Com. v. Carson
| Decision Date | 27 December 2006 |
| Citation | 913 A.2d 220 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Samuel CARSON, Appellant. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Samuel J.B. Angell, Esq., Victor J. Abreu, Esq., Philadelphia, for Samuel Carson.
Amy Zapp, Esq., Hugh J. Burns, Jr., Esq., Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, Jason E. Fetterman, Esq., for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
BEFORE: CAPPY, C.J., and CASTILLE, NEWMAN, SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER and BALDWIN, JJ.
This collateral capital matter is before this Court on appeal from the trial court's dismissal of appellant's petition for relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA"), 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541, et seq. For the following reasons, we remand appellant's layered claim of counsel ineffectiveness concerning mitigation evidence to the PCRA court for an evidentiary hearing. In all other respects, we affirm the order below.
On November 18, 1999, this Court affirmed appellant's judgment of sentence on direct appeal for the first-degree murder of William Lloyd, see Commonwealth v. Carson (Carson I), 559 Pa. 460, 741 A.2d 686 (1999),1 and the United States Supreme Court denied appellant's petition for a writ of certiorari on June 5, 2000.2 Carson v. Pennsylvania, 530 U.S. 1216, 120 S.Ct. 2220, 147 L.Ed.2d 252 (2000). Appellant timely filed a pro se petition for relief under the PCRA on June 20, 2000.
On June 28, 2000, the trial court granted a petition for stay of execution filed on appellant's behalf by Yvonne Bradley, Esq., of the Defender Association of Philadelphia. The trial court appointed Attorney Bradley as appellant's counsel and ordered that an amended PCRA petition be filed no later than September 21, 2000. Subsequently, counsel obtained several extensions from the trial court and timely filed an amended petition on September 6, 2001, followed by a supplemental petition for habeas corpus relief on October 1, 2001, and a supplement to the amended petition for habeas corpus relief on February 12, 2002. On May 23, 2002, the Commonwealth filed a motion to dismiss, and appellant filed a response in opposition to the motion on July 16, 2002.3 In an order dated December 26, 2002, the PCRA court granted the Commonwealth's motion and dismissed appellant's petition without an evidentiary hearing. The court denied appellant's motion for reconsideration on January 6, 2003, and on June 30, 2003, issued its opinion addressing the claims raised by appellant in his amended and supplemental petitions. Commonwealth v. Carson, Nos. 2837-2840 & Nos. 1841-1848 (Pa. C.C.P., Philadelphia County 2003) (hereinafter "PCRA ct."). Appellant's timely appeal to this Court follows.
In all, appellant raises a total of twenty-two claims: eight arising from the guilt phase of his trial; twelve arising from the penalty phase; one seeking PCRA discovery; and one summarily alleging that the cumulative effect of the errors asserted in each of his other twenty-one claims warrants relief. All but two of the twenty guilt and penalty phase claims sound in a layered allegation of the ineffective assistance of counsel.4 For purposes of organization, we will address appellant's guilt phase claims first, then turn to his sentencing phase claims and then his other claims, otherwise addressing appellant's claims in the order in which they are presented in his prolix and disorganized brief.
We begin by noting our decision in Commonwealth v. McGill, 574 Pa. 574, 832 A.2d 1014 (2003), where this Court summarized the proper procedure for litigation and review of layered claims of ineffectiveness. In McGill, we held that:
[A] petitioner must plead in his PCRA petition that his prior counsel, whose alleged ineffectiveness is at issue, was ineffective for failing to raise the claim that the counsel who preceded him was ineffective in taking or omitting some action. In addition, a petitioner must present argument . . . on the three prongs of the Pierce test as to each relevant layer of representation.
McGill, 832 A.2d at 1023 (citing Commonwealth v. Pierce, 567 Pa. 186, 786 A.2d 203 (2001)).5 A properly pleaded claim of ineffectiveness under Pierce posits that: (1) the underlying legal issue has arguable merit; (2) counsel's actions lacked an objective reasonable basis; and (3) actual prejudice befell petitioner from counsel's act or omission. Commonwealth v. Pierce, 515 Pa. 153, 527 A.2d 973, 975 (1987). Therefore, in cases where appellate counsel is alleged to be ineffective for failing to raise a claim of trial counsel's ineffectiveness, McGill instructs that the inability of a petitioner to prove each prong of the Pierce test in respect to trial counsel's purported ineffectiveness alone will be fatal to his layered ineffectiveness claim. McGill, 832 A.2d at 1023; see also Commonwealth v. Edmiston, 578 Pa. 284, 851 A.2d 883, 891 (2004); Commonwealth v. Rush, 576 Pa. 3, 838 A.2d 651, 656 (2003). Proving trial counsel was ineffective, however, will establish the arguable merit prong of Pierce in respect to appellate counsel. Rush, 838 A.2d at 656. The PCRA petitioner is then left to demonstrate that prior appellate counsel's actions lacked a reasonable basis and prejudiced him. Id.
As a corollary to the layered pleading rule adopted in McGill, it is necessary that a PCRA petitioner have the ability to amend his petition in order to properly plead, and attempt to prove, layered claims where dismissal of the petition is imminent on grounds that such claims were not adequately pled. McGill, 832 A.2d at 1024. Indeed, our cases have recognized as much. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Washington, 583 Pa. 566, 880 A.2d 536, 540 (2005); Commonwealth v. Williams, 581 Pa. 57, 863 A.2d 505, 513 (2004); Rush, 838 A.2d at 651. Furthermore, the ability to amend, in turn, flows from the guarantee embodied in our Rules of Criminal Procedure that a PCRA court will give a petitioner adequate notice of its intention to dismiss his petition and the attendant reasons therefor. Pa.R.Crim.P. 905(B) (); Pa.R.Crim.P. 909(B)(2)(a) (). In cases where a petitioner has not been afforded the opportunity to amend his layered pleadings, a remand from this Court is appropriate unless a petitioner has not satisfied his "Pierce burden in relation to the underlying claim." Commonwealth v. Harris, 578 Pa. 377, 852 A.2d 1168, 1173 (2004) (quoting Rush, 838 A.2d at 657-58).
Additionally, before addressing appellant's individual claims, it is pertinent to note the law on previously litigated claims under the PCRA, which we are statutorily barred from reviewing according to 42 Pa. C.S. § 9543(a)(3). If the highest court in which a petitioner had the right to review a claim has evaluated the merits of that claim, the claim has been previously litigated. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2). This Court must, however, consider and substantively analyze an ineffectiveness claim as a "distinct legal ground" for PCRA review. Commonwealth v. Collins, 585 Pa. 45, 888 A.2d 564, 573 (2005). This Court recognized in Collins that while an ineffectiveness claim may fail for the same reasons that the underlying claim faltered on direct review, the Sixth Amendment basis for ineffectiveness claims technically creates a separate issue for review under the PCRA. Id. We also acknowledged that pre-Collins decisions by PCRA courts may have dismissed an ineffectiveness claim as previously litigated without touching on the proper Sixth Amendment merits of the claim. However, we resolved only to remand those claims that were in need of further clarification before this Court exercised its duty of review. Id. at 574. In this case, the PCRA court, which passed upon the issues before Collins was decided, disposed of a number of ineffectiveness claims on previous litigation grounds, and, thus, we have no substantive ineffectiveness analysis to review. This circumstance, however, does not require remand because we are satisfied that the claims plainly fail.
Appellant first claims that appellate counsel was ineffective in forwarding his claim on direct appeal that the trial court improperly violated appellant's right to exercise a peremptory challenge during voir dire. Appellant argues that the trial court improperly seated Dorothy Spicer as a juror over his challenge despite his race-neutral explanation that he believed she looked untrustworthy. The trial court's ruling, appellant argues, violated his due process rights and his rights under the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Sections 9 and 13 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. With respect to appellate counsel's alleged deficient performance, appellant contends that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to argue that: (1) there was no prima facie case of discrimination established; (2) trial counsel had accepted a white juror, Scott Yoder, whom the Commonwealth had rejected; (3) Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 115 S.Ct. 1769, 131 L.Ed.2d 834 (1995) (per curiam), supported his claim; and (4) the trial court's ruling is not subject to harmless error analysis under Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 106 S.Ct. 617, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986).
The Commonwealth responds that appellant's claim was previously litigated since appellant's challenge to seating Dorothy Spicer on the jury was decided by this Court on direct appeal. The PCRA court agreed with the Commonwealth and, accordingly, did not analyze the merits of appellant's appellate ineffectiveness claim.
On direct appeal, this...
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