How Does a PCRA Petition Work in Pennsylvania? The One-Year Clock, What It Can Undo, and Where Petitions Fail

Post-Conviction Relief — Philadelphia, PA

A PCRA petition is how you attack a Pennsylvania conviction once direct review is over — for ineffective counsel, withheld evidence, or newly discovered facts. Under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9542 it is the sole means of collateral relief for any claim it covers, and § 9545(b)(1) requires filing within one year of the date the judgment becomes final. That deadline is jurisdictional. Our firm litigates PCRA petitions in Philadelphia.

If your appeal has been decided and the answer was no — or if the time to take one has simply run out — the question is no longer whether the trial judge got a ruling wrong. It is whether something happened in your case that the appellate record could never show — a lawyer who never investigated, a deal with a witness the Commonwealth never disclosed, a fact nobody could have known at the time. That is what the Post Conviction Relief Act is for, and it comes with a clock that the courts have no power to extend.

Below is how the statute and the rules actually work, quoted where the exact words matter. Deadlines in post-conviction litigation are unforgiving, and this page is general information rather than advice about your case — confirm your own dates with a lawyer before you rely on any of them.

Key points

• For any claim it covers, the PCRA is the sole means of collateral relief in Pennsylvania — it subsumed habeas corpus and coram nobis for that purpose (§ 9542). Claims outside its scope, and federal habeas review, run on separate tracks.
• You must be currently serving the sentence — imprisonment, probation, or parole — when relief is granted (§ 9543(a)(1)).
• The one-year deadline is jurisdictional. A late petition is not merely weak; the court has no authority to hear it.
• If you qualify for one of the three exceptions, you now have one year to invoke it — not the 60 days a great deal of older material still reports (§ 9545(b)(2), as amended by Act 146 of 2018).
• In Philadelphia, Commonwealth v. Brown (Pa. 2026) now requires the court to give the Attorney General notice and a chance to intervene whenever the District Attorney concedes PCRA relief.

PCRA vs. Direct Appeal: Two Different Attacks on a Conviction

These are routinely conflated, and the difference decides which door is open to you.

A direct appeal is a challenge to what happened on the record. Under Pa.R.A.P. 903(a) the notice of appeal is due within 30 days after entry of the order being appealed — and note the wrinkle that trips people up: if you file a timely post-sentence motion under Pa.R.Crim.P. 720, the 30 days generally runs from the order deciding that motion, not from the sentencing date. The appeal argues that the trial judge erred — a bad evidentiary ruling, a defective jury instruction, an illegal sentence, a verdict against the weight of the evidence. The appellate court reads the transcript. It does not take new testimony.

A PCRA petition is a collateral attack, filed back in the trial court after direct review ends. Section 9545(a) puts original jurisdiction “in the court of common pleas.” Its distinctive power is that it can reach what the transcript cannot show, developing an evidentiary record that never existed at trial — though it is not limited to off-record claims. Section 9543(a)(2) also reaches purely record-based grounds such as a sentence greater than the lawful maximum and a proceeding in a tribunal without jurisdiction. Those two categories are nonwaivable in Pennsylvania — but they are not exempt from the clock: an untimely petition cannot raise even an illegal-sentence claim unless a § 9545(b)(1) exception is established (Commonwealth v. Fahy, 737 A.2d 214, 223 (Pa. 1999)).

The PCRA is also exclusive within its scope. Section 9542 states that the action it creates “shall be the sole means of obtaining collateral relief and encompasses all other common law and statutory remedies for the same purpose that exist when this subchapter takes effect, including habeas corpus and coram nobis.” The operative words are for the same purpose: if a claim is cognizable under the PCRA, you cannot re-file it under a different label to escape the PCRA’s requirements. A claim genuinely outside the Act’s scope may still travel by another route, and federal habeas review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 is a separate system with its own deadlines — but neither is a way around a PCRA claim you let expire.

Why ineffective-assistance claims wait

Under Commonwealth v. Grant, 813 A.2d 726 (Pa. 2002), claims that trial counsel was ineffective are generally deferred to collateral review rather than raised on direct appeal — because assessing what your lawyer did and why requires a record of the lawyer’s reasoning, and no such record exists in a trial transcript. Commonwealth v. Holmes, 79 A.3d 562 (Pa. 2013), left the trial court narrow discretion to reach such claims on direct review in extraordinary circumstances, or on a showing of good cause paired with a waiver of later PCRA review. Those are exceptions, not the norm. For most defendants, the ineffectiveness claim belongs in the PCRA petition — which is why letting the PCRA clock run out can permanently bury the strongest claim in the case.

The gate before the merits: you have to be serving the sentence

Section 9543(a)(1) requires that the petitioner “has been convicted of a crime under the laws of this Commonwealth and is at the time relief is granted” one of the following:

• “currently serving a sentence of imprisonment, probation or parole for the crime”
• “awaiting execution of a sentence of death for the crime”
• “serving a sentence which must expire before the person may commence serving the disputed sentence”
• has completed the sentence and “is seeking relief based upon DNA evidence obtained under section 9543.1(d)”

Read that carefully, because it is where a great many petitions die. If your sentence — including probation and parole — has fully expired, you are outside the PCRA except on the DNA path, no matter how strong the underlying claim is. And in Commonwealth v. Descardes, 136 A.3d 493 (Pa. 2016), the Supreme Court held that a petitioner in that position cannot get around the custody requirement by relabeling the claim as a writ of coram nobis, even when the collateral consequences are severe. If your sentence is nearly over, the timing of a petition is not a detail. It is the case.

Two further bars sit alongside custody: § 9543(a)(3) requires that the error “has not been previously litigated or waived,” and § 9543(a)(4) requires that the failure to raise it earlier “could not have been the result of any rational, strategic or tactical decision by counsel.”

The One-Year Rule and Its Three Exceptions — Why the Clock Is Everything

Here is the provision the whole statute turns on. Section 9545(b)(1):

“Any petition under this subchapter, including a second or subsequent petition, shall be filed within one year of the date the judgment becomes final, unless the petition alleges and the petitioner proves that: (i) the failure to raise the claim previously was the result of interference by government officials with the presentation of the claim in violation of the Constitution or laws of this Commonwealth or the Constitution or laws of the United States; (ii) the facts upon which the claim is predicated were unknown to the petitioner and could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence; or (iii) the right asserted is a constitutional right that was recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States or the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania after the time period provided in this section and has been held by that court to apply retroactively.”

Two things about this language do the work.

First, the deadline is jurisdictional, not a statute of limitations. A statute of limitations is a defense the other side raises and a court can sometimes excuse. A jurisdictional bar is a limit on the court’s power. If your petition is untimely and no exception applies, the PCRA court cannot reach your constitutional claim at all — it is not permitted to, however meritorious the claim may be and however sympathetic the reason for the delay.

Second, note the phrase “including a second or subsequent petition.” The clock is measured from finality of the judgment, not from the end of your last petition. Serial petitions do not get a fresh year.

When your judgment becomes “final”

Section 9545(b)(3) defines it exactly: “a judgment becomes final at the conclusion of direct review, including discretionary review in the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, or at the expiration of time for seeking the review.”

That last clause is the one people miss. You do not have to actually take the appeal for the clock to start. If the Superior Court affirms and you never petition the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for allowance of appeal, your judgment becomes final when the time to file that petition expires — and your PCRA year starts running from that date, not from some later date when you got around to thinking about it.

The correction: you have one year to invoke an exception, not 60 days

This is the single most frequently repeated outdated statement in Pennsylvania post-conviction material. Section 9545(b)(2), as it currently reads:

“Any petition invoking an exception provided in paragraph (1) shall be filed within one year of the date the claim could have been presented.”

The 60-day window that older articles, older form letters, and a great deal of material still circulating online describe was replaced by Act 146 of 2018 (P.L. 894, No. 146), signed October 24, 2018 and effective 60 days later, on December 24, 2018. The statute’s own amendment note records the limit on its reach: Section 3 of Act 146 provided that the amendment of subsection (b)(2) “shall apply only to claims arising one year before the effective date of section 3 or thereafter” — that is, claims arising on or after December 24, 2017. For those, the window is one year. For a claim that arose before that date, the superseded 60-day rule can still govern, which is exactly the kind of distinction that decides whether a court reads your petition or dismisses it unread.

One more definition worth knowing: § 9545(b)(4) provides that for purposes of the governmental-interference exception, “‘government officials’ shall not include defense counsel, whether appointed or retained.” Your own lawyer’s failure, however serious, is not governmental interference. It may well be ineffective assistance — but that is a different claim on a different track.

No equitable escape hatch

Petitioners have repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to soften the time bar in the interests of fairness, and the Court has repeatedly declined. In Commonwealth v. Laird (Pa. 2025), a capital petitioner argued that the Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Bradley — discussed below — created an equitable exception permitting an untimely serial petition where prior PCRA counsel had been ineffective. The Court held that Bradley did not establish an equitable exception to the PCRA’s time bar and could not be extended to create one, reaffirming that the statutory exceptions are the only exceptions. An ordinary allegation that counsel performed ineffectively is not a “newly discovered fact” that restarts the clock. The Supreme Court has drawn one narrow distinction: a fact showing counsel abandoned the client entirely — for example, a failure to perfect a requested appeal the client did not know about — can qualify as a newly discovered fact under § 9545(b)(1)(ii), but only if the petitioner proves the statutory elements, due diligence in discovering it, and a filing within § 9545(b)(2)’s one-year window (Commonwealth v. Bennett, 930 A.2d 1264 (Pa. 2007)).

Grounds That Win: Ineffective Assistance, New Facts, and Brady Violations

Timeliness only gets you through the door. Section 9543(a)(2) then requires you to plead and prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the conviction or sentence resulted from one of an enumerated list — including a constitutional violation that “so undermined the truth-determining process that no reliable adjudication of guilt or innocence could have taken place,” ineffective assistance of counsel measured by that same standard, an unlawfully induced guilty plea where the petitioner is innocent, improper government obstruction of the right of appeal, exculpatory evidence unavailable at trial that “would have changed the outcome of the trial if it had been introduced,” a sentence greater than the lawful maximum, and a proceeding in a tribunal without jurisdiction.

Three of those carry most of the real litigation.

Ineffective assistance of counsel

Pennsylvania applies a three-prong test derived from Strickland v. Washington. To prevail, you must show:

1. Arguable merit — the underlying claim counsel failed to pursue had legal merit.
2. No reasonable basis — counsel’s action or omission had no reasonable strategic basis designed to serve your interests.
3. Prejudice — but for counsel’s error, there is a reasonable probability the outcome would have been different.

All three are required, and the second is where most claims are lost: a decision that turned out badly is not ineffective assistance if it was a defensible tactical choice at the time. One procedural advantage is built into the statute — under § 9545(d)(3), when relief is sought on ineffectiveness grounds, “any privilege concerning counsel’s representation as to that issue shall be automatically terminated,” so trial counsel can be examined about what they did and why.

Brady violations

When the Commonwealth suppresses favorable, material evidence, the claim comes into the PCRA as a constitutional violation under § 9543(a)(2)(i). If the suppression only came to light after your year expired, the time bar has to be cleared first — typically through the governmental-interference exception at § 9545(b)(1)(i) or the newly-discovered-facts exception at § 9545(b)(1)(ii). Note that these are two different theories with different proof requirements, and pleading the wrong one is a common and fatal error.

Newly discovered facts — and what Small changed

To win substantive relief on after-discovered evidence, Pennsylvania courts require a four-part showing: the evidence could not have been obtained before trial with reasonable diligence; it is not merely corroborative or cumulative; it will not be used solely to impeach credibility; and it would likely compel a different verdict.

The related time-bar exception got materially easier in Commonwealth v. Small, 238 A.3d 1267 (Pa. 2020). Courts had long applied a “public record presumption” — the fiction that anything sitting in a public record was known to the petitioner, which defeated the due-diligence element whenever the fact appeared in, say, a co-defendant’s transcript. Small eliminated that presumption, recognizing that an incarcerated person does not in fact have practical access to public records. Be precise about what that did and did not do: Small removed a categorical assumption about what you were deemed to know. It did not revive expired petitions and it did not create a new exception. You still have to prove actual due diligence, still have to invoke a statutory exception within the applicable § 9545(b)(2) window, and still have to satisfy every other PCRA requirement.

Bradley and layered claims — the newest moving part

Before 2021, a petitioner whose appointed PCRA lawyer failed to raise a meritorious claim was largely stuck: the only practical moment to complain was in a response to a Rule 907 dismissal notice, which meant objecting to your own current lawyer’s work within 20 days, usually from a prison cell. Commonwealth v. Bradley, 261 A.3d 381 (Pa. 2021), replaced that framework, permitting a petitioner to raise PCRA counsel’s ineffectiveness at the first opportunity to do so, including on appeal to the Superior Court with new counsel.

Two decisions since have drawn the boundaries. Commonwealth v. Greer (Pa. 2024) addressed the mechanics when a still-represented petitioner wants to raise a Bradley claim against current counsel while an appeal is pending: because Pennsylvania forbids hybrid representation, the appellate court remands for an on-the-record colloquy so the petitioner can choose to proceed pro se or with new counsel. And Laird, above, confirmed the outer limit — Bradley opened a route to raise the claim, not a route around the time bar.

The Process: Filing, the Evidentiary Hearing, and What Relief Actually Looks Like

The procedural track runs through Pa.R.Crim.P. 901–910, and the deadlines inside it are short.

Filing and counsel. A first petition carries a rule-based right to appointed counsel. Rule 904(c) provides that “when an unrepresented defendant satisfies the judge that the defendant is unable to afford or otherwise procure counsel, the judge shall appoint counsel to represent the defendant on the defendant’s first petition for post-conviction collateral relief.” On a second or subsequent petition, Rule 904(d) narrows that to cases where an evidentiary hearing is required. Once appointed, Rule 904(f)(2) makes the appointment effective “throughout the post-conviction collateral proceedings, including any appeal.”

Amendment. Rule 905 gives the judge broad latitude to permit amendment, and directs that leave to amend “shall be freely allowed to achieve substantial justice.” An imperfect first filing is usually fixable. A late one is not.

The Rule 907 notice — 20 days. (In death-penalty cases a separate procedure, Rule 909, governs instead.) If the judge concludes on the papers that there is no genuine issue of material fact and no purpose would be served by further proceedings, the judge must give notice of the intention to dismiss and state the reasons. Rule 907(1) then gives you a narrow window: “The defendant may respond to the proposed dismissal within 20 days of the date of the notice.” That response is often the last real chance to show why a hearing is necessary.

Witness certification — the self-inflicted loss. If you want an evidentiary hearing, § 9545(d)(1)(i) requires the petition to “include a certification signed by each intended witness stating the witness’s name, address, date of birth and substance of testimony and shall include any documents material to that witness’s testimony.” Where a signature cannot be obtained, subparagraph (ii) permits a certification signed by the petitioner or counsel — but it must still state the witness’s name, address, date of birth, and the substance of the testimony; it substitutes for the signature, not for those particulars. The consequence of getting this wrong is stated flatly in subparagraph (iii): “Failure to substantially comply with the requirements of this paragraph shall render the proposed witness’s testimony inadmissible.” A promising claim about an uncalled alibi witness can be defeated by a paperwork defect alone.

Delay. Even a timely petition can be dismissed under § 9543(b) if delay in filing has prejudiced the Commonwealth’s ability to respond or to retry the case — though only after a hearing on a motion to dismiss, and not where the petitioner shows the grounds could not have been discovered sooner with reasonable diligence.

Relief. Section 9546(a) is broad rather than itemized: if the court rules in the petitioner’s favor, “it shall order appropriate relief and issue supplementary orders as to rearraignment, retrial, custody, bail, discharge, correction of sentence or other matters that are necessary and proper.” In practice that means a new trial, resentencing, discharge, or reinstatement of appellate rights nunc pro tunc — the remedy is matched to the error proved, and a win on a sentencing claim leaves the conviction standing.

Appeal. Rule 910 provides that “an order granting, denying, dismissing, or otherwise finally disposing of a petition for post-conviction collateral relief shall constitute a final order for purposes of appeal.” In a non-capital case the notice of appeal goes to the Superior Court under the Rules of Appellate Procedure and runs 30 days from entry of the order; where a death sentence was imposed, the appeal goes directly to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (42 Pa.C.S. § 722(4)). Either way it is another deadline to confirm with counsel the day the order arrives, not the week after.

What Changed in Philadelphia: Commonwealth v. Brown (2026)

If your case is in the First Judicial District, one 2026 decision has changed how post-conviction cases resolve here.

In Commonwealth v. Brown, No. 32 EM 2023 (Pa. June 16, 2026), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court took up a Philadelphia PCRA matter on a King’s Bench petition. The opinion, by Justice Dougherty, opens with the rule it enforces: “The prosecutor does not decide whether a defendant is entitled to relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA). This is the exclusive province of the PCRA court.” The Court reversed the PCRA court’s grant of relief, remanded for further proceedings, and ordered prospectively “that in all PCRA cases in which the [Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office] concedes relief, the PCRA court shall afford the [Office of Attorney General] notice and the opportunity to intervene before ruling on the concession.” The Court was divided — the decision drew concurrences and both a concurring-and-dissenting and a dissenting opinion — but that order is now the operating rule here.

Preserve what that does and does not mean. It does not close the Conviction Integrity Unit, and it does not make a District Attorney’s agreement worthless — concessions still carry weight. What it removes is the assumption that a concession ends the case. A Philadelphia petitioner whose claim the District Attorney supports should now expect independent judicial review of both the time bar and the merits, and the possibility that the Attorney General appears to test the claim adversarially. Practically, that means a conceded petition still has to be built to survive contested litigation — the record, the timeliness analysis, and the witness certifications all have to hold up on their own.

As for how long a Philadelphia PCRA case takes: listing and adjudication timelines in the First Judicial District vary widely with the claim, the need for a hearing, and the court’s calendar. We are not going to quote you a number we cannot stand behind — ask about the realistic schedule for your specific case.

Facing a PCRA Deadline in Philadelphia?

The hardest part of post-conviction work is that the strongest claims and the shortest deadlines arrive together. Whether the answer here is a first petition, a Bradley claim about the lawyer who handled your last one, or a candid assessment that the custody requirement has already closed the door, you are better off knowing now than after the year runs.

We are a Philadelphia criminal defense firm led by a former Philadelphia prosecutor, and we handle these cases in the First Judicial District. Whether any of the rules above helps you depends entirely on your dates and your record — that is what a review is for, and we will tell you straight if there is nothing here.

To talk it through in confidence, request a free consultation — call 267-758-2228 or reach us through our contact page. You can also read more about our post-conviction relief and criminal appeals work, and if your sentence is already behind you, our page on expungement and record clearing and our explanation of Clean Slate automatic sealing may be the more useful place to start.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a PCRA petition work in Pennsylvania? You file in the court of common pleas where you were convicted, within one year of the date your judgment became final under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1). You must still be serving the sentence, plead one of the grounds listed in § 9543(a)(2), and prove it by a preponderance of the evidence. The judge may dismiss on the papers after a Rule 907 notice (Rule 909 in capital cases), or hold an evidentiary hearing under Rule 908 before ruling.

What is the deadline for a PCRA petition? One year from the date the judgment becomes final — which § 9545(b)(3) defines as the conclusion of direct review, including discretionary review in the Pennsylvania and United States Supreme Courts, “or at the expiration of time for seeking the review.” The deadline is jurisdictional: if it passes and no exception applies, the court has no authority to consider the petition at all.

I heard I only have 60 days to raise new evidence. Is that right? No — not for current claims. Section 9545(b)(2) now gives you one year from the date the claim could have been presented to file a petition invoking an exception. Act 146 of 2018 replaced the old 60-day window effective December 24, 2018, and its applicability provision limits the change to claims arising on or after December 24, 2017. For a claim that arose before that date, the 60-day rule can still apply, so confirm which version governs your dates before you rely on either.

Can I file a PCRA petition after my sentence ends? Generally no. Section 9543(a)(1) requires that you be serving imprisonment, probation, or parole at the time relief is granted, with a narrow exception for relief based on post-conviction DNA testing under § 9543.1(d). In Commonwealth v. Descardes, the Supreme Court held that a petitioner whose sentence has expired cannot bypass that requirement by filing a writ of coram nobis instead.

What is the difference between a PCRA petition and an appeal? A direct appeal challenges what the record shows the trial judge did; under Pa.R.A.P. 903(a) the notice of appeal is due 30 days after entry of the order appealed from, and a timely post-sentence motion under Pa.R.Crim.P. 720 generally moves that trigger to the order deciding the motion. A PCRA petition is a collateral attack filed later in the trial court, and it reaches what the record cannot show — ineffective assistance, suppressed evidence, newly discovered facts. Under Commonwealth v. Grant, most ineffectiveness claims are reserved for the PCRA rather than direct appeal.

My PCRA lawyer made a mistake. Is there anything I can do? Possibly. Commonwealth v. Bradley (Pa. 2021) allows a petitioner to raise PCRA counsel’s ineffectiveness at the first opportunity, including on appeal with new counsel. But Commonwealth v. Laird (Pa. 2025) confirmed that Bradley is not an exception to the one-year time bar, and an ordinary ineffectiveness allegation is not a newly discovered fact — only proof that counsel abandoned you entirely can qualify under the newly-discovered-fact exception (Commonwealth v. Bennett), and it still must be raised diligently within § 9545(b)(2)’s window. This is a timing question you want reviewed immediately.

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This article is general legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Pennsylvania law changes and every case turns on its specific facts. Consult a licensed Pennsylvania criminal-defense attorney about your situation — and do so before relying on any deadline described here, because post-conviction deadlines are jurisdictional. (Attorney advertising — Pa. Rules of Professional Conduct 7.1–7.2.)