SCOPAblog

This month, the Court weighs in on constitutional procedural requirements for legislation, with mixed views, and grants review to consider three cases involving civil liability for sports-related activity. Put down your skis until you've read our September 2023 Docket Review.

This month, the Court rejects an attempt to extend alcohol-furnishment liability to social hosts, rejects the Commonwealth Court's efforts to give a litigant a second bite at the apple, and grants review to reconsider the rules for police inventory searches of automobiles.

This month on SCOPAblog, the Court addresses parent-unmarried partner adoptions and three cases involving the scope of civil liability, and grants review to consider insurance coverage for business losses sustained during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

This month, the Court issued 3 precedential opinions and 2 grants of allocatur, but sometimes quality trumps quantity. I'm most impressed by Rivera, which comments on the complexities of an accused's exercise of his privilege against self incrimination, but also between the different harmless error analyses applicable to pre-arrest and post-arrest silence.

This month, the Court issued 7 precedential opinions and 2 grants of allocatur. First, in Armolt, the court had something of a scrum over whether and how a party can waive a claim challenging the legality of sentence -- in this case, a claim of a violation of constitutional ex post facto principles, by failing to adequately develop it. One would imagine that the Court would have addressed this issue before, but, prior to the last decade or so, its decisions limited the kinds of claims that implicated the legality of sentencing to, more or less, patent conflicts with clear statutory requirements. 

This month, the headline-grabber is the quite shocking County of Fulton opinion, which outlines the County's, and its counsel's, course of defiance and vexatious litigation in connection with an earlier Supreme Court order directing it to cease providing third-parties access to its voting equipment pending litigation of its authority to do so. The opinion notes that the Court will refer counsel to disciplinary authorities, and concludes with a firm reiteration that defiance of judicial orders is an affront to the rule of law and harmful to adverse parties and the public interest. 

This month, Perrin provides some guidance as to whether parties in a criminal case can enter into stipulations in a post-conviction context, holding that the trial court is free to reject them because witness credibility is a matter reserved for the court. Notably, Justice Dougherty opines further that a court is not free to accept them, as stipulations are reserved for actual, tangible facts, which he views as exclusive of witness credibility. Green is also interesting, less for its holding that a statute regarding juvenile decertifications means what it says, but more for the cogent discussion of the absurdity canon.

This month on SCOPAblog, I'm most interested in the Court's decision in Ball, which holds that the Election Code's dating requirements for absentee and mail-in ballots are mandatory, rather than directory, such that they should not be counted. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is that the Court was equally divided on whether that interpretation of the Code occasions a violation of federal civil rights law.

This month, the Court issued 4 precedential opinions and 4 grants of allocatur. On the opinion side, I'm most interested in Avery, which interprets the "sore loser" provisions of the Election Code to limit the circumstances in which candidates for office can withdraw from a party primary and run as third-party candidates in the general election.

This month, the Court issued 3 precedential opinions and 2 grants of allocatur. On the opinion side, nothing so entertaining as a good Christmas movie, but a few interesting points worth making.  In Gibraltar Rock, the Court reemphasized that lower appellate courts should not raise issues sua sp...

The Court issued 3 precedential opinions and 2 allocatur grants in November 2022. This month on SCOPABlog, the Court reminds courts to stick the law and avoid getting too folksy in defining "reasonable doubt," and takes up review to address a conflict between the Adoption Act's mid-20th century mores and the reality of modern family arrangements.

This month, the Court issued 4 precedential opinions and 5 allocatur grants. On the opinion side, the Court in Scott dealt with a creative, if ill-fated, effort to challenge Pennsylvania's statute providing that defendants convicted of second-degree murder (i.e., committing a felony during which...

This month, the Court issued 8 precedential opinions and 2 allocatur grants, summarized below.  But the Court's work product this month is overshadowed by the tragic loss of Chief Justice Max Baer, who passed away this weekend at the age of 74, just three months from what would otherwise have bee...

This month, the Court issued 9 opinions and 4 allocatur grants.  On the opinion side, McLinko, which is the latest in legal challenges to Pennsylvania's 2020 mail-in voting legislation, has likely grabbed the most headlines.  For the uninitiated, the legislation was initially the product of all-t...

This month the court issued 4 precedential opinions and 3 allocatur grants.   On the opinion side, On the allocatur side, Precedential Opinions In re: Nomination of Jordan, 56 MAP 2022 (Opinion by Wecht, J.) (holding qualification challenges to candidates for General Assembly are justiciable ...

This month on SCOPABlog, the Court issued five precedential opinions and eleven grants of allocatur On the opinion side, the Court issued two opinions refining its "illegal sentence" doctrines, one of the more confusing areas of Pennsylvania criminal law, in part because the phrase "illegal sent...

This month on SCOPABlog, the Court issued one precedential opinion and five grants of allocatur.  On the opinion side, there is only A.L., in which the court addresses a version of a question it's addressed many times before: whether an out-of-state offense is sufficiently similar to an in-state ...

This month, the Court issued 2 precedential opinions and 7 grants of allocatur.  On the opinion side, the Court issued only two precedential opinions, both in capital cases, and both quietly reaffirming or expanding constitutional protections for criminal defendants...

This month, the Court issued 1 (maybe) precedential opinion and 10 grants of allocatur.  On the opinion side, on March 9, the court issued its highly anticipated decision in Carter, adopting a remedial Congressional redistricting plan proposed by the Carter petitioners, a citizen-group represent...

This month, the Court issued 2 precedential opinions and 5 grants of allocatur. On the opinion side, the most significant opinion is one that hasn't been written yet.  In Carter v. Chapman, 7 MM 2022,* the Court issued an order adopting a remedial Congressional redistricting plan in the wake of ...

This month, the Court issued 0 published opinions and 5 allocatur grants.   On the opinion side, well, crickets.  But on the allocatur side, the Court in Rosario and Verbeck is taking up review to consider two criminal-defendant friendly Superior Court precedents: in Rosario, the Superior Court'...