A defendant in a capital case will not get the chance to pursue his Post-Conviction Relief Act claims that offensive emails sent and received by former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin, who rejected his original PCRA appeal, demonstrated bias and that the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office should be disqualified from the case.

On Dec. 14, a four-justice Supreme Court evenly split in Commonwealth v. Robinson, leaving in place a PCRA court’s dismissal, on timeliness grounds, of defendant Antyane Robinson’s petition, which alleged that newly discovered facts entitled him to reinstatement of his appellate rights from his first PCRA petition. Chief Justice Thomas Saylor and Justices Max Baer and Debra Todd, all contemporaries of Eakin on the high court, recused from the matter.

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