King v. Superintendent Coal Twp. SCI
| Decision Date | 26 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | 20-1197 |
| Parties | BRIAN KING, Appellant v. SUPERINTENDENT COAL TOWNSHIP SCI; DISTRICT ATTORNEY PHILADELPHIA; ATTORNEY GENERAL PENNSYLVANIA |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
NOT PRECEDENTIAL
Submitted under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) June 2, 2021
On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (D.C. Civ. No. 2-18-cv-02292) District Judge: Honorable Edward G. Smith
Before: HARDIMAN, PHIPPS, and COWEN, Circuit Judges.
Brian King, an inmate serving a sentence of life imprisonment without parole for second-degree murder in Pennsylvania appeals from the District Court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In his petition, he argues that the state trial court violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, made applicable to states through the Fourteenth Amendment, by limiting his cross-examination of a key prosecution witness. The District Court, however, did not reach the merits of that issue, concluding instead that it had been procedurally defaulted. In exercising appellate jurisdiction over the District Court's final decision, see 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291, 2253(a), we will affirm for the reasons below.
As Mischief Night turned to Halloween morning in 2005, Philadelphia police officers investigated several armed robberies and a homicide. A short time after the police arrived at the scene of the robberies, King and his friend, Tyreek Wilford, were caught fleeing the scene. Following his arrest, King admitted his involvement in robbing five individuals who happened to be walking down the street that night, but he denied any participation in the final robbery and shooting death of Steven Badie, who was sitting in a parked car around the corner. King blamed Wilford for those latter crimes, and Wilford blamed King.
The divide between the former friends widened further when Wilford decided to cooperate with the prosecution and King did not. Through an agreement with the Commonwealth, Wilford pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and other charges related to the robberies in exchange for his testimony against King. Though he still faced a discretionary sentencing range of 103.5 to 207 years' imprisonment, Wilford avoided the risk of life imprisonment without parole - the mandatory minimum sentence for first- and second-degree murder in Pennsylvania, see 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 1102(a), (b); 61 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 6137(a). King, by contrast, pleaded not guilty and proceeded to trial in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County.
During the four-day jury trial, Wilford testified for the prosecution. On direct examination, he incriminated King in the robbery and shooting of Badie. Wilford explained that, as they were returning to the car following the initial robberies, King suddenly demanded that Wilford hand him the gun. According to Wilford, King then approached the driver's side of a nearby parked car, where he had words with the driver (Badie) before firing a series of shots into the car - striking and killing Badie. At the end of the direct examination, Wilford testified about his cooperation agreement with the prosecution, explaining the lesser charges to which he pleaded guilty and the sentencing range that he faced as a result of that plea.
On cross-examination, King's counsel sought to undermine Wilford's testimony by probing his motives for testifying against King. Specifically, King's counsel asked Wilford whether he decided to enter a plea bargain "to avoid life in prison." Trial Tr. at 233:18-22 (JA 250). The Commonwealth objected to that question because - as later explained at sidebar - Pennsylvania law prohibits a jury from considering a criminal defendant's potential sentence. See Commonwealth v. Carbaugh, 620 A.2d 1169, 1171 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1993) (); see also Commonwealth v. Epps, 240 A.3d 640, 649 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2020). And since the mandatory sentence for first- or second-degree murder would apply as equally to King as to Wilford, such an inquiry would impermissibly reveal the sentence that King faced. The court sustained the Commonwealth's objection on those grounds, but King's counsel sought to overturn that ruling by stressing that the inquiry was critical to undermining Wilford's testimony:
I can confront the witness with the fact he was facing life imprisonment and chose to make a bargain to escape that time to serve less than life under third degree murder. Judge, it would be reversible error to not permit me to confront the witness with the fact that the penalty for first degree and second degree murder, for which this plea bargain allows him to escape, which is the incentive to curry favor and a motive and interest and bias for him to tell something other than the truth to this jury, is the heart of cross-examination in this case.
Trial Tr. at 236:9-22 (JA 250). King's counsel further maintained that the jury needed to know that Wilford "made a bargain to escape a mandatory penalty" and that counsel could not convey that without saying "life without parole." Id. At 238:10-11, 240:18-20 (JA 251). But at the close of the sidebar, the court maintained its prior ruling that King's counsel could ask "exactly those questions without using the term life imprisonment." Id. at 236:23-25 (JA 250).
Cross-examination resumed within those bounds. The judge interjected a question, asking whether Wilford understood that he faced "substantially more time in prison" without the cooperation agreement. Id. at 242:9-13 (JA 252). From there, King's counsel asked - three separate times - if Wilford knew that without cooperating he might "never get out of jail." Id. at 242:18-20, 243:2-3, 244:2-3 (JA 252). As that line of inquiry continued, Wilford testified that he "never thought [he] was going to do life," and King's counsel seized that opportunity by asking, "You could do life?" Id. at 244:7, 11 (JA 252).
Those attempts to discredit Wilford did not ultimately dissuade the jury from convicting King of second-degree murder, 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 2502(b), six counts of robbery, id. § 3701, possessing an instrument of crime, id. § 907, and criminal conspiracy, id. § 903. The trial court sentenced King to the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole for second-degree murder, along with concurrent sentences for the remaining offenses.
In appealing his conviction to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, King challenged the ruling limiting his cross-examination of Wilford. He argued that the trial court "abused its discretion" and violated his "right to confrontation under the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions." King Direct Appeal Br. 21 (June 2, 2008) (JA 78). The Superior Court, however, declined to consider the constitutional issue based on Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 302(a). See Pa. R. App. P. 302(a) (). That issue-preservation rule requires "a timely and specific objection at trial." Commonwealth v. Montalvo, 641 A.2d 1176, 1184 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1994). The Superior Court thus reasoned that the Confrontation Clause issue had been "waived due to King's failure to raise it at any point during his trial." Commonwealth v. King, No. 2332 EDA 2007, at 6 n.3 (Pa. Super. Ct. Aug. 14, 2009) (citing Pa. R. App. P. 302(a)) (JA 24-25). Nevertheless, the Superior Court considered King's challenge to the scope of cross-examination as a matter of state law, concluding that the trial court did not err or abuse its discretion in limiting the cross-examination of Wilford.
King petitioned the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to review that decision, but that court declined to hear the appeal. See Commonwealth v. King, 997 A.2d 1176 (Pa. July 7, 2010) (unpublished table decision).
In 2018, King collaterally challenged his conviction through a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Among the four grounds alleged in the petition, King asserted that the state trial court violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause by restricting his inquiry on cross-examination into Wilford's avoidance of a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment through a plea bargain. A Magistrate Judge recommended that the petition be denied, reasoning that King's Confrontation Clause challenge was procedurally defaulted based on the Superior Court's finding of waiver. The District Court overruled King's objections, adopted the Magistrate Judge's report and recommendation, and denied the petition. King timely appealed, and this Court granted King's application for a certificate of appealability as to whether he had procedurally defaulted that claim. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c); see also Shotts v. Wetzel, 724 F.3d 364, 370 (3d Cir. 2013) (reviewing the adequacy of a state procedural default de novo).
The writ of habeas corpus provides a remedy for a person detained in violation of federal law. See 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3). But when the person is in custody pursuant to a state-court order, initial recourse is not to federal court. Instead, the prisoner must exhaust available state-court remedies before seeking federal habeas relief. See id. § 2254(b)(1)(A); see also id. § 2254(c) (). The exhaustion requirement, however, has an exception for a federal claim that a state court rejected "based...
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