Opinion
J-16-2019 No. 748 CAP
10-15-2020
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, Appellee v. ANTHONY REID, Appellant
Appeal from the Order entered on November 16, 2007 in the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County, Criminal Division, denying PCRA relief at No. CP-51-CR-0602521-1989. (Nunc Pro Tunc appeal rights reinstated on June 22, 2017) CONCURRING STATEMENT JUSTICE DONOHUE
I join the order as I am constrained to do as a result of this Court's precedential opinion in Commonwealth v. Reid, 235 A.3d 1124 (Pa. 2020). For the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Reid, I continue to hold the view that Williams v. Pennsylvania, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S.Ct. 1899 (2016), mandates that this defendant receive a de novo appeal to this Court because former Justice Castille, while the District Attorney of Philadelphia, authorized the pursuit of the death penalty in his case and later participated in the appeal of the imposition of that sentence. Williams should have been retroactively applied to this defendant and the two other defendants similarly situated. I continue to believe that the preservation of the integrity of this Court demanded no less.