Appeals Lawyer
Practice Areas: Appeals, Criminal Defense, Intellectual Property
OUTCOME: Petition for Allocatur Granted
I wrote the petition for allowance of appeal (also known as a petition for allocatur) to ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to determine whether Mr. Yohe's right to confrontation under the Sixth Amendm ... ent of the United States Constitution had been violated.
OUTCOME: Vacated and remanded. Resulting in a plea deal.
Curtis was the victim of road rage on Easter Sunday while he was traveling from a family gathering with his two young children in the car. A man, the "aggressor," was irritated by his driving and decid ... ed to tailgate him for a while before running up to Curtis's vehicle when he stopped at a stop sign. In self-defense, Curtis took out a gun and shot the man in the leg. At trial, the jury heard the aggressor's story, but they did not hear that he had been extremely intoxicated during the incident (we found this out via a blood sample taken after the incident) because the judge ruled the evidence was inadmissible. I argued the case on appeal with the guidance of my mentor (who defended the case at the trial level) and, although one judge agreed the jury should have heard the evidence, two thought the trial judge was correct to hide the information from the jury. We appealed again — this time to what is called an "en banc" panel of the Superior Court (this means rather than a standard three-judge panel, typically seven judges hear the appeal). En banc rearguments are very rarely granted at the Pennsylvania Superior Court. Nevertheless, I argued before the seven judge panel and ultimately the Court agreed the the jury should have been made the jury aware that the aggressor was intoxicated and we won our appeal. You can find out more information about this case at http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/07/state_superior_court_reconside.html
OUTCOME: The Superior Court vacated the DUI—highest rate of alcohol charge and remanded
This was a DUI appeal where the Government introduced a witness who did not understand the science behind the tools used in the laboratory. Because my firm is comprised of scientifically-trained attorn ... eys, we caught the problem and won on appeal. Read the court's opinion at http://caselaw.findlaw.com/pa-superior-court/1607469.html
OUTCOME: PCRA Granted. Right to appeal reinstated
The defendant was sentenced to several hundred years for possession with intent to distribute (PWID) and his trial attorney failed to preserve his appellate rights. We filed a Post-Conviction Relief Ac ... t Petition on his behalf.
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