Commonwealth v. Stoyko

I dissent. I believe, after fulfilling my statutory obligation of independent review,1 that the record discloses arguable ineffectiveness by appellant’s trial counsel during the penalty phase of the trial proceedings. Consequently, this Court properly raised the effective assistance issue, sua sponte, during oral argument. I am, however, unable to resolve the issue of whether that arguable ineffectiveness was prejudicial to appellant in the face of appellate counsel’s unquestionable ineffectiveness in failing to raise any issues concerning the penalty phase during either the original argument…