Supreme Court of Pennsylvania December 31, 2001 (Commonwealth v. Simmons)

OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

Chief Justice FLAHERTY.

This is an appeal as of right from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Cambria County which denied PCRA relief in a capital case. The appellant, Ernest Simmons, was convicted of first-degree murder for violently pounding and strangling an eighty-year-old woman, Anna Knaze.