Commonwealth v. Stossel

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• recognizing that this Court may raise the denial of the right to PCRA counsel sua sponte
• holding that where an appellant asserts indigent status via a standardized PCRA form but declines an attorney, the PCRA court must still conduct a hearing before allowing the petitioner to proceed pro se
• ruling that, where it appears that an indigent PCRA petitioner was denied his rule- based right to counsel, “this Court is required to raise this error sua sponte and remand for the PCRA court to correct that mistake.”
• stating that this Court cannot determine whether a defendant is indigent and that the PCRA court must address this question in the first instance
• holding appellate court is required to consider, sua sponte, whether indigent first-time PCRA petitioner failed to properly waive his right to counsel
• stating that this Court cannot determine whether a defendant is indigent and that the PCRA court must address this question in the first instance

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).