Eisen v. Rozum
| Decision Date | 25 March 2014 |
| Docket Number | ECF No. 5,Civil Action No. 13 - 1156,ECF No. 15-27 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
| Parties | ERIC I. EISEN, Petitioner, v. GERALD ROZUM, Superintendent, State Correctional Institution at Somerset, Pennsylvania, and THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, Respondents. |
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Pending before the Court is a Motion to Dismiss the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (the "petition" or "instant petition") filed by the Respondents who assert that the petition is an unauthorized second or successive petition which this Court may not consider for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.1 For the following reasons, the Respondents' Motion will be granted.
The Court writes primarily for the parties who are familiar with the litigation surrounding this case. In sum, Eric I. Eisen ("Eisen") pled guilty to second degree murder for the February 8, 1993 shooting death of Daniel Bostedo. On May 23, 1994, the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County sentenced him to a life sentence without parole, which was the sentence that he would have received had he gone to trial and been convicted of first or second degree murder(the Commonwealth was not seeking the death penalty in this case). In exchange for his guilty plea, Eisen received as consideration a "Sentencing Exhibit," which consisted of documents placed in his file for purposes of gubernatorial clemency consideration.2 Importantly, at the time Eisen pled guilty, the gubernatorial clemency provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution provided that the Board of Pardons ("the Board") consist of the following five members: (1) the Lieutenant Governor; (2) the Attorney General; (3) a member of the bar; (4) a penologist, and (5) a doctor of medicine, psychiatrist or psychologist. See Pa. Const. art. IV, § 9(b) (1994). Additionally, only a majority vote of the Board was needed to recommend commutation or pardon of an inmate's sentence. Id. According to Eisen, he entered into the plea agreement based, inter alia, on the past success rate for clemency petitions in Pennsylvania. See ECF No. 8 at p.2 (Memorandum in Support of Petition).
On November 4, 1997, the operating procedure of the Board of Pardons was amended to require a unanimous instead of majority vote by the Board to recommend commutation of a life or death sentence to the Governor. See Pa. Const. art. IV, § 9(a) (). The membership procedures of the Board were also amended to substitute a "crime victim" for a "member of the bar," and a "corrections expert" for a "penologist." See Pa. Const. art. IV, § 9(b) (). Because of this change, the total number ofrecommendations by the Board for commutation of life sentenced prisoners has drastically decreased.3
Following his conviction, Eisen did not file post sentence motions, nor did he file an appeal with the Pennsylvania Superior Court ("Superior Court"). He did, however, collaterally attack his judgment of sentence on three occasions in petitions he filed pursuant to Pennsylvania's Post-Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA") and/or state habeas corpus. In the first two petitions, filed on December 28, 1995 and August 25, 2003,4 respectively, the PCRA court granted Eisen relief and vacated his guilty plea. However, the Commonwealth appealed and the Superior Court reversed both times, ultimately reinstating Eisen's judgment of sentence. The Superior Court found the third petition, which was filed on November 23, 2010, to be untimely and application for review was denied by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on December 4, 2012.
Importantly, following the denial of his first PCRA petition, Eisen filed, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, a petition for federal habeas corpus relief in this Court on October 1, 1999 (the "October 1999 petition"). See C.A. No. 99-1624 (W.D. Pa). Magistrate Judge Kenneth J. Benson issued a Report, recommending that the October 1999 petition be denied on the merits, and on April 5, 2002, it was adopted as the Opinion of the Court by United States District JudgeGary L. Lancaster. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently denied a certificate of appealability ("COA") on February 23, 2003. Five years later, Eisen filed a Motion for Relief from Judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. Rule 60(b). United States Magistrate Judge Amy Reynolds Hay issued a very thorough Report and Recommendation on September 2, 2009, recommending that the motion be denied. District Judge Gary Lancaster adopted the Report and denied the Rule 60(b) motion on September 22, 2009. The Third Circuit denied a COA on December 29, 2009.
In January 2009, after almost fifteen years in prison, Eisen filed his first clemency application with the Board of Pardons. It was denied without a public hearing on November 17, 2011.
Eisen raises one claim for relief in the instant habeas petition: that the Commonwealth's 1997 change in state law substantially impaired his 1994 plea agreement and the reasonable expectations contained therein; and, as a result, the change in law, as applied to him, constitutes a constitutional violation of the Contracts Clause of the United States Constitution. As relief, Eisen requests that this Court vacate his guilty plea, thus invalidating his May 23, 1994 judgment of sentence, or order review of his next pardon application pursuant to the pardon provisions in effect at the time of his plea bargain.
Section 2254 provides that "a district court shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the UnitedStates."5 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). See also id. § 2254(b) (). In 1996, Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), Pub. L. No. 104-132 § 104, 110 Stat. 1214. AEDPA "established a stringent set of procedures that a prisoner 'in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court,' 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a), must follow if he wishes to file a 'second or successive' habeas corpus application challenging that custody[.]" Burton v. Stewart, 549 U.S. 147, 152 (2007) (per curiam) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)). In relevant part, before filing a "second or successive" habeas petition with the district court, the state prisoner first must "move in the appropriate court of appeals for an order authorizing the district court to consider the application." 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A). A three-judge panel of the court of appeals may authorize the filing of a second or successive petition only if it presents a claim not previously raised that satisfies one of the two grounds articulated in § 2244(b)(2). Id. at 153 (citing, inter alia, § 2244(b)(3)(C)).
Section 2244(b)'s requirement that prisoners obtain authorization from the appropriate court of appeals before filing "a second or successive habeas corpus application under section 2254" with the district court is jurisdictional. Id. at 149. Therefore, before this Court may proceed any further with this case, it must be determined whether the instant petition is subject to § 2244(b)'s requirements, since Eisen has already litigated one federal habeas corpus petition with this Court (the October 1999 petition).
Eisen adamantly argues that his habeas petition is not a "second or successive" petition and so he does not have to apply for an order with the Court of Appeals and this Court (not the Third Circuit) has jurisdiction over his petition. ADEPA does not define the phrase "second or successive." In Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U.S. 320, 130 S. Ct. 2788 (2010), the Supreme Court reiterated that it is a "term of art" and that:
[t]o determine its meaning, we look first to the statutory context. The limitations imposed by § 2254(b) apply only to a "habeas corpus application under § 2254," that is, an "application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court." § 2254(b)(1) (emphases added). The reference to a state-court judgment in § 2254(b) is significant because the term "application" cannot be defined in a vacuum. A § 2254 petitioner is applying for something: His petition "seeks invalidation (in whole or in part) of the judgment authorizing the prisoner's confinement." Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 83, 125 S.Ct. 1242, 161 L.Ed.2d 253 (2005) (emphasis added). If his petition results in a district court's granting of the writ, "the State may seek a new judgment (through a new trial or a new sentencing proceeding)." Ibid. (emphasis in original). Thus, both § 2254(b)'s text and the relief it provides indicate that the phrase "second or successive" must be interpreted with respect to the judgment challenged.
In support of Eisen's argument that his petition is not "second or successive", he primarily relies on Benchoff v. Colleran, 404 F.3d 812, 817 (3d Cir. 2005), in which the Third Circuit found an inmate's habeas petition to be a successive petition because the inmate knew all of the facts necessary to raise his parole-related claim at the time he filed his first habeas petition and could have raised his claim in that petition. Eisen argues that he, unlike Benchoff, could not have raised his claim in his October 1999 petition because he did not know of the claim, nor could have known of it at the time of the filing of, or even the disposition of, that petition. Specifically, he...
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