Pennsylvania judges accept flawed appeals
A yearlong review found that appellate courts reversed more than 250 rulings where lower court judges allowed lawyers to abandon clients or miss critical deadlines.
By Julia Wang ·
Pennsylvania trial court judges have failed to intervene in more than 250 post-conviction cases over the last 14 years, allowing attorneys to provide ineffective representation without consequence. A new review of Superior Court opinions reveals a pattern of judicial inaction that leaves prisoners with stalled appeals and unresolved legal claims.
The data shows that judges frequently accepted no-merit briefs, known as Finley letters, despite significant investigative gaps. In three-quarters of Philadelphia cases reviewed, lawyers filed these documents without speaking to their clients or obtaining police files. Judges approved these filings even when the briefs contained factual errors or named the wrong individuals.
Appellate judges have criticized this practice in recent rulings. One Superior Court opinion described a situation as an embarrassing saga of deficient lawyering that a Berks County judge tolerated. Another ruling quoted a baseball manager to question the competence of five appointed attorneys who all missed appeal deadlines in Philadelphia.
Marissa Boyers Bluestine, a post-conviction lawyer at the University of Pennsylvania, noted that trial judges hold a unique position to prevent these injustices. She stated that judges are in a terrific position to be able to prevent these kinds of injustices. However, disciplinary actions remain rare. Only six lawyers have been publicly sanctioned for court-appointed work in the past decade, and no lower-court judge has been publicly disciplined for mishandling post-trial matters in at least ten years.
The lack of oversight has led to repeated reversals. More than 100 cases have bounced between the appeals court and county judges two to four times. In Jefferson County, Judge John Foradora imposed lengthy sentences that the Superior Court found unduly harsh on three separate occasions. The defendant served more than eight years before the process concluded. Foradora’s spokesperson said the judge was unable to comment on the specific case.
The system creates a preference for quick dismissals. Rob Perkins, who leads the Allegheny Lawyers Initiative for Justice, said some lawyers fear judges will withhold future assignments if they litigate aggressively. Perkins observed that when a judge is handed a no-merit letter that sounds good, their inclination is to accept that the attorney did their job. This dynamic allows defective filings to pass muster without a full merits review.
Shannon McDonald, an attorney in the Philadelphia suburbs, described a case where a petition sat on a Delaware County judge’s desk for two years. The client finished his sentence and was released from prison before the judge ruled. The claim was dismissed after his release. The Superior Court affirms about 80 percent of lower-court rulings, citing strict deadlines and the need to defer to factual decisions by trial judges.
