to several indictments charging the commission of eighteen burglaries. In 1969 appellant filed a pro se PCHA petition alleging that he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel, that his guilty pleas were induced by a coerced confession, and that he was denied his appeal rights. The lower court dismissed this petition, but permitted the appellant to file any other post-conviction motions that he might deem appropriate.
Subsequently, motions for post-conviction relief were filed,
The lower court dismissed the petition on the basis of Commonwealth v. Marsh, 440 Pa. 590, 271 A. 2d 481
The appellant has alleged in his petition all of the factors that Marsh requires to be demonstrated before a guilty plea will be invalidated. The lower court, however, denied him the right to demonstrate the truth of those allegations which, if proven, would have entitled him to relief. Appellant was entitled to a hearing on these allegations under Section Nine of the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Hearing Act, Act of January 25, 1966, P. L. (1965) 1580, §9, 19 P.S. §1180-9.
The order of the lower court is reversed and the case remanded for an evidentiary hearing.
Although appellant’s self-styled second petition was captioned as a post-trial motion, it should be treated as a petition for post-conviction relief or an amendment of the previous petition because it was filed pursuant to the permission granted by the court to file any other post-conviction petition that appellant deemed appropriate.
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