Commonwealth v. Hall

OPINION

CASTILLE, Justice.

This Court granted review to determine whether a criminal defendant who failed to file a direct appeal from his judgment of sentence and thereafter failed to timely avail himself of the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541 et seq., to attempt to secure restoration of his waived direct appeal, may obtain collateral relief in the form of reinstatement of his direct appeal rights nunc pro tunc outside the requirements of the PCRA. Both the trial court and the Superior Court held that such an extra-PCRA remedy was proper. In light of the plain language of…