Commonwealth v. Franciscus

OPINION

ZAPPALA, Justice.

We granted allocatur in this case to address the issue of whether Chad Franciscus’s right to assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution and under Article I, Section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution was violated by the admission at trial of incriminating statements made by him to a jailhouse informant. For the following reasons, we find that the admission of the statements violated Franciscus’s right to assistance of counsel guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions and that a new trial is required.

On September 30, 1991,…