At 14, Jamie Lynn Silvonek masterminded the stabbing death of her mother, Cheryl, who objected to the sexual relationship her daughter was having with a then-21-year old man.

Silvonek in 2016 pleaded guilty to first degree murder and was sentenced to 35 years to life in prison. Her boyfriend, Caleb Barnes, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering Cheryl Silvonek, a Jim Thorpe High School graduate, in the driveway of her Upper Macungie home in March, 2015.

Now, eight years later, the Pennsylvania Superior Court has upheld a Jan. 31, 2021, Lehigh County Court ruling rejecting Silvonek’s Post Conviction Relief Act demand for a new trial.

Silvonek, now 22, had argued that her attorney, John Waldron, “committed several errors that resulted in (Silvonek) being deprived effective representation with respect to her decertification hearing, guilty plea, and appeal.”

She also argued that her plea was not knowing or voluntary.

She had contended that Waldron erred in discussing the plea with the trial court judge. However, the PCRA court had found “it extremely clear that the trial court did not participate in plea negotiations.”

A panel of three Superior Court judges, Mary Jane Bowes, Megan McCarthy King and Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini, handed down its ruling upholding the lower court’s denial on Thursday.

The PCRA hearing included testimony from 11 witnesses, including Waldron.

Silvonek had tried unsuccessfully to send her case back to juvenile court, arguing that she has mental illness and that Waldron had failed to establish that.

“According to (Silvonek), Attorney Waldron’s ineffectiveness “prejudiced (Silvonek’s) decertification case as his failures resulted in the court disregarding both of (Silvonek’s) experts’ opinions regarding (Silvonek’s) amenability to treatment” and “created a record void of any favorable evidence on (Silvonek’s) behalf,” Bowes wrote.

The panel refuted her argument.

“The trial court did not find that (Silvonek) was not amenable to treatment solely due to a lack of a mental health diagnosis. Rather, the court found that (Silvonek’s) propensity to lie to suit her situation would make it impossible to gauge her progress or the degree to which she was benefiting from treatment,” the judges found.

They cited the opinion of one of the psychiatrists who examined her.

“Given (Silvonek’s) manipulative ability to adjust her manner in accordance with her audience and for her own self-interest, ‘it would be impossible to gauge the degree to which (Silvonek) was benefiting from treatment …… or accurately assess (her) progress’.”

The PCRA court found that it could “not fault Attorney Waldron, a highly experienced defense attorney, for deciding to utilize the strategy of being concise in the filing and briefing of the appeal and focusing on the potentially primary meritorious arguments, as opposed to diluting them by including other flawed or less meritorious issues,” Bowes wrote.