Issues
Joseph Kindler was convicted and sentenced to death by a Pennsylvania court for murder. While Kindler’s post-conviction motions were pending, he escaped and remained at large for years. The court then decided on the basis of a discretionally applied fugitive forfeiture rule that Kindler had waived his rights to make these motions when he fled. After Kindler was returned, he moved to reinstate his motions. The Pennsylvania courts denied this motion and Kindler subsequently petitioned the federal court for habeas review, which the district court granted and the circuit court affirmed. In this case the Supreme Court will decide if a federal court may grant a habeas petition when Pennsylvania’s highest court declared that Kindler forfeited his relief claims when he fled. Pennsylvania argues that its fugitive forfeiture rule is an adequate state ground that bars federal review. Kindler, however, claims the discretionally applied fugitive forfeiture rule was not applied with sufficient consistency in Pennsylvania courts to preclude habeas review.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
After murdering a witness against him and receiving a sentence of death, respondent broke out of prison, twice. Prior to his recapture in Canada years later, the trial court exercised its discretion under state forfeiture law to dismiss respondent's post-verdict motions, resulting in default of most appellate claims. On federal habeas corpus review, the court of appeals refused to honor the state court's procedural bar, ruling that, because “the state court . . . had discretion” in applying the rule, it was not “firmly established” and was therefore “inadequate.”
Is a state procedural rule automatically “inadequate” under the adequate-state-grounds doctrine - and therefore unenforceable on federal habeas corpus review - because the state rule is discretionary rather than mandatory?
Facts
While released on bail and facing burglary charges in 1982, Joseph Kindler murdered one of the accomplices to the burglary, David Bernstein, because he was cooperating with the police and had been granted immunity to testify against Kindler. The police later apprehended Kindler and a jury convicted him of first-degree murder and recommended a death penalty sentence.
Kindler filed post-verdict motions before the verdict was formally imposed. However, Kindler escaped from jail in September 1984, while the post-verdict motions were pending. Under Pennsylvania’s fugitive forfeiture rule, the trial court exercised its discretion in deciding that Kindler’s flight resulted in a procedural default of most of his appellate claims, including the post-verdict motions. After Kindler was apprehended in Canada and returned to the United States in 1991, he moved to reinstate his post-verdict motions. The trial court, and subsequently the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, denied his motion, stating that Kindler waived his rights to have the motions considered when he fled. Kindler appealed this decision, but the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in 1994.
In January 1996, Kindler filed a petition under Pennsylvania's Post-Conviction Relief Act ("PCRA") and asked the court to review the merits of his case despite his procedural default, but the court again denied him relief. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed this decision, stating that Kindler’s own acts prevented him from having the merits of his appeals considered and that granting his PCRA petition would make its previous decisions regarding his forfeited rights meaningless.
On March 13, 2000, Kindler filed a federal habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania urged the court to deny the petition, arguing that the state’s fugitive forfeiture rule was an "independent and adequate" state ground for denial. A state procedural rule is an adequate state ground if it is firmly established and consistently applied. The district court, however, found that the fugitive forfeiture rule had not been firmly established when Kindler escaped from jail, and thus could not prevent a federal court from reviewing the federal habeas petition. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed that the fugitive forfeiture rule had not been a firmly established rule at the time and that Kindler’s flight could not preclude a federal habeas petition.
The Third Circuit then proceeded to review Kindler’s habeas claims, and determined that he must receive either a new sentencing hearing or be sentenced to life in prison because of errors which occurred during the penalty phase of his trial, including ineffective assistance of his counsel, improper jury instructions, and erroneous verdict sheets. Pennsylvania appealed the decision, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether the application of the fugitive forfeiture rule forecloses review of a habeas petitioner’s appeals.
Analysis
The Adequate-State Grounds Doctrine
In the federal habeas corpus review setting, the
Are Discretionary Procedural Rules Automatically Inadequate?
Petitioner Pennsylvania first argues that prior Supreme Court decisions do not support the proposition that discretionary state procedural rules are automatically inadequate. In cases where the state court discretionally applied procedural rules and the Court found the rules inadequate, Pennsylvania contends that the Court based its decision on grounds other than the discretionary nature of the rule. These grounds include both a discriminatory application of a procedural rule, as well as an
Moreover, Pennsylvania argues that a discretionary state procedural rule does not inherently violate the proposition that state rules must be “firmly established” and “consistently and regularly applied” in order to be adequate. Many federal rules of procedure are applied with discretion without being inconsistently applied, and Pennsylvania contends that the same holds true for state procedural laws. Indeed, the state procedural rule at issue in this case—the fugitive forfeiture rule—has a federal counterpart that is applied discretionally. Pennsylvania argues that the state courts can apply the state fugitive forfeiture rule discretionally while maintaining consistency in their decisions; indeed a state procedural rule that was applied without exception in appropriate circumstances would be of “pointless severity.” Pennsylvania also maintains that allowing discretionary federal rules, while finding discretionary state rules inadequate to foreclose further federal habeas appeals, overly interferes with the states’ legitimate interests in employing their own procedural rules.
Respondent Kindler contends that Pennsylvania’s fugitive forfeiture rule is not firmly established and thus should be considered inadequate under the
Furthermore, Kindler argues that the adequacy of a state procedural rule does not depend on whether it is discretionary but rather the “practical operation” of the rule. Kindler establishes two factors for determining whether a discretionary rule is adequate: 1) whether there are any criteria for guiding the state courts’ discretion and 2) whether the rule is applied consistently. Pennsylvania argues, however, that there is no reason for “requiring substantive
Finally, Kindler argues in the alternative that there is no adequate state ground because of Pennsylvania’s “relaxed waiver” doctrine. Kindler asserts that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has systematically used the relaxed waiver doctrine to reach issues in capital cases whether or not they are preserved for appeal, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s deviation from this rule is an inadequate state ground for denying his post-verdict motions. Pennsylvania labels this argument as a red herring, however, because out of the ninety cases Kindler uses to support his relaxed waiver doctrine, eighty-nine of the cases were decided after his escape and thus are irrelevant to the adequacy discussion in this case.
Would Adequacy of a State Procedural Rule Be Better Determined under a Standard that Considered Whether the Petitioner Was Afforded “Reasonable Notice and Opportunity?”
According to Pennsylvania, instead of finding state rules inadequate simply because they are discretionary, the Court should consider whether the rules provide “reasonable notice and opportunity” to petitioners. The Court has stated that the purpose of the
Respondent Kindler rejects Pennsylvania’s proposed standard of reasonable notice and opportunity. Firstly, Kindler claims that the “reasonable notice and opportunity” standard would not provide adequate protection for federal claims because the state courts would merely pay “lip service” to the rule while continuing to avoid petitioners’ claims. Secondly, Kindler asserts that adoption of Pennsylvania’s standard would preempt consideration of whether state courts had consistently applied a state procedural rule. Kindler avers that such an analysis is necessary because he claims that state judges, who are often elected, are prone to partisan pressures and tend to disfavor certain litigants, especially capital defendants. Finally, Kindler argues that because Congress did not modify the
Disputed Interpretations of Lower Court Decisions
Kindler argues that the Pennsylvania maintains inconsistent positions, claiming at one point that the fugitive forfeiture rule is mandatory, and then later claiming that it is discretionary. Pennsylvania points out, however, that Kindler has failed to provide a quotation or citation to Pennsylvania’s briefs to support his argument, and moreover, that Pennsylvania has continuously characterized the fugitive forfeiture rule as discretionary. Moreover, Kindler argues that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals did not base its decision on whether the state procedural rule was discretionary, but rather on the basis that the fugitive forfeiture rule was not very firmly established at the time of Kindler’s flight, and that previous case law had held the rule to be inadequate in such a circumstance. However, Pennsylvania points out that the Third Circuit’s ruling truly is based on only two points of analysis: 1) that the state procedural rule is discretionary and 2) therefore the rule is inadequate.
Discussion
contends that its fugitive forfeiture rule is an adequate state ground barring federal courts from hearing a petitioner’s habeas review as long as the convict was on notice and had an opportunity to raise his claims. On the other hand, Kindler argues that Pennsylvania’s fugitive forfeiture rule was not firmly enough established to be an adequate state ground preventing federal review of his case.
In this case, the Supreme Court will decide if federal courts may review a convict’s habeas petition when the state courts have determined that he has procedurally waived his rights to appeal on the basis of a discretionary, rather than mandatory, procedural rule. More specifically, the Court will resolve whether Pennsylvania’s practice of giving state courts the discretion to find that a fugitive waived his right to appeal by fleeing was firmly enough established to be an adequate state grounds to bar federal habeas review. The Court will thus have to address if discretionary procedural rules, such as Pennsylvania’s fugitive forfeiture rule, can ever be firmly enough established to qualify as "independent and adequate state grounds" for federal habeas review purposes. Finally, the Court may also touch on the question of whether Pennsylvania’s relaxed waiver practice in capital cases, allowing a state court of appeals to review the merits of an appeal despite procedural bars, is an alternative ground to hold that federal habeas review is not barred.
If the Court decides that a discretionary rule, such as Pennsylvania’s fugitive forfeiture rule, is always an insufficient basis on which to preclude a federal habeas claim, California and twenty-five other states, including Pennsylvania, fear that defendants in criminal proceedings will be able to “flout” a variety of well-established state procedural rules by directly petitioning for habeas. The States, as well as the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (“CJLF”), point out that Congress only intended that habeas review be available for petitioners who had been subject to extreme malfunctions” in state court proceedings. Amici argue that Congress intended for habeas review to afford deference to state courts—not to provide a convict with an easy way to circumvent their procedural rulings. Furthermore, the States believe that federal courts should not second-guess a state court’s decisions in matters involving state law, as such behavior leads to wasteful and open-ended re-litigation. The CJLF is also concerned that a decision for Kindler in this case would have the perverse effect of discouraging states from providing exceptions to default rules in the interest of fairness in order to prevent their decisions from being undermined by federal habeas review.
However, if the Court decides that discretionally applied procedural rules can sometimes account for a sufficiently independent and adequate state ground to bar federal habeas review, Kindler fears the Court will allow obscure and inconsistently applied state procedural rules to preclude review of violations of federal rights in state courts. Kindler is also worried that such a ruling would change the long established adequate state grounds doctrine to require nothing more than “notice and opportunity,” which according to Kindler would have “sweeping” consequences on litigation involving federal laws and rights. Kindler claims that one consequence of a decision for Pennsylvania in this case would be those state court judges, who are elected and thus subject to financial and partisan pressures, could arbitrarily deny federal review of a criminal litigant’s claim on the basis of a discretionary rule; and federal courts could not intervene in the interest of fairness anymore. Kindler believes a decision for Pennsylvania in this case would upset the delicate balance that currently exists in regards to the adequate state grounds doctrine, which is engineered to prevent not only unnecessary federal intrusion into state matters, but also guard against instances where the states may ignore a criminal litigant’s claims.
Conclusion
In this case, the Supreme Court will decide whether a state procedural rule violates the adequate-state grounds doctrine simply because the rule is discretionary, rather than mandatory. Pennsylvania contends that its fugitive forfeiture rule is an adequate state ground, which bars federal review, and proposes that the Court determine the adequacy of state procedural rules by considering whether they offer “reasonable notice and opportunity.” However, Kindler claims that Pennsylvania’s proposed standard fails to offer sufficient protection for those who seek to file a federal habeas petition. Kindler argues instead that the Court should only uphold state procedural rules that provide criteria which guide state courts’ discretionary decisions. A decision in favor of Kindler in this case would lead to increased litigation, and possibly encroach upon the states’ freedom to implement their own procedural rules without federal oversight. A decision in favor of Pennsylvania would make it more difficult for habeas petitioners to seek federal review of their claims when they may have been subjected to a capricious procedural ruling by a state court judge.
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Acknowledgments
Additional Resources
· Criminal Justice Crime Blog: Critical discussion of Kindler’s basis for federal habeas review
· ABC News: High Court to Rule in Pennsylvania Death Penalty Case
· Capital Defense Weekly Blog: Justice Alito excuses himself from case