Pennsylvania v. Shaw (majority)
Annotate this CaseAppellee Anthony Shaw was tried jointly with a co-perpetrator for the 2009 attempted murder of Alex Adebisi. At the pretrial stage, Appellee’s counsel filed a notice of alibi. At trial, only one of two identified alibi witnesses in the notice was called by the defense to testify. During her cross-examination of the testifying witness, the prosecutor referred to the notice of alibi to impeach the alibi's veracity. Defense objected, arguing the notice was not the witness' statement. After the Commonwealth concluded the cross-examination, Appellee’s counsel asked for a sidebar conference and moved for a mistrial. After Appellee was convicted and an unsuccessful direct appeal was concluded, he lodged a petition under the Post Conviction Relief Act, claiming he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel for failing to amend the alibi notice prior to trial to remove the reference to a non-testifying alibi witness. The PCRA court denied relief on the post-conviction petition, Appellee appealed, and the Superior Court reversed and remanded for a new trial. With respect to trial counsel’s performance, the Superior Court found the alibi notice counsel had submitted failed to reflect his own contemporaneous understanding of the circumstances. And although counsel expressed a belief that an alibi witness could not be cross-examined with an alibi notice, the court referenced its own prior decisions which it read for the proposition that “it is well-established that an alibi notice can be used for impeachment purposes.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the Superior Court, agreeing with the Commonwealth that the matter should have been remanded to the post-conviction court for Appellee to be afforded the opportunity to create an evidentiary record to meet his burden of demonstrating the ineffectiveness, particularly in terms of the reasonable-basis criterion. "We also find that the Superior Court should have provided the post-conviction court with the opportunity to assess prejudice in the first instance. ... Although certainly it is possible that the jurors relied on the notice to discredit the defense... it is most appropriate for the PCRA court to pass, in the first instance, on whether there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of Appellee's trial would have been different had counsel correctly handled the alibi notice."
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