Bronshtein v. Horn, CIVIL ACTION NO. 99-2186 (E.D. Pa. 7/5/2001)
| Decision Date | 05 July 2001 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 99-2186. |
| Parties | ANTUAN BRONSHTEIN, Petitioner, v. MARTIN HORN, Commissioner Designate, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Antuan Bronshtein was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death in state court, and now seeks habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2554. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania contends that Bronshtein's failure to comply with a state procedural rule bars this Court from hearing the merits of his habeas petition. Having carefully considered the arguments of both parties, the record of the trial proceedings,1 and relevant precedent, I conclude, for the reasons explained herein, that Bronshtein's habeas claims are not procedurally defaulted, because the procedural rule that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania relied upon in rejecting his claims was not clearly established or regularly followed at the time of his alleged default, therefore was not sufficiently "adequate" to bar federal habeas review. For that reason, this Court may consider the merits of his petition. Upon a review of the merits of Bronshtein's claims, I find that he is entitled to relief on three of his claims, and will grant the writ unless he is given a new trial and sentencing.
On January 11, 1991, Alexander Gutman was found dead in his jewelry store in the King of Prussia Shopping Center. Gutman had been shot twice in the face, and approximately $60,000 in jewelry were discovered missing from the store. In May 1991, Antuan Bronshtein, who was in custody in connection with another crime, volunteered information about the Gutman murder, telling authorities that the murder had been committed by a "Mr. X," a member of the Russian mafia.
This revelation made Bronshtein a prime suspect, and in 1994, he stood trial for Gutman's murder, as well as robbery and theft. The evidence presented at trial indicated that the murder weapon was a gun owned and kept in the store by the victim, however that weapon was never recovered. Bronshtein's prints were found in the jewelry store, and eyewitness testimony placed Bronshtein and another man at the store hours before Gutman's body was discovered. A former associate of Bronshtein's testified that Bronshtein had said that he had killed a person in a jewelry store "out past the boulevard" and had taken his jewelry.
Bronshtein's defense theory was that the murder was actually committed by a man referred to during the trial as Mr. X or Adik Karlitsky. The defense relied primarily on evidence linking a piece of a gun found at the jewelry store to Karlitsky, Bronshtein's prior statements that Karlitsky had committed the murder, and eyewitness testimony placing Karlitsky at the jewelry store on the day of the murder.
At the close of the trial, the jury convicted Bronshtein of first degree murder, robbery, theft of movable property, possession of an instrument of crime, and criminal conspiracy to commit murder. At the sentencing phase, the jury found two statutory aggravating circumstances — that Bronshtein had committed the killing during the perpetration of a felony and that he had a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence — and three statutory mitigating circumstances — that Bronshtein suffered from extreme mental or emotional disturbance, that he had a poor childhood and upbringing, and that there was a possibility that he did not actually pull the trigger. The jury returned a sentence of death.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed Bronshtein's conviction and sentence on direct appeal. See Commonwealth v. Bronshtein, 547 Pa. 460, 691 A.2d 907 (1997). The governor of Pennsylvania signed a warrant of execution, which was stayed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania when Bronshtein petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ of certiorari. See Commonwealth v. Bronshtein, 548 Pa. 520, 698 A.2d 589 (1997). That petition was denied, see Bronshtein v. Pennsylvania, 522 U.S. 936, 118 S.Ct. 346 (1997), and another warrant of execution issued.
Petitioner then filed his first petition under the Pennsylvania Post-Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa. C.S. § 9541, et seq. ("PCRA"), on December 3, 1997, and the warrant of execution was stayed pending the disposition of that petition. In January 1998, while that PCRA petition was pending, petitioner wrote a letter to the PCRA court expressing his desire to withdraw the petition. In January 1999, after three hearings, numerous psychiatric examinations, and the appointment of new counsel for Bronshtein, the PCRA court determined that he was competent to waive his rights and that his waiver was knowing, voluntary, and intelligent. Consequently, the PCRA court dismissed the PCRA petition and vacated the stay of execution.
In February 1999, Bronshtein's mother and sister, as his next friends, appealed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania the PCRA court's dismissal of the petition, arguing that he was incompetent to withdraw his PCRA petition. Bronshtein opposed the appeal. The supreme court found that while the next friends had standing to raise the issue of competency, they had failed to make a compelling showing that Bronshtein was incompetent. See Commonwealth v. Bronshtein, 556 Pa. 545, 557, 729 A.2d 1102 (1999). Over a lone dissent,2 the supreme court denied the next friends' appeal and affirmed the PCRA court's determination that Bronshtein was competent to waive his right to appeal and that his waiver was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. See id.
Following the Supreme Court's decision, petitioner's mother and sister filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and a stay of execution in this Court.3 During a hearing on that petition, in which Bronshtein participated via telephone, Bronshtein informed this Court that he had changed his mind and wanted to pursue post-conviction relief. On April 29, 1999, this Court stayed the warrant of execution and established a briefing schedule for his federal habeas petition. On June 9, 1999, Bronshtein returned to state court and filed with the PCRA court a document styled an "Amended Petition for Habeas Corpus Relief under Article I, Section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution and for Statutory Post-Conviction Relief Under the Post-Conviction Relief Act," which was, essentially, a second PCRA petition. That petition was dismissed by the PCRA court, which concluded that Bronshtein had irrevocably waived his rights to post-conviction relief and that the petition was tardy under a one-year time limitation established by 1995 amendments to the PCRA. See 42 Pa. C.S. § 9545(b)(1).
Bronshtein appealed the dismissal of his second PCRA petition to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. In June 2000, the supreme court affirmed the PCRA court's dismissal, holding that the second PCRA petition was a second or successive petition filed more than one year beyond the date the judgment became final, and thus was late under § 9545(b)(1) and could not be considered on the merits. See Commonwealth v. Bronshtein, 561 Pa. 611, 615, 752 A.2d 868 (2000). The supreme court also concluded that the alleged ineffectiveness of petitioner's counsel could not excuse the tardy filing of his PCRA petition. The supreme court therefore concluded that § 9545(b)(1) deprived it of jurisdiction over the petition. See id. at 616-17.
Bronshtein then returned to this Court, where his federal habeas petition had been held in administrative suspense pending the outcome of his PCRA appeal. Now before this Court is the petition of Bronshtein for a writ of habeas corpus.
Bronshtein's petition faces daunting procedural hurdles that, if resolved in favor of the Commonwealth, would bar the Court from considering the merits of his claims. These procedural issues are quite complex and, especially in light of the high stakes involved in this capital case, require careful consideration. Therefore, I turn first to the procedural issues presented by Bronshtein's petition.
No Pennsylvania court has reached the merits of the issues Bronshtein raises in his federal habeas petition. This is not for lack of effort on Bronshtein's part; he has filed two PCRA petitions, one of which he withdrew by explicit, voluntary waiver, the other of which was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania as procedurally barred.5
The question before me, then, is not whether petitioner exhausted his state remedies. The federal habeas statute requires a petitioner to exhaust the "remedies available in the courts of the State." 28 U.S.C. § 2254; see Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 522, 102 S.Ct. 1198 (1982). Exhaustion in the habeas context requires only that the same issues, or issues "substantially equivalent" thereto, have been "fairly presented" to the state courts. See Lambert v. Blackwell, 134 F.3d 506, 513 (3d Cir. 1997). That is precisely what took place in this case; Bronshtein presented the issues in the instant habeas petition to both the PCRA court and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.6 The state courts' rejection of Bronshtein's claims on procedural grounds raises a question not of exhaustion, but of procedural default. See O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 854, 119 S.Ct. 1728 (1999) (Stevens, J., dissenting) ( ) (brackets in original) (quoting Darr v. Burford, 339 U.S. 200, 204, 70 S.Ct. 587 (1950)); Carpenter v. Vaughn, 888 F. Supp. 635, 647 (M.D.Pa. 1994) (...
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