Chadwick v. Janecka

• Decision Date: 04 December 2002
• Docket Number: No. 02-1173.,02-1173.
• Citation: 312 F.3d 597
• Parties: H. Beatty CHADWICK v. James JANECKA, Warden, Delaware County Prison; the District Attorney of County of Delaware; the Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania v. Barbara Jean Crowther Chadwick, (Intervenor in District Court) Barbara Jean Crowther Chadwick, Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

312 F.3d 597

H. Beatty CHADWICK v. James JANECKA, Warden, Delaware County Prison; the District Attorney of County of Delaware; the Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania v. Barbara Jean Crowther Chadwick, (Intervenor in District Court)

Barbara Jean Crowther Chadwick, Appellant

No. 02-1173.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued: May 24, 2002.

Filed: December 4, 2002.

Albert Momjian, Nancy Winkelman (Argued), Kevin C. McCullough, Stephen A. Fogdall, Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, L.L.P., Philadelphia, PA, Counsel for Appellants.

Thomas S. Neuberger (Argued), Thomas S. Neuberger, P.A., Wilmington, DE, Anna M. Durbin, Peter Goldberger, Ardmore, PA, Co-Counsel for Appellee.

D. Michael Fisher, William H. Ryan, Jr., Robert A. Graci, Amy Zapp, Office of Attorney General, Harrisburg, PA, Counsel for Amicus Curiae Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General.

Before: ALITO, McKEE, and WALLACE,^* Circuit Judges.

ORDER AMENDING OPINION

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, that the Slip Opinion filed in this case on August 20, 2002, be amended as follows:

The opinion filed on August 20, 2002 is deleted and the following amended opinion is substituted for it.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ALITO, Circuit Judge.

This appeal was taken from an order granting a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Mr. H. Beatty Chadwick under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The petitioner has applied eight times to the courts of Pennsylvania and six times to the federal district court for release from incarceration for civil contempt for refusing to comply with an order in a matrimonial proceeding directing him to pay over $2.5 million into an escrow account. In the present case, the District Court concluded that the petitioner had exhausted state remedies even though he had not applied to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for review of the adverse decision of the Superior Court. In the view of the District Court, it was sufficient that the petitioner subsequently submitted a habeas petition to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in its original jurisdiction pursuant to 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 721. With respect to the merits of the present proceeding, the District Court accepted the state courts' repeated findings that the petitioner is able to comply with the order directing him to pay the funds into escrow, but the District Court nevertheless held that the length of petitioner's confinement — then almost seven years — meant that the contempt order had lost its coercive effect and that confinement for civil contempt was no longer constitutional. On appeal, the petitioner defends that decision of the District Court but does not contest the state courts' findings that he is able to comply with the underlying order but simply refuses to do so. We reverse.

I.

In November 1992, Mrs. Barbara Chadwick filed for divorce in the Delaware County (Pennsylvania) Court of Common Pleas. During an equitable distribution conference in February 1993, Mr. Chadwick informed the state court and Mrs. Chadwick that he had unilaterally transferred $2,502,000.00 of the marital estate to satisfy an alleged debt to Maison Blanche, Ltd., a Gibraltar partnership.

It was later discovered that (1) one of the principals of Maison Blanche had returned $869,106.00 from Gibraltar to an American bank account in Mr. Chadwick's name and that these funds had then been used to purchase three insurance annuity contracts; (2) $995,726.41 had been transferred to a Union Bank account in Switzerland in Mr. Chadwick's name; and (3) $550,000.00 in stock certificates that the petitioner claimed he had transferred to an unknown barrister in England to forward to Maison Blanche had never been received. The state court then entered a freeze order on the marital assets on April 29, 1994.

In May 1994, Mr. Chadwick redeemed the annuity contracts and deposited the funds in a Panamanian bank. After a hearing on July 22, 1994, the court determined that Mr. Chadwick's transfer of the money was an attempt to defraud Mrs. Chadwick and the court. At that time, the court ordered petitioner to return the $2,502,000.00 to an account under the jurisdiction of the court, to pay $75,000.00 for Mrs. Chadwick's attorney's fees and costs, to surrender his passport, and to remain within the jurisdiction. Mr. Chadwick refused to comply, and Mrs. Chadwick thereafter filed a petition to have him held in civil contempt. Mr. Chadwick failed to appear at any of the three contempt hearings, but his attorney was present. The court found Mr. Chadwick in contempt of the July 22, 1994, order and issued a bench warrant for his arrest.

After learning of the bench warrant, Mr. Chadwick fled the jurisdiction but was arrested and detained on April 5, 1995. The state court determined that Mr. Chadwick had the present ability to comply with the terms of the July 22, 1994, order and set bail at $3,000,000. Mr. Chadwick could have been released from custody either by posting bail or by complying with the July 22, 1994, order. To date, he has done neither.

Since his confinement, Mr. Chadwick has applied eight times to the state courts¹ and six times to the federal court² to gain release from incarceration. After the trial court denied his sixth state habeas petition, the Superior Court affirmed the decision on April 23, 1997, stating:

Instantly, appellant cites to the fact that he has been incarcerated since April 5, 1995. He claims the length of his incarceration, his age, poor health, inability to pursue his career and repeated hearings where he has refused compliance suggests that there is no possibility that he will comply with the order. Appellant admits that no court in this jurisdiction has adopted this test and we will not do so here. While it seems reasonable that at some point a temporal benchmark should be adopted to determine when contempt incarceration becomes impermissibly punitive we think that it is for our high court to make such a determination.

Chadwick v. Janecka, No. 00-CV-1130, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21732, at *14-15 (E.D.Pa. Dec. 11, 2000) (internal citation omitted). Despite the Superior Court's invitation that the petitioner ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to decide the point at which incarceration for contempt becomes punitive, the petitioner did not file an allocatur petition in the state supreme court.

Later, on July 18, 1997, petitioner filed another petition for federal habeas relief, which was dismissed for failure to exhaust state court remedies. The District Court wrote:

Although Mr. Chadwick has forfeited his right to seek Supreme Court review of the Superior Court's April 23, 1997 denial of his sixth state habeas petition, see Pa.R.App.P. 1113(a) (petition for allowance of appeal must be filed within 30 days of order), he would not be barred from filing a seventh state habeas petition based on his present confinement of approximately thirty-seven months. Under Pennsylvania law, Mr. Chadwick can file a seventh state habeas petition in the Court of Common Pleas and exhaust his appellate remedies, see 42 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. § 931, or petition directly in the Supreme Court, which has original jurisdiction over habeas corpus proceedings. See 42 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. § 721(1). But unless the issues presented in the federal habeas petition have all been first presented to the Supreme Court, the district court may not exercise jurisdiction. See Lambert, 134 F.3d at 515 (requiring "complete exhaustion"); Swanger, 750 F.2d at 295 (raising claim before Supreme Court in petition for allowance of appeal satisfies exhaustion requirement).

Chadwick v. Andrews, No. 97-4680, 1998 WL 218026, at *5 (E.D.Pa. April 30, 1998) (emphasis added). Because Mr. Chadwick had not sought review in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the issue presented in his federal petition, that petition was dismissed.

In September 1999, Mr. Chadwick filed a pro se Application for Leave to File Original Process (his seventh state habeas action) with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Mrs. Chadwick sought permission to intervene, and opposed the application and the state habeas petition. In a per curiam order dated February 8, 2000, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted the request to file original process and the request to file an answer, but the court denied the petition for habeas corpus.

On March 2, 2000, Mr. Chadwick filed the instant petition for federal habeas relief. The District Court granted that petition on January 3, 2002, but stayed its order for 30 days to "allow appeal and application for further stay of this court's order to the appellate court." Chadwick v. Janecka, No. 00-1130, 2002 WL 12292, at *8, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10, at *27 (E.D.Pa.Jan.3, 2002). Mrs. Chadwick took this timely appeal. By order dated January 31, 2002, we granted Mrs. Chadwick's motion for a stay pending appeal. The United States Supreme Court thereafter denied Mr. Chadwick's Application for Enlargement and to Vacate Stay.

II.

The first issue we must address is whether Mrs. Chadwick has standing to proceed on appeal. Mr. Chadwick argues that because Mrs. Chadwick was an intervenor in the District Court, she lacks Article III standing. He further argues that, because the respondents — the warden, the Delaware County District Attorney, and the Attorney General of the Commonwealth — did not appeal, we do not have jurisdiction to entertain this appeal.

The United States Supreme Court has stated that "an intervenor's right to continue a suit in the absence of the party on whose side the intervention was permitted is contingent upon a showing by the intervenor that he fulfills the requirements of Art[icle] III." Diamond v. Charles, 476 U.S. 54, 68, 106 S.Ct. 1697, 90 L.Ed.2d 48 (1986). Under Article III of the United States Constitution, the judicial power extends only to "Cases" and "Controversies." As noted in Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 771, 120 S.Ct. 1858, 146 L.Ed.2d 836 (2000):

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