Carpenter v. Vaughn

• Citation: 296 F.3d 138
• Decision Date: 01 July 2002
• Docket Number: No. 95-9001.,95-9001.
• Parties: James H. CARPENTER, v. Donald T. VAUGHN, Warden, State Correctional Institution at Graterford, PA<SMALL><SUP>*</SUP></SMALL> James Henry Carpenter, Appellant
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit)

296 F.3d 138

James H. CARPENTER, v. Donald T. VAUGHN, Warden, State Correctional Institution at Graterford, PA^* James Henry Carpenter, Appellant

No. 95-9001.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued January 19, 2001.

Filed: July 1, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Billy H. Nolas (argued), David Wycoff, Defender Association of Philadelphia, Federal Court Division, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellant.

D. Michael Fisher, Attorney General, William H. Ryan, Jr., Executive Deputy Attorney General, Director, Criminal Law Division, Robert A. Graci, Assistant Executive Deputy Attorney, General Law and Appeals, Criminal Law Division, Stuart Suss (argued), Senior Deputy Attorney General, Appeals and Legal Services Section, Criminal Law Division, Office of the Attorney General, 2490 Boulevard of the Generals, Norristown, PA, for Appellee.

Before: BECKER, Chief Judge, ALITO, and ROTH, Circuit Judges.

ALITO, Circuit Judge.

James Carpenter appeals the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Convicted in Pennsylvania state court of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, Carpenter has pursued a long course of post-conviction litigation in the state and federal courts. In this appeal, he raises numerous arguments, challenging both the guilt and penalty phases of his trial. Some of the claims that he now advances had been fairly presented to the state courts at the time of the District Court decision and are properly before us. Other claims had not been exhausted at the time of the District Court decision, but the Commonwealth has waived exhaustion of those claims, and consequently they too are properly before us. Still other claims were never raised in the District Court but were presented to the state courts after the District Court issued its decision. We decline to entertain those claims here.

We find no merit in the guilt-phase claims that are properly before us for review. However, we reverse the decision of the District Court with respect to Carpenter's sentence because we conclude that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance at the penalty phase when he failed to object to a highly misleading answer given by the trial judge in response to a jury question about the availability of parole if Carpenter was sentenced to life imprisonment.

I.

The evidence at trial revealed that Jimmie Lee Taylor was stabbed in the heart on South Penn Street in York, Pennsylvania, on the night of September 30, 1983. He was pronounced dead at 10:58 p.m. at York Hospital. The Commonwealth's principal witness at trial was Ruth Helen Emmil, who had previously been Taylor's girlfriend but had left him to live with Carpenter. Emmil testified that Taylor had previously threatened and harassed her and that Carpenter had spoken to Taylor in an attempt to stop the harassment. In May of 1983, Taylor — apparently without provocation — hit Carpenter in the face with a hatchet, breaking his jaw and knocking him unconscious.

At trial, Emmil gave the following account of the events on the night of Taylor's death. She and Carpenter had been drinking with another couple in a bar in York. Both couples left for another bar and were walking down South Penn Street when they encountered Taylor at about 9:30 p.m. As Taylor approached the group, Emmil expressed apprehension. Taylor, who was carrying a six-pack of beer, asked Emmil and the other couple if they wanted some beer. At this point, the other couple proceeded on to the other bar without Carpenter and Emmil. Without provocation, Carpenter took a knife from his pocket and stabbed Taylor in the chest, piercing his sternum and heart. Carpenter wiped the knife with a handkerchief and tossed both the knife and the handkerchief over a fence into the backyard of a nearby house. (The items were later found by the owner of the house.) Carpenter and Emmil then proceeded to meet the other couple at the bar as planned and had some drinks.

When first questioned by the police, Emmil did not reveal what she knew about the stabbing, but she explained at trial that Carpenter had threatened to kill her if she told anyone what had happened. To add credibility to his threat, Emmil said, Carpenter had told her that he had previously killed an ex-girlfriend. The Commonwealth also presented a witness at trial who testified that Carpenter had offered him $500 to kill Taylor.

Carpenter testified in his own defense. He basically agreed with Emmil's version of the events leading up to the stabbing, but he claimed that it was Emmil who had stabbed Taylor and had disposed of the knife and handkerchief. He admitted that, after the stabbing, he had asked a friend to purchase a knife similar to the one used by Emmil because he was sure that the police would suspect him and he hoped to confuse them. Carpenter also admitted his animosity toward Taylor and that he had threatened revenge shortly after Taylor had attacked him with the hatchet, but he claimed that his desire for revenge had subsided with the passage of time. According to Carpenter, it was Emmil, not he, who could not forget about the hatchet incident or Taylor's harassment.

The jury believed Emmil's version of the events and found Carpenter guilty of first-degree murder on January 20, 1984. Pursuant to 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 9711(a), a sentencing hearing was conducted in front of the same jury. The prosecution sought to establish one aggravating circumstance — that Carpenter had "a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence to the person." 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 9711(d)(9). The Commonwealth presented evidence that Carpenter had prior convictions for third-degree murder and assault by a prisoner. The jury was instructed on three possible mitigating circumstances: 1) that Carpenter was under the influence of an extreme mental or emotional disturbance; 2) that Carpenter acted under extreme duress or under the substantial domination of another person; and 3) that Carpenter's character and record and the circumstances of his crime were mitigating factors. See 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 9711(e)(2), (5), & (8). The jury found that one aggravating circumstance existed and that it outweighed any mitigating circumstances. Accordingly, the jury sentenced Carpenter to death. See 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 9711(c)(1)(iv).

Post-trial motions were filed in and denied by the Court of Common Pleas of York County, and Carpenter was formally sentenced. On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the conviction and sentence of death. Commonwealth v. Carpenter, 511 Pa. 429, 515 A.2d 531 (1986). Thereafter, Carpenter sought post-conviction relief in both the state and federal courts. In order to decide which claims are properly before us for review, we must trace the complicated procedural history of Carpenter's various petitions and appeals.

II.

A.

In 1989, Carpenter filed his first petition for post conviction relief under Pennsylvania's Post Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA"), 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. §§ 9541 et seq. The Court of Common Pleas denied relief, and Carpenter appealed to the state supreme court.

In July 1991, while his first PCRA petition was pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Carpenter filed a petition in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania seeking a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The District Court stayed the federal proceedings until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided Carpenter's appeal. In 1992, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Carpenter's first PCRA petition. Commonwealth v. Carpenter, 533 Pa. 40, 617 A.2d 1263 (1992). In 1993, Carpenter filed an amended petition for writ of habeas corpus with the District Court.

In November 1994, the District Court issued an opinion in the habeas proceeding. Carpenter v. Vaughn, 888 F.Supp. 635 (M.D.Pa.1994). After identifying 25 claims that had been raised in either the original or the amended federal habeas petition,¹ the Court rejected most of those claims. All but one of the claims rejected at this point had been considered by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (either on direct appeal or in reviewing Carpenter's first PCRA petition) and were therefore exhausted. However, the Court also rejected one additional claim (Claim # 24) — that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to argue and present evidence on the mitigating factors recognized in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989) — that had never been raised in the state courts and was thus not exhausted. The Court nevertheless rejected this claim on the merits on the ground that Carpenter had not shown that he had "cause" for the failure to exhaust or that a miscarriage of justice would occur if the claim was not considered. In addition, the Court observed that trial counsel could not have been expected to predict Penry, which was not decided until after Carpenter's sentencing. See Carpenter v. Vaughn, 888 F.Supp. at 657.

The District Court permitted Carpenter to provide factual support for three of his claims² and ordered supplemental briefing on three others.³ Two of these latter claims — Claims 5 and 15 — alleged that trial counsel was ineffective at the penalty phase in connection with an allegedly erroneous answer given by the judge to a question asked by the jury. The District Court addressed these claims in relation to Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133 (1994), in which the majority held that "[w]here the State puts the defendant's future dangerousness in issue, and the only available alternative sentence to death is life imprisonment without possibility of parole, due process entitles the defendant to inform the capital sentencing jury ... that he is parole ineligible." Id. at 178, 114 S.Ct. 2187 (O'Connor, J., concurring in the judgment); see also id. at 163-64, 114 S.Ct. 2187 (plurality opinion).⁴ The District Court rejected Carpenter's...