How to Fill Out and File the Pennsylvania PCRA Petition (Form DC-198)

To fill out and file Pennsylvania PCRA Petition Form DC-198, confirm you are still within the one-year filing deadline, pull your original case records, complete each numbered paragraph using the exact information from your docket, sign the verification under penalty of perjury, and deliver the petition plus three copies to the Clerk of Courts in the county where you were convicted. The deadline is jurisdictional, so settle that question before you write a word on the form.¹

First, Confirm You Can Still File

Two threshold questions decide whether a DC-198 is worth filing at all: are you still in custody for the conviction, and are you inside the one-year window?

You must currently be serving a sentence of imprisonment, probation, or parole on the conviction you want to challenge. Once the sentence is fully completed, standing generally disappears and the court will dismiss the petition without reaching the claims. The narrow exception is a petition grounded in DNA evidence obtained under the PCRA’s DNA-testing provision, which a person who has finished a sentence may still pursue.¹

Every PCRA petition, first or subsequent, must be filed within one year of the date the judgment of sentence becomes final. The judgment becomes final at the conclusion of direct review, including the time allowed for seeking further appellate review. If you never appealed, the judgment typically becomes final 30 days after sentencing, when the direct-appeal window closes. Missing the one-year mark is jurisdictional. No matter how strong the underlying claims are, the court cannot reach them.¹

Three statutory exceptions can carry a late petition, but you must allege and prove one of them: government interference with your ability to present the claim; facts underlying the claim that were unknown to you and could not have been discovered through reasonable diligence; or a new constitutional right recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court or the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after your deadline passed and held to apply retroactively. Even then, the exception-based petition must be filed within one year of the date the claim could first have been presented.¹

Gather Your Records Before You Open the Form

DC-198 asks for specific case data you will not be able to reconstruct from memory. Have the following in front of you before you start:

The court docket number assigned to your case in the Court of Common Pleas.
The exact sentencing date, the name of the sentencing judge, and the total term imposed.
The name of every attorney who represented you and which proceeding each one handled (preliminary hearing, trial, sentencing, direct appeal).
The court, term, number, and outcome of any direct appeal or prior PCRA petition.
Any affidavits, records, or documents you intend to attach as exhibits.

Most of this appears on your sentencing order, the official court docket, and any appellate opinions in the case. If you are incarcerated, the prison law library should have resources for pulling your docket information and typically stocks the form itself; DC-198 is also available through the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania.

Working Through the Numbered Paragraphs

The form is organized into numbered paragraphs, each doing a specific job. Fill the identifying sections — your name, docket number, charges of conviction, sentence — exactly as they appear in the court records. A small mismatch between your petition and the docket can create confusion that delays the case.

Paragraph 5: Timeliness

If you are filing within one year of your judgment becoming final, say so. If you are filing late, this is where you identify which of the three statutory exceptions applies and explain why. A late petition that does not clearly invoke an exception gets dismissed on timeliness before a judge ever considers the substantive claims.

Paragraph 6: Your Factual Statement

This is the heart of the petition. The form splits your facts into two categories: facts you know from personal knowledge, and facts you learned from other sources. For the second category, you must explain how and from whom you learned the information.

Be specific and concrete. A claim that your trial lawyer “failed to investigate” needs to spell out what the lawyer should have investigated, what that investigation would have revealed, and how it would have changed the outcome. Broad generalizations almost always lead to dismissal.

You also need to show that the issues you raise were not previously litigated or waived. An issue was previously litigated if the highest court with a right of review already decided it on the merits, or if it was raised and decided in an earlier post-conviction proceeding. An issue is waived if you could have raised it before trial, at trial, on direct appeal, or in a prior PCRA petition and did not.¹

The qualifying grounds for relief that your facts need to support are a federal or state constitutional violation that undermined the reliability of the guilt determination; ineffective assistance of counsel that similarly undermined the outcome; exculpatory evidence unavailable at trial that could not have been discovered earlier through reasonable diligence and would have changed the result; or a sentence that exceeds the lawful maximum.¹

Paragraph 7: Exhibits

If you are attaching affidavits, records, or other evidence, number each exhibit and reference it in your factual statement. When you rely on newly discovered evidence, include the names and addresses of witnesses or describe the physical evidence involved.

Paragraph 8: Procedural History

List every direct appeal and prior PCRA petition you have filed, with the court, date, and result. The judge uses this to decide whether your current claims have been previously litigated or waived, so leaving something out is not a shortcut.

Verification and Signature

Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 901 requires the defendant to verify the petition. You sign a statement certifying that the facts are true and correct to the best of your knowledge, under penalty of perjury. A petition submitted without verification can be dismissed for procedural noncompliance. Check every factual assertion before you sign; a verified petition containing statements you know to be false exposes you to criminal liability for perjury or unsworn falsification.²

Filing the Petition

File the completed petition and three copies with the Clerk of Courts in the county where you were convicted and sentenced. Rule 901 sets that requirement. The Clerk of Courts handles criminal filings. Do not confuse this office with the Prothonotary, which handles civil matters in Pennsylvania.²

Filing Fees and Fee Waivers

Courts charge a filing fee that varies by county. If you cannot afford it, file a Motion to Proceed In Forma Pauperis with your petition, asking the court to waive the fees based on your financial situation. The Unified Judicial System publishes a standard IFP form (Form 2) for this purpose.³

The Prison Mailbox Rule

If you are incarcerated and filing pro se, your petition is deemed filed on the date you hand it to prison authorities for mailing, not on the date it reaches the courthouse. Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 121(f) codifies this rule. Keep a copy of the executed prisoner cash slip or other documentation showing when you delivered the petition to prison staff. That proof becomes critical if the Commonwealth challenges your timeliness.⁴

What Happens After You File

Counsel Appointment

If you filed pro se and this is your first PCRA petition, the court will appoint counsel once you show you cannot afford to hire an attorney. On a second or subsequent petition, the standard tightens: counsel is appointed only when an evidentiary hearing is required or when the interests of justice demand it. In death penalty cases, the court automatically appoints new counsel for the first PCRA proceeding at the conclusion of direct review.⁵

No-Merit Letters

Appointed counsel is not required to pursue claims counsel considers meritless. If counsel reviews the case and concludes none of your issues have merit, counsel must file a Turner/Finley no-merit letter detailing the review, listing every issue you want raised, and explaining why each lacks merit. Counsel must send you a copy of the no-merit letter, a copy of the petition to withdraw, and a notice that you have the right to proceed on your own or hire new counsel. The court then independently reviews the merits before deciding whether to permit withdrawal and deny relief.⁶

The Rule 907 Notice and Your 20-Day Window

The judge promptly reviews your petition, any Commonwealth answer, and the record. If the judge concludes there are no genuine issues of material fact and you are not entitled to relief, the court issues a notice of intent to dismiss, explaining the reasons. You then have 20 days from the date of that notice to file a written response arguing why dismissal would be wrong. That 20-day window is your last chance to address the court’s concerns before the petition is dismissed.⁷

Evidentiary Hearing

If your petition or the Commonwealth’s answer raises genuine issues of material fact, the judge must schedule an evidentiary hearing where you can present witness testimony and other evidence. The court can skip a hearing on a specific factual issue only if a full and fair hearing on that exact issue already took place at trial or in another proceeding.⁸

If Your Claim Is Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Ineffective assistance is the most common claim raised in PCRA petitions and the one most often done poorly. The standard from Strickland v. Washington has two parts and you must prove both. First, deficient performance: your lawyer’s actions fell below an objective standard of reasonableness measured against the professional norms expected of criminal defense attorneys. Courts give lawyers significant benefit of the doubt here, and a strategic decision that turned out badly is not the same as deficient performance. Second, prejudice: a reasonable probability that the outcome would have been different if not for the lawyer’s error. “Reasonable probability” does not mean more likely than not; it means enough to undermine confidence in the verdict or sentence.⁹

If the claim grows out of a guilty plea rather than a trial, the prejudice prong asks you to show a reasonable probability that you would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial if your lawyer had performed competently.

The claims that tend to survive judicial review involve concrete, provable failures: the lawyer never interviewed a named alibi witness, failed to challenge obviously tainted evidence, gave incorrect advice about a mandatory minimum, or missed a filing deadline. Vague assertions that your lawyer “didn’t try hard enough” rarely clear the bar without specific facts about what further work would have uncovered and how it would have changed the result. Build Paragraph 6 accordingly.

1
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Code Title 42 – Judiciary and Judicial Procedure Chapter 95 – Post-Conviction Matters
2
Legal Information Institute. Pennsylvania Code 234 Pa. Code r. 901 – Initiation of Post-Conviction Collateral Proceedings
3
Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania. Form 2 – Petition to Proceed In Forma Pauperis
4
Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania. Superior Court of Pennsylvania Decision – J-S25035-25
5
Pennsylvania Code and Bulletin. Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure Chapter 9 – Post-Conviction Collateral Proceedings
6
Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania. Superior Court of Pennsylvania Decision – J-S26027-24
7
Pennsylvania Code and Bulletin. Pennsylvania Code 234 Pa. Code Rule 907 – Disposition Without Hearing
8
Pennsylvania Code and Bulletin. Pennsylvania Code 234 Pa. Code Rule 908 – Hearing
9
Justia US Supreme Court. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984)