Adequate State Grounds Doctrine, Research Paper Example

Background

The Petitioner must be ‘in custody’ in order to file a petition for habeas corpus. The Petitioner bears the burden of proving his/her detention was unlawful by a preponderance of evidence. There is a time bar of six months on capital crime habeas corpus filing. There must be consideration of whether the state has exhausted all available remedies. This element has not been met if the Petitioner can prove there is ANY available legal procedure to bring grounds. Rule of law will be created by precedent. An issue has standing under habeas corpus if there is a federal constitutional issue raised. A federal court can grant habeas corpus if it is found there was an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under 2254(d)(1). It was distinguished in Terry Williams versus Taylor that the ‘obiter dicta’ was not applied when reaching the verdict. The options for the state are to appeal the habeas corpus or to retry the same offense after the writ of habeas corpus is granted. In a stale case the right to retrial would not serve the state well because the witnesses may not be available.

The Adequate and Independent State Grounds Doctrine gives authority to the United States Supreme Court to review judgments made by the lower or state courts. In Hortonville School District No.1 versus Hortonville Education Ass’n it was distinguished that we are bound to accept the decisions rendered by the highest state court. However, the U.S. Supreme court has jurisdiction to review any state court decision that of federal law but cannot review decisions of state law that directly are made according to state law. See: 28 U.S.C.? 1257.

The doctrine generally states that the U.S. Supreme Court does not have grounds for review if the state can show ‘their grounds were adequate to support the judgment’ or ‘independent of federal binding law’. As distinguished in Michigan versus Long, the state court must show that it established grounds independent of any federal law. This is what makes the doctrine discretionary rather than mandatory. These two grounds must be substantially unproved in order for the U.S. Supreme Court to lose jurisdiction of ‘habeas corpus petitions’.  In other words, the state procedural rule is only inadequate if it can be shown these two grounds exist. Therefore a rule is as discretionary as it can be substantially proven. If it cannot be proven, then federal rule jurisdiction is mandated to take precedent and authority over the case.

The Case

On appeal from the  District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Civil Action No. 99-cv-00161), Joseph J. Kindler filed an appeal to the United States Third Circuit Court against Martin Horn, David Diguglielmo and Joseph P. Mazurkiewicz (all employees of the Department of Corrections for the State. The case was argued on October 15, 2007. “Kindler filed a petition of habeas corpus alleging that the state trial court’s jury instructions violated the Supreme Court’s pronouncement in Mills v Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988)”. (US Courts.gov).  “A jury that does not unanimously agree on the existence of any single mitigating circumstance may not give mitigating evidence any effect whatsoever, and must impose the death sentence. If that interpretation is correct, the case must be remanded for resentencing. Pp. 486 U. S. 373-375”. (U.S. Supreme Court Centre).  The jury must consider mitigating circumstance when left to decide on the death penalty. It is theorized that perhaps the jury was confused that they should not have marked ‘No’ in the boxes on the evaluation if they could not come to a unanimous decision. A jury’s verdict must be ‘set aside’ if there are no findings of support to base the verdict of guilt on. There was a substantial risk that the jury was misinformed hence the verdict had to be dismissed. J. Blackman delivered the decision in this Court of law. Further he asserted that his counsel had been ineffective in asserting his rights during the penalty phase of the sentencing hearing. It was found by the district court that Mills applied and further there were two substantial instances of trial misconduct by Kindler’s trial attorneys’. Of course the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania appealed and Kindler filed a cross-appeal adding in the other assertions that had been denied by the district court. The appellate court affirmed the habeas corpus relief that the district court ordered.

The facts of the case are that all three Defendants, Kindler, Shaw and Bernstein participated in a crime of burglary. Kindler was able to escape the scene of the crime but Bernstein “identified Kindler as the mastermind behind the get a way car and the burglary thus cut a deal with the District Attorney and gave Bernstein immunity to testify against Kindler.” (US Supreme Court Centre). Kindler was released on bail and devised a plan with Shaw and Shaw’s girlfriend to kill Bernstein in order to keep him from testifying. Other facts occurred but Bernstein was still alive when he was left for dead and thrown into the river. Kindler and Shaw realized Bernstein was not dead and tied cinder blocks around him to weigh him down. Raifer, Shaw’s girlfriend implicated Shaw and Bernstein when she became afraid she would be arrested. Further complication arose when police determined Bernstein died from the combination of head injuries and drowning. Kindler and Shaw were tried at the same time and there were no mitigating circumstances found in Kindler’s favour to lessen the crime he committed therefore he was given the death penalty. “Kindler filed a post-verdict motion after the penalty phase but before the sentencing with the assistance of new counsel.” (US Courts.gov). It is important to note that Shaw received life in prison. “On September 19, 1984 after escaping from prison the trial court moved to expel Kindler’s post-conviction motion based on the fact he had escaped from prison and was now a fugitive at large.” (US Courts.gov). Kindler was captured in Canada, arrested then escaped again. In 1991 when captured again Kindler moved the court to re-instate his ‘post-conviction motions’ and the motions were denied. “On October 3, 1991 Kindler was finally imposed a death sentence for his original murder conviction as well as consecutive time for kidnapping and conspiracy.” (US Courts.gov).

Kindler tried to file another motion stating he should have been sentence right when he was captured in Philadelphia and he attempted to file or post-conviction based on that idea but the trial court denied his motion stating the trial court ‘did not have to consider the merits of the post-verdict motions any further because Kindler had escaped’. The trial court used their discretionary powers to deny his habeas corpus post conviction relief.  Further the appellate court stated that the trial court expressed ‘reasonable response’ to the fleeing of Kindler. He had waived all his rights to post-conviction relief further all rights to appeal when he escaped. Under 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9711(h) (3), and found no error in imposing the death penalty. The ‘writ of certiorari’ ordering the lower court to send the records to the higher court for ‘judicial review’ was denied by the Supreme Court. Kindler then filed an appeal to adjudicate the ‘merits of the claims’ he had made on appeal under the Pennsylvania Post-Conviction Relief Act and it was denied because he had escaped from prison. Commonwealth v. Kindler, 722A.2d 143, 148 (Pa. 1998) affirmed that Kindler was ineligible for any form of post-conviction relief including appeal because he had escaped from prison. “The court confirmed if they would render a decision to allow Kinder to have an evidentiary hearing on claims forfeited by his ‘flight from prison’ would essentially mean that put meaningless all prior rulings by the trial court” and they were not about to allow that to happen. (US Courts.gov).  Further the relaxed waiver doctrine of Pennsylvania Law did not apply to Kindler because he had forfeited all rights upon escape. This is another example of the state rules doctrine applying though it is discretionary because Kindler forfeited all rights to post-conviction when he escaped from prison.

In 2000 Kindle filed another habeas corpus petition See Kindler v. Horn, 291 F. Supp. 2d 323, 337-38 (E.D.Pa. 2003). The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania stated that his filing was ‘independent and inadequate’ under the fugitive waiver rule precluding habeas corpus relief. The state court found that his habeas corpus petition was timely but he had exhausted all periods of limitations for re-argument before the Supreme Court. “It was further held that at the time of Kindler’s escape the fugitive waiver rule was not well developed and established in the courts and did not provide independent and adequate basis to prelude review of his habeas claims.” (US Courts.gov) See: Kindler v. Horn, 291 F. Supp. 2d at 343. The court agreed on merits that the trial court erred in following the Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988) during the sentencing phase but did not err during the guilt rendition. The prosecution improperly introduced to the jury an ‘aggravating circumstance’ by ‘vouching for the death penalty with respect to Kindler’ which was in violation of his 8^th amendment rights. The argument was further brought up that the jury was not told that he would not be eligible for parole at the pre-sentencing.

Under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act there precludes a one year limitation for state prisoners to file a habeas corpus motion to the Supreme Court. See 28 U.S.C. §2244(d) (1). This time commences usually when the state denies the Writ of Certiorari.  If a properly administered application for state post-conviction relief is filled out then this can serve as discretion to the Petition for Habeas Corpus. This process is called ‘tolling’ an application whilst under review. In Lovasz v. Vaughn, 134 F.3d 146 (3d) the application was tolled because the state permitted successive habeas petitions. This is a discretionary rather than mandated power of the state.  The state claimed that the ‘tolling process’ should not apply in Kindler’s case because he had not exhausted all other means of the claim. This again is not a law or a ruling but a discretionary power of the state to act under ADEPA’s one year limitation clause. The state’s claim was denied on the basis that nothing in the law precludes such a claim under any state law or Constitutional law. The Supreme Court felt that to mandate such a discretionary power would be to ‘forge a non-existent link between exhaustion and statutory polling.” (US Courts.gov). Sweger v.Chesney, 294 F.3d 506 (3d Cir. 2002).

Under state law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the ‘fugitive forfeiture rule’ was applied barring Kindler from any appellate relief. “As a matter of comity and federalism, a federal court cannot rule on the merits of a habeas petitioner’s claims when a state court has found such claims to be procedurally defaulted pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule unless the petitioner shows cause and prejudice for the default.” (US Courts.gov). “A state procedural rule precludes federal habeas review only if it is “firmly established” and “consistently and regularly applied” by the state’s courts. See Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U.S. 578, 587 (1988); see also Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411, 423-24 (1991) (state procedural rule must be “firmly established and regularly followed” to bar federal habeas review)”. The application of the state law must be regularly regarded and applied to bar federal habeas corpus review even if on the merits of the law.

Hence with this in mind, Pennsylvania’s ‘fugitive forfeiture rule’ did not bar federal habeas corpus review as applied in See Doctor, 96 F.3d at 684. Doctor escaped the court room whilst among trial (at lunch) and was later captured and the federal fugitive forfeiture rule did not apply, hence Pennsylvania could not use it as authority to deny Kindler’s federal habeas corpus.  The fugitive forfeiture rule was not firmly established, therefore was not independent and adequate enough to bar federal rule. Kindler had been re-captured before any decision was made on his post-conviction relief same as Doctor. The appellate court affirmed that the state court was within it’s discretion to allow a reinstatement of the dismissal appeal.  The same happened in Commonwealth v. Galloway, 333 A.2d 741 (Pa. 1975). He was extended post-conviction relief after escape.  The appeal had not been dismissed hence the original court still held the jurisdiction to re-instate post-conviction relief. Appellate courts can use their powers after post-conviction relief is dismissed in its entirety. “When Kindler escaped in 1984, Galloway had not been overruled. Accordingly, the state trial court still had discretion to reinstate his post-verdict motions. Accordingly, we conclude that, under Doctor, Pennsylvania’s fugitive waiver law did not preclude the district court from reviewing the merits of the claims rose in Kindler’s habeas petition.” (US Courts.gov).

The Verdict and Reasoning Behind the Verdict

The district court was ordered to have a new sentencing hearing for Kindler or give Kindler life in prison. The court was astonished in awe that 11 of the 12 jurors agreed on the death sentence but they could not agree on one mitigating fact. The jury mistakenly believed they had to agree unanimously on the mitigating factors.  As a result of this case mitigating factors must be proved ‘by preponderance’ and aggravating factors must be proved ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’. The aggravating circumstances must outweigh the mitigating circumstances. If the jury finds at least one aggravating circumstances from the long list and no mitigating circumstances then it can declare the death penalty. The confusion arose when the jury thought they could ONLY consider mitigating circumstances that they unanimously agreed upon.  This decision is consistent with the findings in Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3d Cir. 2008)

The attorney for Kindler wrote an affidavit to the court stating that he was young and inexperienced with criminal law and in fact this was his first criminal death penalty case. Further he noted that he had not conducted proper evaluation and research into the social and psychological background of the Defendant prior to the sentencing hearing. He had conducted research but was more concerned with defending the charges than applying and information to the sentencing hearing. He did not apply any relevant information obtained during the sentencing hearing. To make Kindler’s case even stronger a psychiatrist and medical doctor testified that Kindler had front temporal lobe damage to the brain which caused him to act on impulse with violence. Kinder was victim to many head injuries, physical and emotional abuse growing up as testified by his family members. There was further cognitive, emotional and developmental damage that occurred during the episodes of neglect, abuse and violence that had been inflicted upon Kindler during his childhood years. The doctor’s noted that the tests results concluded that the results would have been the same at the time of the sentencing phase of his first trial. It was also determined that Kindler suffered from mood disorders and narcissistic personality disorder at the time the crimes were committed by him. The Defence argued that this mitigation factor did not satisfy the requirements to overrule the aggravating factors. Kindlier argued that the district court’s ruling erred the judgment holding the jury prejudiced. Defence attorneys’ have a duty to the litigant to investigate all mitigating evidence. It was argued by Kindle that the first attorney did not fail to present the case but rather failed to investigate the mitigating circumstances surrounding the crime. The trial court held by only the two doctor’s testimony that there was not sufficient evidence to support ‘insuffienct determining factor of the outcome of the verdict.’  The Appellate Court disagreed and found that Kindler’s childhood abuse by ‘two crazy parents’ is enough to meet the ‘second prong’ of the Strickland Test. See Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374 (2005). The abuse from Kindler’s childhood could easily have been considered during the sentencing phase as a ‘mitigating factor’ to the crime. Kindler was entitled to a new penalty hearing as per the Sixth Amendment as afforded the right to competent counsel. Kinder was not successful with the ‘vouching claim’ by the District Attorney to assert a sentence of the death penalty because it did not meet the two-fold test which requires to ‘assure the jury that a Government’s testimony is credible’ and to ‘ensure the jury this information is from personal knowledge of the DA or information not contained in the record.” United States v. Walker, 155 F.3d 180, 187 (3d Cir.1998). The prosecutor did not use information as evidence that would outside the scope of the record. The DA imposed his own viewpoint upon the jury to make a discretionary call of whether to weigh evidence as an aggravating issue or a mitigating issue calling Kindler the leading role to Shaw in the crime.  “The prosecutor’s argument introduced an invalid sentencing factor into the analysis, which is an error of constitutional magnitude. Cf.Brown v. Sanders, 546 U.S. 212, 220 (2006).That said, this error did not have any “substantial and injurious effect” on the deliberations. Fry v. Pliler, 127 S.Ct.2321, 2328 (2007). At Kindler’s sentencing, the jury found two aggravating factors unrelated to the prosecutor’s improper.” (US Courts.gov). The court found that the jury would most likely have sentenced the death penalty even without this prejudicial statement by the DA because it was not a ‘substantial’ statement of effect. However, the absence of a mitigating factor would ‘encourage’ a sentence of the death penalty. As distinguished in In Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154 (1994) not informing the jury of a life in prison sentence being ‘forever without parole’ is a violation of a persons constitution rights under ‘Due Process’. This ruling is applicable ‘only if the DA argues future dangerousness on the fact of the accused’. Since the dangerousness of Kindler’s future crimes to society never came up in the trial, the Appellate Court found that the rules of Simmons do not apply here.

Kindler was denied due process according to the law because of lack of competent counsel during the penalty phase investigation. Mills v Maryland established the tally sheets used during the penalty phase of the trial precluded him from a fair sentencing hearing. Therefore it was ordered that state law that was discretionary was affirmed by the appellate court and the Defendant was given a new habeas corpus granting a new sentencing hearing with the next 180 days or the findings of the state court would be affirmed.  

Findings With Relation to Doctrine

With relation to the adequate state grounds doctrine the state can have express or implied powers to act in accordance with state law involving habeus corpus petitions depending on whether state grounds were inadequate to support their finding and whether a federal binding law existed. It must be shown that the state law was independent of a federal ruling/law and grounds of the state were inadequate to support the findings of the state for the adequate state grounds doctrine not to apply. Therefore these two prongs are what makes the doctrine discretionary and not mandated. Several examples were shown throughout the Kindler filings where the existence of violating of Kindler’s constitutional rights were infringed thus he was able to overcome the adequate state grounds doctrine and find relief through post-conviction relief of habeas corpus. Even after Kindler escaped from prison the appellate court still found in his favour using the discretionary powers of the state court and the federal laws to enforce the habeas corpus because it was found that the two prong test under the state forfeiture law was not well established at the time of the criminal acts of Kindler hence the judge had to apply the precedential cases of the time. The two prong test of state forfeiture law has now been well established where if a man or woman escapes prison whilst post-conviction relief is sought he/she forfeits all rights to relief including appellate rights.

Works Cited

US Courts.gov Appeal of Kinder v. Martin Horn, et al [2005] http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/039010p.pdf> 42 Pa. Cons. Stat.

9711(h), titled “Review of death sentence At the time of 4 Kindler’s direct appeal, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat.

9711(h), titled “Review of death sentence,” provided as follows:

(1) A sentence of death shall be subject to automatic review by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania pursuant to its rules.

(2) In addition to its authority to correct errors at trial, the Supreme Court shall either affirm the sentence of death or vacate the sentence of death and remand for further proceedings as provided in paragraph (4).

(3) The Supreme Court shall affirm the sentence of death unless it determines that:

(i) the sentence of death was the product of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor;

US Court.gov Appeal of Kinder v. Martin Horn, et al [2005] http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/039010p.pdf>

Indeed, it is ironic given considerations of deference and comity so frequently relied upon in arguing against federal relief that the state would now ask us to ignore a procedure provided under state procedural law and utilized by the state’s highest court.

Adequate and Independent State Grounds Doctrine gives rise to the US Supreme Court’s authority to review decisions made by lower courts.

Hortonville School District No.1 versus Hortonville Education Ass’n distinguished that we are bound to accept the authoritative decision of the highest court, however the US Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction over matters that do not have federal standing.

Mills v Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988) established that if a jury does not find mitigation circumstances to the crime they must impose the death penalty.

Post-Conviction Relief Act is a legal means for offenders to bring habeas corpus in federal court.

Commonwealth v. Kindler, 722A.2d 143, 148 (Pa. 1998) affirmed that Kindler was ineligible for any form of post-conviction relief including appeal because he had escaped from prison.

Relaxed waiver doctrine of Pennsylvania Law allows post-conviction relief under Pennsylvania Law in some circumstances. (Discretionary).

Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act establishes there is a one year limitation from tolling to file an application under post-conviction relief or habeas corpus.

Lovasz v. Vaughn, 134 F.3d 146 (3d) the application was tolled because the state permitted successive habeas petitions.

Sweger v Chesney, 294 F.3d 506 (3d Cir. 2002) refused to mandate tolling which was a discretionary power would be to “forge a non-existent link between exhaustion and statutory polling.”

See Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U.S. 578, 587 (1988); see also Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411, 423-24 (1991) where it was distinguished that a state’s procedural rules will only preclude federal law if it can be established that the state rules were used on a regular and consistent basis.

See Doctor, 96 F.3d at 684 is was distinguished that the Pennsylvania fugitive forfeiture rule did not preclude federal habeas corpus relief for Kinder.

Commonwealth v. Galloway, 333 A.2d 741 (Pa. 1975) was extended post-conviction relief after escape and capture similar to Doctor and Kindler.

Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3d Cir. 2008) distinguished that there need not be unanimous decision for agreement of mitigating circumstances with reference to the death penalty at sentencing. Only one mitigating circumstance has to be found to assert life in prison.

See Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374 (2005) where it was distinguished the victim was abused by both the parents’ alcoholic abuse and the two-prong test of Strickland was met.

United States v. Walker, 155 F.3d 180 187 (3d Cir.1998) requires a two-fold test to be met to find that the District Attorney ‘impliedly’ mandated the death sentence penalty through a process called ‘vouching’.

Cf.Brown v. Sanders, 546 U.S. 212, 220 (2006) and Fry v. Pliler, 127 S.Ct.2321, 2328 (2007) established the prosecutor’s role in prejudicing the jury with his personal remarks during the sentencing phase.