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Commonwealth v. Kelly
Superior Court of Pennsylvania · 2007-08-06 · cited 8×
The case involved appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus after the Franklin County Probation Department (FCPD) lodged a detainer against him for alleged violations of three concurrent 24-month special probation sentences imposed by the trial court following his convictions for escape, resisting arrest, and receiving stolen property. The sentences followed a state incarceration term and were supervised by the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (PBPP) under 61 P.S. § 331.17, but FCPD detained him upon release from a PBPP detainer due to new criminal charges. The trial court denied the petition, and the Superior Court affirmed, holding that while PBPP handled supervision, the Court of Common Pleas retained exclusive authority over revocation of special probation sentences exceeding two years, allowing FCPD to act as the court's enforcement arm in lodging the detainer. The court distinguished prior precedent on special parole cases and found no jurisdictional bar under the statute for county probation officials to detain the appellant pending violation proceedings.
criminal lawprocedure
Commonwealth v. Jones
Superior Court of Pennsylvania · 2007-06-14 · cited 8×
This case was an appeal from convictions for first-degree murder and robbery, in which the defendant challenged the denial of his motion to suppress statements made to police on April 16, 2002, and physical evidence seized under an April 15, 2002 search warrant, claiming violations of Miranda rights and Fourth Amendment protections. The Superior Court affirmed the denial of suppression in part but reversed in part, finding the search warrant lacked probable cause and that some evidence including clothing was improperly seized without proper identification in the warrant or valid consent, and remanded for a new trial. The court applied the standard of reviewing factual findings for record support and legal conclusions for correctness, determining that the warrant's deficiencies required suppression of certain fruits while other aspects of the interrogation did not constitute custodial interrogation requiring warnings.
criminal lawprocedure
Krankowski v. O'NEIL
Superior Court of Pennsylvania · 2007-06-12 · cited 30×
This case involved a dispute over a child support order for K.O., a child with autism and mental retardation, where Mother has primary custody and Father, a civilian Department of Defense employee in Germany, was ordered to pay $1,387 per month. Father appealed the trial court's inclusion of his military living quarters and post allowances in his net income for support calculations, while Mother cross-appealed on related issues including her own earning capacity. The court affirmed the order, holding that the allowances qualify as net income under Pennsylvania support guidelines because they represent benefits the child would share if living with the parent. The court reasoned that excluding them would contradict the principle that the child should receive the same proportion of parental income as if the parents resided together, and it found no abuse of discretion in assigning zero income to Mother given the child's needs.
family law
GMAC MORTG. CORP. OF PA v. Buchanan
Superior Court of Pennsylvania · 2007-06-11 · cited 37×
The case concerned a mortgagor's repeated attempts to halt a sheriff's sale of his foreclosed residential property through successive bankruptcy filings. After defaulting on a mortgage held by GMAC, Buchanan filed three Chapter 13 petitions within a year, the first two of which were dismissed and triggered automatic stays, while the third (filed one business day before the May 2006 sale) did not under the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act amendments. The property was sold to a third party, and Buchanan petitioned to set the sale aside, claiming due process violations from an alleged oral assurance by the sheriff's office that the property would be removed from the list and from the trial court's denial of the petition without a hearing. The court affirmed the denial, reasoning that no automatic stay applied, Buchanan received adequate notice of the sale, he had the burden to verify removal from the sale list, and the trial court had discretion to rule without a hearing based on the record.
propertyprocedure
Commonwealth v. Derrickson
Superior Court of Pennsylvania · 2007-04-26 · cited 247×
In this case, the appellant challenged the dismissal of his third petition under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) after being sentenced to life imprisonment for second-degree murder in 1995, with his direct appeal becoming final in 1997. The PCRA court dismissed the 2005 petition as untimely without a hearing, and the Superior Court affirmed. The court reasoned that all PCRA petitions must be filed within one year of final judgment unless one of three statutory exceptions is alleged and proven in the petition itself, that the appellant's filing was over eight years late, and that he failed to invoke any exception in his original petition, depriving the courts of jurisdiction. The court noted that exceptions raised only in response to a notice of intent to dismiss do not suffice, as the petition must plead them to proceed.
criminal lawprocedure
Stauffer v. Hevener
Superior Court of Pennsylvania · 2005-08-09 · cited 31×
The case involved plaintiffs who obtained a default judgment against defendants for failing to timely file an answer to a third amended complaint alleging breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, RICO violations, and other claims. The trial court reinstated the default judgment after initially opening it, leading defendants to appeal. The appellate court reversed, ruling that Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 237.3(b) required opening the judgment because the petition was filed within ten days and defendants asserted a meritorious defense based on the statute of limitations, which had previously been identified as a factual issue for jury resolution. The court noted that defendants had also filed a complete answer providing notice of their defenses.
procedure