Com. v. Lambert

• Decision Date: 18 December 2000
• Citation: 765 A.2d 306
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Lisa Michelle LAMBERT, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

765 A.2d 306

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Lisa Michelle LAMBERT, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued September 14, 1999.

Filed December 18, 2000.

Peter S. Greenberg, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Christy H. Fawcett, Deputy Attorney General, Harrisburg, for Com., appellee.

Before KELLY, HUDOCK, and HESTER, JJ.

KELLY, J.:

s 1 Appellant, Lisa Michelle Lambert asks us to review and reverse the order of the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas, which denied her petition for relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act.¹ Appellant raises numerous assertions of ineffectiveness of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct in the context of after-discovered evidence, which she insists compel relief. Following exhaustive study of the complete record in light of applicable law we hold that Appellant' has not met her burden under the PCRA statute. Accordingly, we affirm.

s 2 The PCRA court has carefully and painstakingly set forth the relevant facts and extensive procedural history of this case in its opinion, dated August 24, 1998. See Commonwealth v. Lambert, 1998 WL 558749 (Pa.Com.Pl. Aug 24 1998). The PCRA court also included in that opinion, its findings of fact and conclusions of law pertaining to the 1992 verdict and judgment of sentence. (Id. at § IV.) Therefore, we will provide a more abbreviated factual and procedural background based upon a review of the certified record and the numerous court opinions generated in this case.

s 3 In 1991, Appellant was romantically involved with Lawrence Yunkin. During a brief interlude in their relationship, Yunkin dated Laurie Show. Appellant strongly resented Laurie Show for dating Yunkin, as evidenced by Appellant's numerous phone calls and public confrontations with Laurie Show during the ensuing months. To appease her anger, Appellant orchestrated a plan with some friends to "kidnap" Laurie Show and publicly humiliate her. Nothing came of the plan, as several members of the group warned Laurie Show.

s 4 Appellant, however, continued to publicly confront Laurie Show. At one point, Appellant challenged Laurie Show at the mall and struck her. After that incident, Laurie Show and her family sought help from law enforcement officials. Without enumerating other incidents of Appellant's attempts to intimidate Laurie Show, the evidence made clear that she was indeed afraid of Appellant. Appellant's anger and ill will, that from all accounts marked this relationship, finally culminated early in the morning of December 20, 1991, when Appellant and company entered Laurie Show's home, brutally attacked, and murdered her.

s 5 In the late evening of December 20, 1991, the police took Appellant, her boyfriend, Lawrence Yunkin, and a friend, Tabitha Buck into custody. The police read Appellant her rights, which she then waived. Following questioning, Appellant gave the police an alibi statement. Soon, however, Appellant gave another statement in which she admitted her involvement in Laurie Show's murder. Based upon her statements, Appellant was arrested and charged.

s 6 In an extensive colloquy Appellant waived her right to a jury trial, and the matter proceeded before the Honorable Lawrence F. Stengel in the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas. Both direct and circumstantial evidence presented at trial inextricably linked Appellant to Laurie Show's murder. Based upon the evidence presented and its credibility determinations (fully set forth in its opinions, dated July 19, 1994, at 1-10, and August 24, 1998, at 60-72), the trial court rejected Appellant's several diverse versions of the event. Accordingly, Appellant was convicted of first-degree murder² and criminal conspiracy³ arising from Laurie Show's death. After a death penalty hearing, Appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment on the first-degree murder conviction.

s 7 Appellant filed post-verdict motions on July 27, 1992 with trial counsel and additional post-verdict motions with new counsel. The trial court denied the motions. Appellant filed a direct appeal with the Superior Court, raising claims of trial error, ineffective assistance of trial counsel, and prosecutorial misconduct in the context of after-discovered evidence. In a memorandum opinion, this Court affirmed Appellant's judgment of sentence on January 4, 1996. See Commonwealth v. Lambert, 450 Pa.Super. 714, 676 A.2d 283 (1996). Appellant sought allocatur with our Supreme Court, raising the same claims. The Supreme Court subsequently denied Appellant's petition for allowance of appeal on July 2, 1996. See Commonwealth v. Lambert, 545 Pa. 650, 680 A.2d 1160 (1996).

s 8 Notably, Appellant did not file a petition under the PCRA. Instead, she forwarded a pro se handwritten petition for habeas corpus to the federal court on September 12, 1996. The court referred her petition to present counsel to represent Appellant on a pro bono basis.

s 9 Counsel filed an amended petition for habeas corpus relief on Appellant's behalf on January 3, 1997. The amended petition raised claims that had been presented in Appellant's prior state court proceedings and added new claims of actual innocence and prosecutorial misconduct. The Commonwealth timely raised the defense of Appellant's failure to exhaust state remedies.

s 10 Despite the Commonwealth's steadfast objection to the proceedings, the federal district court advanced the matter to an evidentiary hearing. The evidence presented in the district court in large part was obtained through broad federal discovery, evidence that had previously been unavailable in state court. (See PCRA Court Opinion, dated August 24, 1998, at 11 n. 9.)

s 11 Following extensive testimony, on April 21, 1997, the federal district court rejected the state trial court's findings of fact, which had been affirmed in state court on appeal. The federal district court granted Appellant's petition in a highly publicized decision, which found Appellant actually innocent,⁴ barred retrial on double jeopardy grounds, and set her free. On April 22, 1997, the Commonwealth filed a timely notice of appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

s 12 On appeal, the Commonwealth reasserted its nonexhaustion of state remedies defense. Appellant countered that the Commonwealth had implicitly waived its defense and that any further state litigation would be futile, because she had already either raised or waived all of her claims in state court. The court of appeals first examined the Commonwealth's nonexhaustion defense. The court of appeals concluded that preclusion of the Commonwealth's defense required an express waiver under prevailing law, and noted that the Commonwealth had vigorously pursued and preserved its defense. Lambert, supra, 134 F.3d at 514-15. The court also explained that exhaustion of state remedies is not a jurisdictional requirement for the federal court, but a rule of comity.⁵Id. at 523 n. 29.

s 13 After careful analysis, the court of appeals also concluded that review of several of Appellant's claims was not clearly foreclosed under Pennsylvania law. The court, therefore, rejected Appellant's assertion of the futility exception to the rule of comity, stating: "[U]nless a state court decision exists indicating that a habeas petitioner is clearly precluded from state court relief, the federal habeas claim should be dismissed for non-exhaustion, even if it appears unlikely that the state will address the merits of the petitioner's claim." Id. at 519 (citing Banks v. Horn, 126 F.3d 206 (3d Cir.1997)).

s 14 The court of appeals further discussed Appellant's options under Pennsylvania law to qualify for relief under the PCRA. Id. at 520 (citing 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9543(a)(2)(i), (ii) and (vi)). Finally, the court proposed several solutions to the timeliness requirements of the amended PCRA, including application of the Pennsylvania Transfer Statute or the possibility that Appellant plead and prove one or more of the exceptions found in Section 9545(b)(1). Id. at 522-24. On December 29, 1997, the court of appeals vacated the order of the federal district court granting Appellant's petition for writ of habeas corpus and remanded the matter with instructions to dismiss the petition without prejudice.

s 15 Appellant filed a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court on April 23, 1998, and docketed at No. 97-8812. To the best of this Court's knowledge, that petition remains undetermined.

s 16 Meanwhile, Appellant returned to state court and asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to assume plenary jurisdiction of her case. Our Supreme Court denied the request. On the same day, February 2, 1998, Appellant filed her PCRA petition.

s 17 Appellant's PCRA petition contained almost two hundred (200) claims of after-discovered evidence, discovery violations, and ineffective assistance of counsel. Contemporaneously with Appellant's petition and the Commonwealth's answer, some seventeen pre-hearing motions and/or petitions were presented for the PCRA court's disposition, including Appellant's motion to admit the record from the federal district court habeas hearing. The PCRA court denied Appellant's motion to enter the federal record. Appellant's motions for recusal and for bail/release pending the PCRA disposition were also denied. Numerous other pre-hearing conferences and motions were disposed of as follows:

Specifically, (1) the court denied the motion for more definite pleading, (2) the court denied as moot the motion for sanctions for violations of the gag order, (3) the court denied the motion to sit outside Lancaster County, (4) the court denied [Appellant]'s request to incorporate certain admissions from the federal habeas hearing, (5) the court granted the motion to proceed in forma pauperis and to have all costs necessary for the PCRA proceeding reimbursed by the County, and (6) the court denied the motion for court appointment of defense counsel.

(Id. at 24.)⁶ The court's order limiting publicity...