Holland v. Horn

Citation519 F.3d 107
Decision Date06 March 2008
Docket NumberNo. 01-9002.,No. 01-9001.,01-9001.,01-9002.
PartiesWilliam HOLLAND, Appellant in No. 01-9001 v. Martin HORN, Commissioner, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections; Philip L. Johnson, Superintendent of the State Correctional Institution, Greene County; Joseph P. Mazurkiewicz, Superintendent of the State Correctional Institution at Rockview. William Holland, v. Martin Horn, Commissioner, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections; Philip L. Johnson, Superintendent of the State Correctional Institution, Greene County; Joseph P. Mazurkiewicz, Superintendent of the State Correctional Institution at Rockview, Appellants in No. 01-9002.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit)

Ellen Berkowitz, Matthew C. Lawry, David W. Wycoff (argued), Maureen Kearny Rowley, Chief Public Defender, Defender Association of Philadelphia, Federal Capital Habeas Corpus Unit, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellant in No. 01-9001.

David Curtis Glebe (argued), Assistant District Attorney, Thomas W. Dolgenos, Chief, Federal Litigation, Ronald Eisenberg, Deputy, Law Division, Arnold H. Gordon, First Assistant District Attorney, Lynne Abraham, District Attorney, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellants in No. 01-9002.

Before: CHAGARES, GREENBERG, and COWEN, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

GREENBERG, Circuit Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This matter comes on before this Court on an appeal and cross-appeal from a final order entered in the District Court on April 25, 2001, in this habeas corpus action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 following extensive proceedings in the Pennsylvania state courts leading to appellant William Holland's conviction at a jury trial bifurcated between guilt and penalty phases on, among other charges, first degree murder. Following Holland's conviction the jury in the second phase of the trial imposed the death penalty. Subsequently, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed Holland's conviction and sentence, he filed a state post-conviction relief application but the trial court denied the petition and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the denial. Consequently, we hardly write on a blank slate as the Supreme Court set forth the background of the matter in its opinions. Commonwealth v. Holland, 518 Pa. 405, 543 A.2d 1068 (1988); Commonwealth v. Holland, 556 Pa. 175, 727 A.2d 563 (1999). Furthermore, the District Court reiterated the background of the case in an exceptionally comprehensive opinion in which it granted Holland relief with respect to the penalty phase of the bifurcated state proceedings but denied him relief with respect to the guilt phase and thus from the conviction for the murder. Holland v. Horn, 150 F.Supp.2d 706 (E.D.Pa.2001) ("Holland").1 Holland appeals from the denial of relief with respect to his first degree murder conviction and the Commonwealth respondents cross-appeal from the granting of relief from the imposition of the death penalty.

In view of the foregoing opinions we need not repeat the background of the case at great length. Rather, it is sufficient to note that after the District Court entered its order Holland appealed, and, on his application, we granted a certificate of appealability raising the following questions:

whether: the District Court erred in finding various of [Holland's] claims procedurally defaulted; [Holland] was denied his right of an expert at the guilt phase; the sentencing court's instructions violated Mills [v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988),] and improperly told the jury to count rather than weigh aggravating and mitigating factors; the prosecutors improperly commented on [Holland's] silence at sentencing; and [ ] counsel was ineffective at the guilt and penalty phase [of the state trial court's proceedings].

App. at 99. The Commonwealth respondents did not need a certificate of appealability to proceed with their appeal. See Hardcastle v. Horn, 368 F.3d 246, 253 (3d Cir.2004).

II. JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241(a) and 2254(a) and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. See Washington v. Sobina, 509 F.3d 613, 618-19 (3d Cir.2007). Inasmuch as the District Court did not conduct an evidentiary hearing our review of its order is plenary. See Jacobs v. Horn, 395 F.3d 92, 99 (3d Cir.2005). The District Court used the applicable standards of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. § 2254, and thus we need not make further reference to those standards.

III. DISCUSSION
(a) Procedural Default and Exhaustion of Remedies

After our review of the parties' thorough briefs and entertainment of their oral arguments we are in agreement with the result that the District Court reached and largely, though not entirely, are in agreement with its reasoning. Therefore we will affirm the District Court's order granting habeas corpus relief from the imposition of the death penalty but otherwise denying Holland relief for substantially the reasons that it set forth. We, however, disagree with the District Court's disposition of a procedural default question principally concerning the treatment of a claim that Holland advances under Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985). Ake addressed the need for the availability to a defendant of a psychiatrist to whom he will have access if his sanity will be a significant factor at the trial. The District Court held that Holland procedurally defaulted his Ake claim but that his appellate attorney was ineffective for not raising an Ake issue on direct appeal and that Holland satisfied the cause and actual prejudice standard permitting him to raise the Ake claim even though it was procedurally defaulted.

In Bronshtein v. Horn we explained that "[t]he procedural default doctrine precludes a federal habeas court from `review[ing] a question of federal law decided by a state court if the decision of that court rests on a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment.'" 404 F.3d 700, 707 (3d Cir.2005) (quoting Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 2553-54, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991)). But adequacy with respect to procedural default is not synonymous with, though it may be related to, the opportunity of a petitioner to have asserted his claims in the state court. Rather, explaining adequacy negatively, we indicated in Bronshtein that "state procedural rules have been held to be inadequate if they are not `firmly established and regularly followed' or if they are `novel[ ]' and unforeseeable." Id. (quoting Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411, 424, 111 S.Ct. 850, 858, 112 L.Ed.2d 935 (1991), and NAACP v. Alabama ex. rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 457, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 1169, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488 (1958)) (alteration in original) (citations omitted). Thus, as we indicated in Cabrera v. Barbo, before we decided Bronshtein, "a petitioner should be on notice of how to present his claims in the state courts if his failure to present them is to bar him from advancing them in a federal court." 175 F.3d 307, 313 (3d Cir.1999).

The application of the procedural default doctrine works in tandem with the requirement that a petitioner exhaust his remedies in the state courts before making his federal claims in a federal court. Usually when a petitioner exhausts his remedies in the state courts and then files a federal habeas corpus petition the state courts will have rejected his federal claims on the merits. Nevertheless, a petitioner will have exhausted his state remedies even if the state court does not address his federal claims on the merits but, instead, rejects the claims on an independent and adequate state ground. See Cabrera, 175 F.3d at 312-13. If that happens the petitioner ordinarily will not obtain a decision by any court, federal or state, addressing his federal claims on the merits.

But there are limitations on when a procedural default can close the federal door to a petitioner for if a procedurally defaulted petitioner is able to "demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the violation of federal law" he can obtain a federal court decision addressing his federal claims on the merits. Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750, 111 S.Ct. at 2565. A petitioner can establish cause for avoiding the procedural default bar when he demonstrates, among other possible showings, that, as the District Court held was the case here, "the procedural default is the result of ineffective assistance of counsel...." Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488, 106 S.Ct. 2639, 2645, 91 L.Ed.2d 397 (1986). But even if a petitioner establishes cause for the procedural default, the showing that he must make to obtain relief that he suffered actual prejudice attributable to the ineffective assistance of counsel requires that the error of which he complains "worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions." United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 170, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 1596, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982).

The District Court found that Holland defaulted certain of his claims, including his Ake claim, at the guilt phase of the proceedings, but also held that all of his claims relating to the guilt phase of the proceedings, defaulted or not, were meritless. We agree that all of Holland's guilt phase claims are meritless and, except for the Ake claim, we find no reason to comment on them as we cannot add to the District Court's painstaking analysis of those claims. Thus, we will not disturb the state court proceedings by granting Holland relief from his custody on the basis of his assertion that there was constitutional error at the guilt portion of his trial.

The District Court, however, did grant Holland relief under Ake from the imposition of the death penalty at the penalty phase of the proceedings. The Supreme Court held in Ake that due process of law...

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