Commonwealth v. Drexel

SPAETH, President Judge:

This is an appeal from an order denying, without an evidentiary hearing, appellant’s petition for relief under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541 et seq. Appellant was convicted of first degree murder, solicitation, conspiracy, retaliation against a witness, and tampering with a witness, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In his PCHA petition, appellant argues that trial counsel was ineffective, 1 first, in failing to object to the trial judge’s charge to the jury on the Commonwealth’s burden of proof to establish the corpus delicti; and second, in…