PA Supreme Court: Third-Party Confession Can Be a Newly Discovered Fact Under the PCRA

Criminal Defense Lawyer Zak Goldstein

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has issued a significant decision in Commonwealth v. Brown, No. 3 WAP 2025 (Pa. Jan. 28, 2026), holding that a third-party confession to another person may constitute a newly discovered fact under the Post Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA") and that such a confession is not per se inadmissible hearsay for purposes of establishing the PCRA's timeliness exception. The Court reversed the Superior Court's order and remanded for an evidentiary hearing.

The Facts of Commonwealth v. Brown

In 2002, the defendant was convicted of third-degree murder following a jury trial in Beaver County for the killing of Aliquippa Police Officer James Naim. Officer Naim was shot in the head while on foot patrol in the Linmar Terrace Housing Plan on March 15, 2001. The defendant was sentenced to twenty to forty years of incarceration.

At trial, the Commonwealth's case rested largely on the testimony of Darnell Hines, who claimed he saw the defendant commit the shooting, and Joseph Kirkland, who said the defendant told him he had shot a man. Notably, both Hines and Brown's co-defendant Acey Taylor later recanted their statements implicating the defendant, with Hines claiming in 2016 that Aliquippa police officers pressured him to falsely implicate the defendant.

Throughout the case, there was significant evidence suggesting that another individual, Anthony Tusweet Smith, was the actual shooter. Before trial, the defense sought to introduce evidence that Tusweet Smith had offered to pay approximately $20,000 to kill a police officer, was seen with two 9 mm handguns (the type of gun used in the killing), and that a police dog had tracked toward Tusweet Smith's grandmother's house on the night of the shooting. The trial court barred this evidence.

The Dorsett/Tusweet Smith Confession

Nearly two decades after Brown's conviction, a critical piece of evidence surfaced. In 2018, while his appeal was pending, the defendant learned from a fellow inmate, Travon Dawkins, about a statement made by Anthony "Ali" Dorsett as part of a federal plea deal. Dorsett told federal officials that while he was incarcerated in the Beaver County Jail, Tusweet Smith confessed to him that he, not the defendant, shot and killed Officer Naim. Tusweet Smith also reportedly told Dorsett how he obtained the gun used in the killing. The Commonwealth never disclosed this statement to the defendant.

The defendant filed his fourth PCRA petition in June 2021, raising a Brady v. Maryland claim based on the Dorsett/Tusweet Smith statement and invoking the newly discovered facts timeliness exception under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b)(1)(ii). The PCRA court dismissed the petition without a hearing, holding that the Dorsett/Tusweet Smith statement was inadmissible hearsay and therefore could not establish the newly discovered facts exception. The Superior Court affirmed on alternative grounds.

The Supreme Court's Holding

The Supreme Court reversed, issuing several important holdings in an opinion by Justice Wecht.

A third-party confession is a newly discovered fact. The Court rejected the Commonwealth's argument that because the defendant had previously known about a different confession by Tusweet Smith (to a different person, Steve Zambory), the Dorsett confession was merely a "new source" for a previously known fact. The Court held that two separate confessions, made to two different witnesses at two different times, are two distinct facts for purposes of the newly discovered facts exception.

Admissibility of evidence is not the test at the timeliness stage. The Court clarified an important distinction between the pleading stage and the hearing stage of a PCRA petition. At the pleading stage, a petitioner need only allege facts that would establish the timeliness exception and support those allegations with affidavits and documentary evidence. The petitioner does not need to prove at that point that the evidence is admissible. Admissibility becomes relevant only at the evidentiary hearing itself, where the petitioner must prove contested facts through admissible evidence.

A third-party confession may be admissible at a PCRA hearing. The Court held that the lower courts erred in concluding that the Dorsett/Tusweet Smith statement was inadmissible hearsay that could never support the newly discovered facts exception. the defendant alleged in his petition that he intends to call both Tusweet Smith and Dorsett as witnesses. If Tusweet Smith testifies, his testimony is not hearsay. If he denies the confession, the defendant can impeach him with Dorsett's plea deal statement. If Tusweet Smith refuses to testify, his confession to Dorsett may be admissible as a statement against penal interest under Pa.R.E. 804(b)(3). The lower courts' premature dismissal denied the defendant the opportunity to present this evidence.

The Court limited Commonwealth v. Yarris. While Yarris had been interpreted to stand for the proposition that a third-party confession could never be a newly discovered fact, the Supreme Court clarified that Yarris does not support such a broad rule. A third-party confession can constitute a newly discovered fact so long as the petitioner alleges and proves the existence of the predicate fact, that it was previously unknown, and that it could not have been ascertained earlier through due diligence.

The Takeaway

Commonwealth v. Brown is a major win for defendants seeking post-conviction relief in Pennsylvania. It reinforces several key principles. First, the newly discovered facts exception to the PCRA's time bar must not be conflated with the merits of the underlying claim. The function of the timeliness exception is to open the courthouse door — not to determine whether the petitioner will ultimately prevail. Second, lower courts cannot deny an evidentiary hearing simply by concluding, at the petition stage, that the evidence a petitioner intends to present would be inadmissible. That determination can only be made at a hearing. Third, and perhaps most critically, the decision ensures that evidence pointing to a defendant's potential innocence — a confession by another person to the crime — cannot be categorically excluded from PCRA proceedings.

As the Court noted, requiring a petitioner to prove admissibility before even being granted a hearing would impose an impossible standard, as virtually everything in a PCRA petition contains hearsay at the pleading stage.

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