ALLEGHENY COUNTY COURT ORDERS NEW TRIAL FOR MAN CONVICTED OF THIRD-DEGREE MURDER BASED ON INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL

Following his conviction for third-degree murder and an unsuccessful appeal to the Superior Court, Attorney Noel’s client retained her to litigate numerous claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Attorney Noel’s client proceeded to trial on a theory that he acted in self-defense when a man who was behaving erratically charged his vehicle and then “came through” his car window to seriously injure or kill him. Attorney Noel’s client fired a single shot, using a handgun he was licensed to carry. The Commonwealth sought a conviction for first-degree murder.

The jury received instruction on Pennsylvania’s self-defense law; however, trial counsel failed to request that the jury likewise be instructed on voluntary manslaughter pursuant to the doctrine of “imperfect” self-defense. “Imperfect” self-defense may be a viable defense when a person subjectively and honestly believes that deadly force is necessary to defend him or herself, but when the fact-finder could conclude that such a belief is objectively unreasonable.

From the outset of the prosecution, trial counsel contended that the Commonwealth’s evidence, at best, supported a conviction for voluntary manslaughter pursuant to a theory of “imperfect” self-defense. However, when the time came for trial counsel to request that the jury be instructed on this defense, he failed to do so.

Following the submission of a robust Post-Conviction Relief Act Petition, of which Attorney Noel was the sole author, and an evidentiary hearing on the claims raised, the PCRA Court found that trial counsel had no reasonable strategic basis for failing to request an “imperfect” self-defense jury instruction, when requesting such an instruction had been the plan all along. As a result, the PCRA Court vacated Attorney Noel’s client’s murder conviction and granted him a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel.