Danelo Cavalcante’s prison escape costs him right to appeal life sentence

Danelo Cavalcante, a convicted killer who escaped from Chester County Prison last year, has cost him his right to appeal his original life sentence, a state court ruled Wednesday.
Cavalcante escaped from a Chester County lockup while waiting to be transferred to state prison to serve a life sentence for killing his ex-girlfriend. He broke out by clambering up between two walls in a jail exercise yard, then climbing over razor wire and jumping from a roof. Cavalcante was captured two weeks later after an intense manhunt that made national headlines.
While he was a fugitive, his attorneys filed a motion challenging the evidence and certain aspects of his sentence in the murder case.
The motion was legally invalid because fugitives in Pennsylvania forfeit such rights while on the run, according to the Pennsylvania Superior Court. That, in turn, affected the deadline for Cavalcante’s attorneys to appeal his life-without-parole murder sentence.
Had it been valid, the motion would have extended the appeal deadline. Instead, the court ruled that the original deadline remained intact, and Cavalcante’s subsequent appeal came eight days too late.
In August, Cavalcante pleaded guilty to escape and was sentenced to serve 15 to 30 years in addition to his life sentence without parole.