Commonwealth v. Reid

• Decision Date: 22 September 2021
• Docket Number: No. 784 CAP,784 CAP
• Citation: 259 A.3d 395
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Albert E. REID, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

259 A.3d 395

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee

v.Albert E. REID, Appellant

No. 784 CAP

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted: December 11, 2020

Filed: September 22, 2021

OPINION

CHIEF JUSTICE BAER

This is a direct appeal from an order dismissing a petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA"), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541 - 9546. Appellant Albert E. Reid ("Appellant"), who is sentenced to death, presents the Court with a multitude of issues.¹ We affirm the order in all respects, save one. Respectfully, the PCRA court did not provide its rationale for rejecting the fact-intensive issue relating to Appellant's competency to proceed to trial and represent himself and prior counsels’ alleged ineffectiveness for failing to pursue the issue. Consequently, we remand the matter to the PCRA court solely to issue a supplemental opinion addressing its reasons for denying relief on these claims.

I. Background

A. Factual summary²

Carla Reid was Appellant's estranged wife, and D.M. was Carla's fourteen-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. During their time together, Appellant regularly abused Carla. This abuse resulted in Carla filing several Protection from Abuse ("PFA") petitions, which ultimately led to the entry of a final PFA order on October 30, 1996. That order directed that Appellant could not have any contact with Carla or her children.

Meanwhile, in July of 1996, Carla and D.M. informed State Police that they wanted to press charges against Appellant for sexually assaulting D.M. Based upon these allegations, the Commonwealth charged Appellant with, inter alia , aggravated indecent assault. Trial on those charges was scheduled to begin on January 6, 1997. Between July of 1996 and December 27, 1996, Appellant made several threats that he was going to kill Carla and D.M. In addition, he purchased a gun, and despite the terms of the PFA order and the conditions of his bail on the sexual assault charges, Appellant continued to have unwanted contact with Carla and to threaten her.

After leaving work at approximately 11:20 p.m. on December 26, 1996, Carla stopped at a local Chambersburg bar called Kel's Place. Upon entering Kel's Place, Carla was distraught, reporting to her friend, Ruby Murray, that Appellant had followed her to the bar and threatened to shoot her in the head. Several other witnesses observed Appellant sitting in his truck outside of Kel's Place. Carla subsequently left Kel's Place and picked up her six children at the babysitter's house at approximately 12:30 a.m. on December 27^th. Carla nervously drove herself and the children home, where they all went to sleep.

At some time in the early morning hours of December 27^th, Appellant entered Carla's home and then shot Carla and D.M. in the head, killing both of them. The Commonwealth charged Appellant with one count of burglary and two counts of first-degree murder. A jury found Appellant guilty of those charges. After a penalty hearing, the jury sentenced Appellant to death on both of his murder convictions.

More specifically, as to the murder of Carla, the jury found three aggravating circumstances: (1) Appellant killed Carla to prevent her from testifying as a prosecution witness in a criminal proceeding in which Appellant was charged with committing the felony offense of aggravated indecent assault, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(5) ; (2) Appellant killed Carla in the course of a felony burglary, id. at § 9711(d)(6) ; and (3) Appellant was convicted of the first-degree murder of D.M., which he committed at the time that he murdered Carla, id. at § 9711(d)(10). The jury found one mitigating circumstance relative to Carla's murder: Appellant had no significant history of prior criminal convictions, id. at § 9711(e)(1).

Regarding the murder of D.M., the jury also found three aggravating circumstances: (1) Appellant killed D.M. to prevent her from testifying as a prosecution witness in the criminal proceeding in which Appellant was charged with the felony offense of aggravated indecent assault, id. at § 9711(d)(5) ; (2) Appellant killed D.M. in the course of a felony burglary, id. at § 9711(d)(6) ; and (3) Appellant was convicted of the first-degree murder of Carla, which he committed at the time he murdered D.M., id. at § 9711(d)(10). As was the case with Carla's murder, the jury found the mitigating circumstance that Appellant had no significant history of prior criminal convictions, id. at § 9711(e)(1).

Concerning both murder convictions, the jury concluded that the three aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstance. Thus, as noted above, the jury returned two death sentences. On October 21, 1998, the trial court imposed those sentences. Appellant filed post-sentence motions, which the trial court denied. Appellant appealed his judgment of sentence.

B. Direct Appeal

On September 20, 2002, this Court affirmed Appellant's judgment of sentence. Commonwealth v. Reid , 571 Pa. 1, 811 A.2d 530 (2002). Among other things, we concluded that: (1) the Commonwealth presented sufficient evidence at trial to convict Appellant of two counts of first-degree murder, id. at 536-44 ; and (2) the sentences of death were not the product of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor, id. at 555. Appellant sought reconsideration of our decision to affirm his judgment of sentence, which this Court denied on December 30, 2002. Appellant then filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court, and the High Court denied that petition on October 6, 2003. Reid v. Pennsylvania , 540 U.S. 850, 124 S.Ct. 131, 157 L.Ed.2d 92 (2003).

C. PCRA Petition

The procedural history of Appellant's PCRA petition is prolonged and convoluted. Appellant filed his initial petition on September 22, 2004. In February of 2007, Appellant filed a supplemental PCRA petition, and three years later, he filed a second supplemental PCRA petition. On November 17, 2010, the Commonwealth filed an answer to the petition and its supplements. Therein, the Commonwealth, inter alia , objected to the format of Appellant's second supplement to his PCRA petition, which caused: (1) Appellant to resubmit that document in the appropriate form; and (2) the Commonwealth to file an additional response. In his various filings, Appellant presented 19 primary claims and "many more sub-claims."³ PCRA Court Opinion, 1/13/2014, at 12.

After the original trial judge recused from the matter, the petition was assigned to Judge Richard Walsh for disposition. The Commonwealth then filed a document entitled "Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law," which the PCRA court granted in part and denied in part the motion. This action lead to the dismissal of a handful of Appellant's claims. Thereafter, Judge Walsh retired from the bench, and the matter was reassigned to Judge David Grine.

As best we can discern, the parties agreed to hold an initial evidentiary hearing solely for the purpose of allowing Appellant to present the testimony of his pretrial, trial, and appellate counsel, as many of his claims for relief asserted counsel's ineffective stewardship. That hearing occurred in March of 2013, and the PCRA court later permitted Appellant to supplement the record with witness depositions.

On July 17, 2014, the PCRA court entered an order dismissing another handful of Appellant's claims based upon the evidence presented in the initial evidentiary hearing. The court subsequently authored an 81-page opinion in support of that order. PCRA Court Opinion, 1/13/2014. At the conclusion of that opinion, the court explained, "The next stage in this case is to address un-dismissed claims. That will be done after the Parties are finished gathering evidence to support and rebut those remaining claims." Id. at 81.

For unexplained reasons, the case remained dormant for approximately four years. The matter came to a conclusion when, on July 29, 2019, the PCRA court issued an opinion and order rejecting the remainder of Appellant's claims for relief. Appellant timely filed a notice of appeal.

II. General Principles of Law

To be eligible for PCRA relief, a petitioner must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that his conviction or sentence resulted from one or more of the enumerated circumstances found at 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2) (delineating the eligibility requirements of the PCRA). A petitioner also must demonstrate that the issues raised in his PCRA petition have not been previously litigated or waived. Id. at § 9543(a)(3). An issue has been previously litigated if "the highest appellate court in which the petitioner could have had review as a matter of right has ruled on the merits of the issue." Id. at § 9544(a)(2). For purposes of the PCRA, a claim is waived "if the petitioner could have raised it but failed to do so before trial, at trial, during unitary review, on appeal or in a prior state postconviction proceeding." Id. at § 9544(b).

Appellant presents a multitude of issues for review, most of which allege ineffective assistance of counsel. It is well-settled that counsel is presumed to have been effective and that the petitioner bears the burden of proving counsel's alleged ineffectiveness. Commonwealth v. Cooper , 596 Pa. 119, 941 A.2d 655, 664 (2007). To overcome this presumption, a petitioner must establish that: (1) the underlying substantive claim has arguable merit; (2) counsel did not have a reasonable basis for his or her act or omission; and (3) the petitioner suffered prejudice as a result of counsel's deficient performance, "that is, a reasonable probability that but for counsel's act or omission, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different." Id. A PCRA petitioner must address each of these prongs on appeal. See Commonwealth v. Natividad , 595 Pa. 188, 938 A.2d 310, 322 (Pa. 2007) (explaining that "appellants continue to bear the burden of pleading and proving each of the [ineffective assistance of counsel] elements on appeal to this Court"). A petitioner's failure...