In Commonwealth v. Hughes, the appellant filed a PCRA petition challenging the grading of his forgery conviction as a second-degree felony after he pleaded guilty to forging signatures on cashier's checks. The Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the denial of relief, concluding that cashier's checks qualify as an issue of money under the forgery statute rather than commercial instruments. The court applied principles of statutory construction to the grading provision in 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 4101(c), determining that the trial court's classification was correct and the sentence was legal.

criminal lawprocedure