concurring and dissenting opinion.
I join Mr. Justice Nigro’s lead opinion only to the extent that it determines that the Superior Court properly concluded that appellant waived his claim of trial counsel ineffectiveness when he did not raise it on direct appeal, since trial counsel, though associated with the local public defender’s office, represented appellant in a private, retained capacity, and the public defender was then appointed and represented appellant on direct appeal. As Justice Nigro notes, by Pennsylvania judicial rule, claims of counsel ineffectiveness must be raised at the earliest stage at which the allegedly ineffective counsel no longer represents the defendant.
The finding of no error by the Superior Court, the court whose judgment is the subject of this discretionary appeal, should put an end to the matter. Instead, four Justices, in a non-precedential ruling, overturn appellant’s first degree murder conviction based upon a non-constitutional claim of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness which was never raised in the PCRA court or in the Superior Court. In reaching the merits of this brand-new claim, the Court acts as a court of original jurisdiction over collateral attacks, invites abuse of the allocatur process and, more disturbingly, undermines the PCRA’s time restriction. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b).1 In addition, on the merits *523of the new claim, the Court ignores two unanimous opinions of this Court in finding trial counsel ineffective, and ignores governing law in holding that both direct appeal counsel and PCRA counsel were per se ineffective for failing to pursue the underlying claim of trial counsel ineffectiveness. I disagree with the Court’s apparent conclusion that parties are free to raise new claims not raised below on allocatur, especially when that practice subverts the PCRA. I also disagree with the analysis of the underlying trial counsel ineffectiveness claim undertaken by the lead opinion. Finally, I disagree with the lead opinion’s application of a per se standard for Sixth Amendment claims of appellate counsel ineffectiveness as well as claims of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the grant of a new trial.
This case was before the Superior Court upon a Commonwealth appeal from the PCRA court’s grant of a new trial based upon a finding that appellant’s privately-retained trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present the limited defense of diminished capacity, rather than the total defense of justification that trial counsel actually pursued. In finding trial counsel ineffective, the PCRA court relied in large part upon the 4-3 decision in Commonwealth v. Legg, 551 Pa. 437, 711 A.2d 430 (1998), a case decided nine years after the trial in this matter, and seven years after the direct appeal. The Superior Court reversed the grant of a new trial because it found that the claim of trial counsel ineffectiveness was waived under the PCRA. This Court now holds that this determination by the Superior Court was correct, which it unquestionably was. E.g., Commonwealth v. (Michael) Pierce, 567 Pa.186, 786 A.2d 203, 212 (2001) (claims of trial court error or ineffective assistance of trial counsel, which could have been raised on direct appeal by new counsel but were not, are waived under PCRA). This conclusion should end our review here.
Despite the fact that we sit in review of the Superior Court and the Court unanimously concludes that that Superior Court committed no error in its review, the Court inexplicably grants relief. It does so based upon a claim that appellant never *524raised in his PCRA petition, in the PCRA court, or in the Superior Court: ie., a brand-new claim that PCRA counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a “layered” claim of ineffectiveness respecting diminished capacity that encompassed direct appeal counsel, since the underlying claim had been waived on direct appeal. The new claim was raised for the first time in appellant’s allocatur petition. Under the terms of the PCRA, and this Court’s precedent, the Court simply cannot review or grant relief upon this claim.
As a general rule, issues which were not raised in the court below are waived on appeal. Pa.R.A.P. 302(a) (“Issues not raised before the lower court are waived and cannot be raised for the first time on appeal.”); Commonwealth v. Basemore, 560 Pa. 258, 744 A.2d 717, 725 (2000); Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 554 Pa. 31, 720 A.2d 693, 704 (1998). See also Commonwealth v. Piper, 458 Pa. 307, 328 A.2d 845, 847 (1974) (issue not raised in trial court or Superior Court cannot be raised for first time upon allocatur). There is, perhaps, no more fundamental principle of Pennsylvania appellate jurisprudence. In addition to the fact that appellate courts are not equipped to determine the factual predicates that control many legal issues (such as whether counsel articulated a credible, reasonable basis for a challenged action or inaction), the requirement of issue preservation reaffirms that the main event in legal disputes is the trial of the matter. Dilliplaine v. Lehigh Valley Trust Co., 457 Pa. 255, 322 A.2d 114, 116 (1974) (“Appellate court consideration of issues not raised in the trial court results in the trial becoming merely a dress rehearsal.”). Issue preservation also ensures equal treatment of the parties to litigation. Id. (“The ill-prepared advocate’s hope is that an appellate court will come to his aid after the fact and afford him relief despite his failure at trial to object to an alleged error. The diligent and prepared trial lawyer— and his client — are penalized when an entire case is retried because an appellate court reverses on the basis of an error opposing counsel failed to call to the trial court’s attention.”). Issue preservation also permits the trial judge to reconsider and alter rulings thereby avoiding appeals, conserving pre*525eious judicial resources, and focusing those disputed legal issues that remain so as to make for better, more useful appellate guidance. Appellate courts are overburdened enough without permitting or encouraging new claims being raised upon appeal, much less upon discretionary appeal. What this Court reasoned in abrogating the direct appeal fundamental error theory over a quarter century ago in Dilliplaine is just as true of issue preservation questions today:
Requiring a timely specific objection to be taken in the trial court will ensure that the trial judge has a chance to correct alleged trial errors. This opportunity to correct alleged errors at trial advances the orderly and efficient use of our judicial resources. First, appellate courts will not be required to expend time and energy reviewing points on which no trial ruling has been made. Second, the trial court may promptly correct the asserted error. With the issue properly presented, the trial court is more likely to reach a satisfactory result, thus obviating the need for appellate review on this issue. Or if a new trial is necessary, it may be granted by the trial court without subjecting both the litigants and the courts to the expense and delay inherent in appellate review. Third, appellate courts will be free to more expeditiously dispose of the issues properly preserved for appeal. Finally, the exception requirement will remove the advantage formerly enjoyed by the unprepared trial lawyer who looked to the appellate court to compensate for his trial omissions.
Id. at 116-17 (footnotes omitted).
Exceptions to the general rule of issue preservation have arisen in the direct appeal context. Most pertinent here is the judicially created practice of entertaining claims of ineffectiveness in criminal cases when they are raised by new counsel on appeal. This perhaps counter-intuitive rule is a concomitant of this Court’s precedent requiring that “a claim of ineffectiveness must be raised at the earliest possible stage in the proceedings at which counsel whose effectiveness is questioned no longer represents the defendant.” Commonwealth v. Green, 551 Pa. 88, 709 A.2d 382, 384 (1998); see also Common*526wealth v. Kenney, 557 Pa. 195, 782 A.2d 1161, 1164 (1999); Commonwealth v. Hubbard, 472 Pa. 259, 372 A.2d 687, 695 n. 6 (1977).
In Mr. Justice Nigro’s lead opinion, a plurality of the Court justifies reaching the new claim in this case by citing to Commonwealth v. Pursell, 555 Pa. 233, 724 A.2d 293, 303 n. 7 (1999), a capital case that was before this Court on direct appeal, not allocatur review, from a denial of PCRA relief. Pursell, in turn, cited Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 554 Pa. 31, 720 A.2d 693 (1998), another capital case before this Court on direct appeal from the denial of PCRA relief, not allocatur review, for the proposition that the criminal-rules based right to counsel on a PCRA petition includes an enforceable right to effective assistance of counsel and, thus, a claim of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness, raised for the first time on the PCRA appeal by new counsel, is reviewable.
These capital cases in which this Court was acting in a direct appeal capacity are consistent with the Hubbard fine recognizing that claims of predecessor counsel ineffectiveness not only may, but must, be raised by new counsel at the first opportunity, with the .direct appeal stage being deemed just such an opportunity. But these cases do not address the distinctly different circumstance of allocatur review which is presented here. Review on allocatur by this Court “is not a matter of right, but of sound judicial discretion” which will be allowed “only when there are special and important reasons therefor.” Pa.R.A.P. 1114. Review on allocatur is so unlikely and unpredictable a matter that it hardly qualifies as a required “opportunity” to raise a new claim in the same way as a direct appeal — which is available in equal fashion to all criminal defendants as a matter of “right. Indeed, if allocatur is to be deemed a separate “opportunity” to raise a new ineffectiveness claim, then all defendants who had new counsel during the direct appeal allocatur process will be deemed to have waived any claim of appellate counsel ineffectiveness that they did not raise, for the first time, upon allocatur. I know of no precedent so holding.
*527More importantly, the very nature of allocatur review is such that it cannot be deemed to encompass new claims. Unlike in a direct appeal, the focus on allocatur is not upon the prospect of belatedly-discovered error in a particular case, but upon the performance of the intermediate appellate courts, the consistency of state-wide law, and the novelty or unique public importance of the particular issue. This Court’s Internal Operating Procedures make this fact plain:
A. Standards. Petitions for allowance of appeal (“alloeaturs”) may be granted for any of the following reasons:
1. that the holding of the intermediate appellate court conflicts with another intermediate appellate court opinion;
2. that the holding of the intermediate appellate court conflicts with a holding of this Court or the United States Supreme Court on the same legal question;
3. that the question presented is one of first impression, and of such substantial public importance as to require prompt and definitive resolution by this Court;
4. that the issue involves the constitutionality of a statute of this Commonwealth;
5. that the intermediate appellate Court has so far departed from accepted judicial practices or so abused its discretion as to call for the exercise of this Court’s supervisory authority.
Internal Operating Procedures of the Supreme Court, V. Our allocatur docket is not designed to permit a favored class of litigants to present new claims as the lead opinion would now allow, but as an avenue whereby this Court discharges its supervisory duties with respect to the lower courts.
Indeed, if new claims are now to be deemed a proper focus of allocatur, our role will shift from being a reviewing and supervisory court to being a court of original jurisdiction for collateral attacks upon a judgment — at least for certain arbitrarily favored litigants. The lead opinion’s approach is squarely at odds with the very language of the PCRA. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(a) (“original jurisdiction over a proceeding under this subchapter shall be in the court of common pleas”). *528It is no less squarely at odds with our Rules of Criminal Procedure. Rule 902(B) specifically provides that: “Each ground relied upon in support of the relief requested shall be stated in the petition. Failure to state such a ground in the petition shall preclude the defendant from raising that ground in any proceeding for post-conviction collateral relief.” Id. (emphasis supplied). In this regard, what this Court has noted about the Superior Court’s proper role as a reviewing court is no less true of this Court:
In reaching the merits of the instant claim by disregarding the proceedings in the PCRA court, the Superior Court acted as a secondary PCRA court. This was error. The Superior Court has no original jurisdiction in PCRA or other proceedings; therefore, its consideration of the claims raised by [counsel] could only be achieved in furtherance of its appellate jurisdiction. See 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 741-42. An appellate court is limited to reviewing the record of the proceedings below for error.
Commonwealth v. Kenney, 557 Pa. 195, 732 A.2d 1161, 1165 (1999). This Court should think long and hard before approving, as the lead opinion would, such a radical departure from our principled, traditional practice and reaching, on an ad hoc basis, new claims raised upon allocatur.
The lead opinion has no response to these considerations as it rushes to act as a secondary PCRA court and grant relief upon a claim never raised below. Instead, it declares that Pursell decided the question of non-capital docket, allocatur reviewability, when it most demonstrably did not. Because I do not believe that allocatur review should exist as a free-ranging commission to speak to select questions never part of the litigation below, I cannot agree with the plurality’s explanation of the reason why it entertains this particular appellant’s claim.
There are additional separation of powers concerns that counsel against our reaching new claims raised on allocatur review of PCRA appeals. “By its own language, and by judicial decisions interpreting such language, the PCRA provides the sole means for obtaining state collateral relief.” *529Commonwealth v. Hall, 565 Pa. 92, 771 A.2d 1232, 1235 (2001), citing 42 Pa.C.S. § 9542; Commonwealth v. Ahlborn, 548 Pa. 544, 699 A.2d 718, 721 (1997). Accordingly, a petitioner is entitled to relief under the PCRA only if he satisfies the provisions of that statute. In addition to the fact that the PCRA vests original jurisdiction in the trial courts, the PCRA also now contains a strict time limitation, see 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b) (PCRA petitions, including second or subsequent petitions, must be filed within one year of final judgment), and it also severely limits those claims that can be filed after that deadline expires. Id. (setting forth three narrow exceptions to time bar; petition invoking exception must be filed within sixty days of date claim could have been presented). This Court has upheld these provisions against multiple attacks based on constitutional and other grounds. Commonwealth v. Williams, 566 Pa. 553, 782 A.2d 517 (2001); Commonwealth v. Gamboa-Taylor, 562 Pa. 70, 753 A.2d 780 (2000); Commonwealth v. Fahy, 558 Pa. 313, 737 A.2d 214 (1999); Commonwealth v. Banks, 556 Pa. 1, 726 A.2d 374 (1999); Commonwealth v. Peterkin, 554 Pa. 547, 722 A.2d 638 (1998).
The new, “layered” ineffectiveness claim which the Court entertains and grants relief upon was not raised in the PCRA petition which is at issue on this appeal or in any amendment to that petition. Consistently with the PCRA, it can now be raised only via a second or subsequent petition filed in the PCRA court. By reaching a claim never presented in the PCRA petition that was actually filed and was at issue on direct appeal, the plurality, by judicial fiat, would essentially create an “end-around” the General Assembly’s clear and unequivocal restrictions upon serial post-conviction petitions. It also invites conversion of this Court’s allocatur docket into a repository for what are in reality serial PCRA petitions raising claims of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness — where they inevitably will be treated in an uneven fashion.
Of course, neither Pursell nor Albrecht remotely support the lead opinion’s conversion of the allocatur process into an end-around the PCRA’s time restrictions. Indeed, Pursell and Albrecht involved petitions filed before the 1995 PCRA *530amendments, and there was no argument or discussion in either case as to whether permitting review of new claims of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness would be proper against a claim that such a practice would defeat the time bar adopted in the 1995 PCRA amendments.
The lead opinion responds to this point concerning the PCRA time-bar by asserting that, if the Court were to adopt this Justice’s logic, “then it would seem that in situations where a pro se PCRA petitioner filed a petition in the 364th day of his judgment becoming final, and counsel was subsequently appointed and raised ‘new’ claims in the amended PCRA, those claims would, according to Justice Castille’s reasoning, run afoul of the PCRA’s time bar.” Op. at 1216 n. 3. In point of fact, my reasoning suggests nothing of the sort. This case is not in the PCRA court, but rather is before this Court on discretionary review of a final order in a PCRA matter. Thus, this is not a case where the petitioner seeks to “amend” a timely-filed PCRA petition in the court having original jurisdiction. The petition filed in the PCRA court is now frozen in time, and yet the lead opinion would allow appellant to add, on allocatur no less, an entirely new substantive claim sounding not only in the Sixth Amendment, as his previous claim did, but a new layered claim implicating both the Sixth Amendment (governing direct appeal counsel) and our Criminal Rules (governing PCRA counsel).
In response to the PCRA court amendment hypothetical posed by the lead opinion, however, I note that I view it as an open question, not presented here, of whether entirely new issues may properly be added as amendments at the PCRA trial court level after the one-year time bar has expired. On this point, I would note that there is something to be said for a construction that would limit the petitioner to claims that were identified in his petition in a timely fashion, while, of course, permitting amendment to develop and support the timely-identified claims. Significantly, that is the approach the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has taken to the federal habeas statute of limitations. See United States v. Duffus, 174 F.3d 333, 337 (3d Cir.1999) (stating that district court was correct in *531denying petitioner’s motion to amend to add new claim filed after time allowed for appeal, because allowing such amendment would frustrate very intent of Congress in creating time-bar). There is obvious force to such an argument; indeed, a contrary rule, permitting endless and untimely amendments to add new substantive claims, as the lead opinion seems to advocate in its dictum, would totally eviscerate the PCRA time-bar.
My difficulty with the lead opinion’s position, however, is much more fundamental. Its ad hoc rule would allow certain criminal defendants to pursue upon allocatur claims that were never raised in the PCRA petition or on direct appeal, while consigning all other defendants to raise procedurally indistinguishable claims only by invoking the PCRA’s exceptions to the time-bar. That judicial rule, I respectfully submit, is a truly radical step in obvious tension with statutory, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9545(b), and existing rules-based authority. Pa.R.Crim.P. 902(B). Moreover, this end-around the PCRA is even more arbitrary than was fundamental error review. The only PCRA petitioners who will share in this largesse are petitioners who are both fortunate enough to retain, or have appointed, new counsel for purposes of allocatur, and lucky enough to convince this Court to entertain their new claims. All other PCRA petitioners, who wish to assail their initial PCRA counsel, will be faced with the requirements of the statute— and, under our precedent, their claims of PCRA counsel ineffectiveness will likely be time-barred. See Gamboa-Taylor, 753 A.2d at 785-86. Thus, even if the lead opinion’s ad hoc rule did not undermine the PCRA, it would be unacceptably arbitrary to me. Notably, the similarly ad hoc nature of fundamental error review was one of the reasons this Court abrogated that doctrine. Dilliplaine v. Lehigh Valley Trust Co., 457 Pa. 255, 322 A.2d 114, 116-17 (1974) (“the [fundamental error review] theory has never developed into a principled test, but has remained essentially a vehicle for reversal when the predilections of a majority of an appellate court are offended”).
*532I also dissent because, even assuming that I could agree that new claims may properly be raised on allocatur from an appellate denial of PCRA relief, I cannot accept the plurality’s summary conclusion that all of appellant’s previous attorneys were incompetent. The lead opinion’s entire analysis of the stewardship of direct appeal and PCRA counsel consists of the following conclusion: “Furthermore, we find that appellate and PCRA counsel were also ineffective for failing to raise this claim [ie., the claim that trial counsel was required by the Sixth Amendment to raise a diminished capacity defense] at the earliest stage of the proceedings.” Slip op. at 9. In my view, subsequent counsel are not automatically ineffective for failing to pursue a claim that appears only in hindsight and only on the barest of facts to a majority of this Court to have merit.
First, the underlying predicate for the plurality’s summary conclusion of subsequent counsel ineffectiveness — i.e., that trial counsel was ineffective under Commonwealth v. Legg, 551 Pa. 437, 711 A.2d 430 (1998) — is erroneous in its own right. Trial defense lawyers are not obliged to pursue a diminished capacity defense whenever one is theoretically available. To the contrary, as the Commonwealth notes in its able brief, this Court recently decided a case, in a unanimous opinion authored by Mr. Justice Cappy, in which we held that trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to raise just such a defense. See Commonwealth v. Laird, 555 Pa. 629, 726 A.2d 346, 353-54 (1999) (whether counsel was ineffective for failing to pursue diminished capacity does not depend upon whether such defense could have been mounted but on whether course actually chosen by counsel was reasonable).
The Commonwealth follows its discussion of Laird with extended argument on why trial counsel’s performance in this case is closer to the performance in Laird than that of counsel in Legg. The Commonwealth accurately notes that counsel in this case was given no reports or other information that would have led him to believe that any mental health defense was appropriate or available. In Legg, by contrast, trial counsel’s investigator had prepared a report which made reference to *533the appellant’s recent hospitalization and care under a “Dr. Dabney.” In point of fact, the appellant in that case was hospitalized a scant two months before the shooting, at which point she was suffering from “major depression” and was “actively homicidal and suicidal.” Trial counsel admitted that he knew that the appellant was experiencing anxiety and depression before her trial, but he attributed that to the fact of the impending trial, never pursuing the matter further. Trial counsel also “inexplicably” admitted that “he never reviewed” his investigator’s report. It was only on this extraordinary record that this Court concluded that “[cjounsel had available to him sufficient indicia of Appellant’s pre-arrest mental disorder to warrant further investigation.” 711 A.2d at 433-34. Neither the lead opinion nor the concurrences acknowledge the Commonwealth’s accurate distinction of Legg or its reliance upon Laird, much less do they explain why the sharply divided opinion in Legg controls here, rather than Justice Cappy’s subsequent, unanimous opinion in Laird.
The Commonwealth also presents persuasive argument, similarly ignored by the plurality, as to why it was objectively reasonable for trial counsel, in this case where appellant’s own testimony went to self-defense, not to pursue an additional defense of diminished capacity:
[Tjhere should come a point when an attorney must place credence in what his or her client tells them [sic] occurred and must maintain credibility with a jury by not parading too many inconsistent defenses before it.... An attorney should [not] be required to throw all possible defense theories to a jury in hopes that one sticks when he believes that his client has a strong affirmative defense that should result in acquittal or that, at worst, his client is guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. If counsel had presented the case in accordance with how the trial court found he should have, the jury would have been asked to juggle and reconcile the following: self defense: yes it was an intentional killing but it was justified because my client had a reasonable belief that the victim was going to cause him death or serious bodily injury (i.e., my client does not admit criminal *534liability and you should acquit him); imperfect self defense: yes, it was an intentional killing but my client was under sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation and if you do [not] agree that his belief in serious bodily injury or death was reasonable, find it unreasonable and convict him of voluntary manslaughter but he is definitely not guilty of murder; and diminished capacity: even though my client contests criminal liability and asks that you acquit him on the basis of self defense, and even though his belief, if unreasonable justifies only a manslaughter conviction, ignore that testimony and find that he did [not] have the capacity to premeditate and deliberate and convict him of third degree murder. Such mixing of strategies really would sound like trial counsel had no faith in his client’s credibility and had just participated in a defense charade.
Brief of Appellee at 32-33. The defense actually pursued in this case, particularly in light of what little was made known to counsel of appellant’s history, was no less reasonable than the defense in Laird. The Court’s dismissive approach to the course actually pursued by counsel violates fundamental precepts of ineffectiveness review. “A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). This is so because it is “all too tempting” for a defendant to second-guess counsel, and “all too easy” for a court, to deem a particular act or omission unreasonable merely because counsel’s overall strategy did not achieve the result his client desired. Id.; see also Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 372, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993) (Strickland Court adopted “the rule of contemporary assessment” because it recognized that “from the perspective of hindsight there is a natural tendency to speculate as to whether a different trial strategy might have been more successful”); Waters v. Thomas, 46 F.3d 1506, 1514 (11th *535Cir.1995) (“nothing is clearer than hindsight — except perhaps the rule that we will not judge trial counsel’s performance through hindsight”). Accord Commonwealth v. Washington, 549 Pa. 12, 700 A.2d 400, 410 (1997).
Furthermore, even dismissing, as the Court does through silence, counsel’s actual course of conduct, Legg does not command relief here because, although the same psychologist testified in both cases, his testimony was not at all the same. In holding that Dr. Levit’s testimony was adequate to support a diminished capacity defense in Legg, the four-Justice majority there noted that Levit had opined that the appellant “lacked the ability to rationally formulate an intent to kill,” and had related her underlying mental defect to that “inability to formulate a specific intent to kill.” Legg, 711 A.2d at 433 (emphasis added). The testimony from Levit relied upon by the plurality in this case, however, does not state that appellant lacked the ability, as a result of a mental defect, to formulate a specific intent to kill, but only that his ability in this regard was “diminished.” This “diminished” diminished capacity testimony does not prove an incapacity to formulate specific intent and, as such, is irrelevant. Legg, 711 A.2d at 433 (diminished capacity defense attempts to show that defendant was incapable of forming specific intent to kill). To my knowledge, there is no such thing as an “imperfect diminished capacity” defense. It beggars belief to conclude that this sort of testimony, confused by the “expert’s” awkward attempt to convert the inexact “science” he might know about into a legal construct he decidedly is not expert in, was of such a quality that counsel was obliged to produce it, and a jury likely would have accepted it.
In this regard, the summary grant of relief here is inconsistent with yet another unacknowledged, but unanimous, decision of this Court. In Commonwealth v. McCullum, 558 Pa. 590, 738 A.2d 1007 (1999), McCullum argued, as appellant here does, that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present a diminished capacity defense. McCullum, like appellant, relied upon testimony from Dr. Levit. In rejecting the claim, the Court held:
*536Contrary to appellant’s assertion, Dr. Levit’s testimony does not satisfy the evidentiary requirements needed to establish a diminished capacity defense. At no point in his testimony did Dr. Levit state that appellant was unable to formulate the specific intent to kill. As such, the testimony could not have been admitted at trial even had counsel attempted to present a diminished capacity defense.
Id. at 1010 (emphasis supplied). Moreover, the McCullum Court distinguished Legg by noting that in that case Dr. Levit had testified that the appellant “lacked the ability to rationally formulate the intent to kill.” Id. (emphasis supplied). In the case sub judice, like McCullum and unlike Legg, the evidence produced upon collateral attack, even if deemed credible, did not demonstrate that appellant lacked the capacity to formulate a specific intent to kill.
Finally, the lead opinion’s analysis of trial counsel ineffectiveness is legally erroneous because it faults counsel for failing to anticipate the decision in Legg. As Mr. Justice Saylor notes in his Concurring Opinion in this case: “Although the Legg majority did not acknowledge that its decision represented a marked expansion of the diminished capacity defense, I remain unable to read it otherwise.” Concurring op. at 1220. I agree. The objective reasonableness of trial counsel’s alleged failure here, of course, is determined by the legal landscape in existence at the time counsel was acting, for it is well-settled that counsel cannot be found ineffective for failing to anticipate changes in the law. See Commonwealth v. Rollins, 558 Pa. 532, 738 A.2d 435, 451 (1999) (“[W]e will not deem counsel ineffective for failing to anticipate a change in the law.”); Commonwealth v. Porter, 556 Pa. 301, 728 A.2d 890, 901 (1999) (same); Commonwealth v. Todaro, 549 Pa. 545, 701 A.2d 1343, 1347-48 (1997) (same). As Mr. Justice Saylor notes, Legg represented just such a change. I cannot agree with the lead opinion’s assumption that the Sixth Amendment requires trial counsel to be clairvoyant.
In any event, even if I agreed that the underlying claim respecting trial counsel was meritorious, I could not agree with the lead opinion’s summary conclusion that direct appeal *537counsel and PCRA counsel were per se ineffective for failing to pursue it. The lead opinion appears to believe that there are two different Sixth Amendment tests for counsel ineffectiveness: one, the Strickland test, governs claims of trial counsel ineffectiveness; while a second standard governs “layered” claims sounding in subsequent counsel ineffectiveness. The lead opinion thus appears to believe that, if a claim of trial counsel ineffectiveness is developed and found to have merit, then all subsequent counsel are automatically ineffective for failing to pursue the claim. This is so much so that the lead opinion does not even inquire into the actual performance of those attorneys.
The lead opinion’s per se test is, in my view, erroneous under both federal and Pennsylvania law. Claims of appellate counsel ineffectiveness are distinct constitutional claims which are governed by the Sixth Amendment test set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). See Smith v. Robbins, 528 U.S. 259, 285-89, 120 S.Ct. 746, 145 L.Ed.2d 756 (2000) (petitioner “must satisfy both prongs of the Strickland test in order to prevail on his claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel”); see also Commonwealth v. (Michael) Pierce, 567 Pa.186, 786 A.2d 203, 221-22 (2001); Commonwealth v. Williams, 566 Pa. 553, 782 A.2d 517, 525 (2001); id. at 535-36 (Castille, J., concurring); Commonwealth v. Balodis, 560 Pa. 567, 747 A.2d 341, 343 (2000) (plurality opinion by Cappy, J.) (“Application of the ‘reasonable basis’ test pertains to appellate advocacy as well as trial strategy.”). Obviously, a claim involving PCRA counsel is no less analytically distinct; otherwise, the lead opinion would not even reach the claim here. I have addressed at length the Sixth Amendment standards that govern claims of appellate counsel ineffectiveness, as well as the considerations concerning review of PCRA counsel’s performance, and I need not repeat those settled standards here. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Lambert, 797 A.2d 232 (Pa.2001) (plurality opinion by Castille, J.). For present purposes, it is enough to note Mr. Justice Cappy’s recent observation:
*538[I]t is essential to consider the independent actions of all prior counsel at each stage of the proceeding, as they relate to the current claim of error in the collateral proceeding. It is not enough for a petitioner to argue the merits of the underlying claim and the prejudice suffered. At the PCRA stage, a petitioner must go the next step and elucidate how the underlying claim of error was handled by, or overlooked by, each intervening attorney in order to present a cognizable claim for collateral relief.
Id. at 249 n. 1 (Cappy, J., concurring). Furthermore, the PCRA itself specifically requires the petitioner to actually plead and prove his claims of counsel ineffectiveness. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(4) (petitioner must plead and prove, inter alia, “[t]hat the failure to litigate the issue prior to or during trial ... or on direct appeal could not have been the result of any rational, strategic or tactical decision by counsel”) (emphasis supplied). Notably, in articulating its two-tiered approach to claims of counsel ineffectiveness, the lead opinion accounts for neither the governing legislation nor the governing U.S. Supreme Court authority.
In this case, appellant’s ineffectiveness claims respecting appellate and PCRA counsel are boilerplate. Appellant simply asserts that, because the PCRA court found trial counsel ineffective — a dubious conclusion, as I have explained above— “it stands to reason that both PCRA counsel and appellate counsel gave ineffective assistance for failing to raise the claim that prior counsel gave ineffective assistance.” Brief of Appellant at 26-27. The lead opinion apparently agrees with this ipso jure reasoning. But, as Mr. Justice Nigro has noted in two recent opinions, “[s]uch an undeveloped argument, which fails to meaningfully discuss and apply the standard governing the review of ineffectiveness claims, simply does not satisfy Appellant’s burden of establishing that he is entitled to any relief.” Commonwealth v. Abdul-Salaam, 2001 WL 1663976, at *1 n. 3 (Pa. Dec.31, 2001); Commonwealth v. Bracey, 795 A.2d 935, 950 (Pa.2001); see also Lambert, 797 A.2d at 242-43. The appellants in Abdul-Salaam and Bracey may fairly ask, *539why were their Sixth Amendment claims summarily dismissed but this one accepted and they most likely will.
The lead opinion attempts to distinguish this case from Bracey and Abdul-Salaam on the ground that appellant is entitled to review of his claim because it is “properly-layered.” See op. at 1218 n. 4. Mere “layering,” however, does not account for the substantive constitutional (appellate counsel) or PCRA (PCRA counsel) standard. “Counsel must undertake to develop, to the extent possible, the nature of the claims asserted with respect to each individual facet of a layered ineffectiveness claim, including that which relates to appellate counsel.” Commonwealth v. Williams, 566 Pa. 553, 782 A.2d 517, 525 (2001). In this case, as in Bracey and Abdul-Salaam, appellant’s argument respecting appeal and PCRA counsel consists of a tacked-on boilerplate assertion that “it stands to reason” that subsequent counsel were ineffective, if trial counsel was. This bald and non-self-proving statement does not even begin to demonstrate that appellate and PCRA counsel were ineffective. See Commonwealth v. Marrero, 561 Pa. 100, 748 A.2d 202, 205 (2000) (Nigro, J., concurring) (“Appellant presents absolutely no argument in support of his catchall claim of ineffective assistance of prior appellate counsel.... Instead, [Appellant] simply argues the merits of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. In my opinion, and consistent with this Court’s prior caselaw, Appellant has therefore also waived his catchall claim of ineffective assistance of prior appellate counsel.”).
By failing to actually analyze appellate and PCRA counsel’s performance and by finding merit in a totally boilerplate argument, the Court today not only renders a decision squarely in conflict with governing precedent, but it also suggests that lawyers in this Commonwealth will be deemed per se incompetent anytime they fail to anticipate a claim which a majority of an appellate court, in hindsight, believes to have merit. But that is not, and cannot become, the test for counsel ineffectiveness. It is not the test under the Sixth Amendment, nor is it the test required by the PCRA.
*540Finally, the lead opinion’s adoption of a per se Sixth Amendment test governing appellate counsel is particularly inappropriate in a case, such as this, where the claim was not raised below and there is no factual record upon which to evaluate it. The PCRA court held a hearing on the claim concerning the foregone defense of diminished capacity. But appellant produced only his trial counsel, and not appellate counsel, at that proceeding. There is no record evidence, nor has appellant even made a proffer in connection with his new claim, as to what direct appeal counsel, much less PCRA counsel, might say in response to the late-found accusation that they too were incompetent. Thus, this Court has no idea, for example, what kind of investigation appellate counsel undertook, whether he talked to his client, what his client and his family told him, what research he may have done, etc. Perhaps appellate counsel’s communications and interactions with appellant gave counsel no reason to pursue an ineffectiveness claim premised on diminished capacity. For all this Court knows, direct appeal counsel in fact consulted with a psychiatrist who interviewed appellant and told counsel that there was no basis for a diminished capacity defense. Or, even assuming that there was a psychologist available to appellate counsel who would have offered in 1990 the “imperfect diminished capacity” opinion Dr. Levit testified to in 1998, direct appeal counsel may have reasonably determined, especially given the legal landscape before Commonwealth v. Legg was decided, that that sort of irrelevant testimony did not support a diminished capacity defense. Or counsel may have perceived the claim but determined, in his professional judgment, that the claims he actually pursued on appeal — which neither the lead opinion nor the concurrences ever discuss — offered a greater prospect for relief under the law in existence at that time.
The point is that the Court deems the actual investigation and reasoning of appellate and PCRA counsel to be irrelevant — notwithstanding the Sixth Amendment and notwithstanding that the PCRA requires the petitioner to affirmatively demonstrate that appellate counsel’s failure to litigate an issue “could not have been the result of any rational, strategic *541or tactical decision by counsel.” The Court makes no actual evaluation of counsel’s performance. Instead, it casually and summarily holds, based upon a case decided years later, that three members of the bar of this Court were constitutionally incompetent as a matter of law for failing to pursue this claim. I cannot accept this approach.
For the foregoing reasons, while I agree with the resolution of the first issue presented, I respectfully dissent from both the decision to review the second claim and from the grant of a new trial.
Justice NEWMAN and Justice EAKIN join this concurring and dissenting opinion.. The. PCRA petition in this case was filed before the 1995 amendments to the PCRA took effect in January, 1996 and, thus, is governed by the previous version of the Act. Although the time bar was enacted as part of the 1995 legislation, it is directly implicated here because the Court grants relief upon a claim that was never part of the PCRA petition. By permitting appellant to raise bn allocatur an entirely new claim that should properly have been the subject of a serial PCRA petition, which would have been governed by the restrictions now set forth in § 9545(b), the time bar necessarily is implicated.