Commonwealth v. Rosado, F., Aplt, 150 A.3d 425

Frankie Rosado was convicted (indecent assault, corruption of minors, unlawful contact) and sentenced to 33–69 months; he retained new appellate counsel.
Appellate counsel filed a post-sentence motion (including a sufficiency claim), then filed a preliminary Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement preserving three issues, attached the post-sentence motion, and obtained an extension to file a final 1925(b) but never did.
The trial court addressed only the three issues in the filed 1925(b) statement; counsel then filed an appellate brief abandoning those preserved claims and raising only the unpreserved sufficiency claim.
The Superior Court deemed the sufficiency claim waived and affirmed without addressing the preserved claims; Rosado filed a PCRA petition alleging counsel was ineffective per se for abandoning preserved issues.
The PCRA court and Superior Court denied relief under Strickland/Pierce analysis; the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted review on whether abandoning all preserved issues for unpreserved ones is ineffective assistance per se and ultimately held that it is.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether filing an appellate brief that abandons all preserved issues in favor of unpreserved ones constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel per se	Rosado: counsel’s abandonment produced a complete forfeiture of merits review and is functionally equivalent to failing to perfect an appeal, so prejudice is presumed (per Cronic/Lantzy/Halley)	Commonwealth/Superior Court: once required documents are filed (notice, 1925(b)), defects in the brief are governed by Strickland/Pierce; Reed limits per se relief for deficient briefs	Held: Yes. Abandoning all preserved issues for only unpreserved ones that produce complete waiver of merits review constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel per se; case remanded for further proceedings.

Lantzy v. Commonwealth, 736 A.2d 564 (Pa. 1999) (failure to perfect requested appeal is constructive denial of counsel; prejudice presumed)
Halley v. Commonwealth, 870 A.2d 795 (Pa. 2005) (failure to file court‑ordered Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement resulting in waiver of all claims constitutes ineffectiveness per se)
Liebel v. Commonwealth, 825 A.2d 630 (Pa. 2003) (failure to file a requested petition for allowance of appeal is constructive denial of counsel)
Reed v. Commonwealth, 971 A.2d 1216 (Pa. 2009) (filing an appellate brief deficient in some respects does not automatically warrant per se relief when appeal was not completely foreclosed)
Bennett v. Commonwealth, 930 A.2d 1264 (Pa. 2007) (failure to file an appellate brief can fall within Lantzy/Halley per se rule when it results in complete loss of appellate review)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (U.S. 1984) (standard for proving prejudice from counsel’s errors)
United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648 (U.S. 1984) (circumstances where prejudice is presumed and need not be proved)