Kenneth Williams v. Donald Vaughn , 477 F. App'x 1 ( 2012 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_____________
No. 11-1304
_____________
KENNETH J. WILLIAMS,
Appellant
v.
MR. DONALD T. VAUGHN; DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR LEHIGH
COUNTY;
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
_____________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
District Court No. 2-95-cv-07977
District Judge: The Honorable Jan E. Dubois
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
March 27, 2012
Before: FUENTES, SMITH, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges
(Opinion Filed: April 13, 2012)
_____________________
OPINION
_____________________
SMITH, Circuit Judge.
In 1985, Kenneth J. Williams was convicted by a jury of first degree murder
and was sentenced to death. On December 26, 1995, after unsuccessfully
appealing his conviction and sentence, Williams petitioned for post-conviction
relief under Pennsylvania’s Post-Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), raising claims
concerning the guilt phase as well as the penalty phase of his trial. On December
27, 1995, Williams filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania a parallel petition
for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. This federal petition was quickly
dismissed without prejudice.
On October 17, 2003, after years of litigation in state court concerning the
timeliness of his PCRA petition, the PCRA court granted his petition as to his
penalty phase claims. The court granted Williams a new penalty phase. The
PCRA court rejected, however, all of Williams’s guilt phase claims. The PCRA
court’s decision was appealed, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated the
decision and remanded for reconsideration. On remand, the PCRA Court again
granted Williams’ PCRA petition as to his penalty phase claims, but denied his
petition as to his guilt phase claims. On June 17, 2008, the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court affirmed this second decision. At Williams’s resentencing, Williams
received a life sentence. He did not appeal this new sentence.
On December 14, 2009, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the
PCRA court’s decision, Williams filed a motion to reactivate his federal habeas
proceeding, and to file an amended habeas petition under § 2254 focusing
exclusively on his guilt phase claims. On February 8, 2010, the District Court
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granted Williams’s motion, and deemed his amended habeas petition filed nunc
pro tunc to December 14, 2009.
The District Court referred Williams’s petition to a Magistrate Judge, who
recommended that the petition be denied. Williams filed written objections to the
Magistrate’s report and recommendation. On January 11, 2011, the District Court
rejected Williams’s objections, adopted the Magistrate Judge’s report and
recommendation, and dismissed Williams’s petition. The District Court declined
to issue a certificate of appealability under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c).
Williams filed a timely appeal, along with a motion for a certificate of
appealability. A panel of this court granted Williams a certificate of appealability
as to two issues: (1) whether Williams was denied his right to effective assistance
of counsel at a “critical” stage prior to trial; and (2) whether an informal
conference with the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court violated
Williams’s right to due process. 1
Because the District Court “relied exclusively on the state court record and
did not hold an evidentiary hearing, our review is plenary.” Palmer v. Hendricks,
592 F.3d 386, 392 (3d Cir. 2010). “We review the decision of the state court under
the same standard that the District Court was required to apply.” Saranchak v.
1
The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241, 2254. This court
has appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291, 2253.
3
Beard, 616 F.3d 292, 301 (3d Cir. 2010). A district court’s authority to review a
state court’s denial of post-conviction relief is limited by the Antiterrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996).
Because the PCRA Court denied Williams’s guilt phase claims on the merits, we
may grant habeas relief only if the PCRA Court’s adjudication of Williams’s
claims “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable
application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme
Court of the United States; or . . . in a decision that was based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court
proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
First, “a trial is unfair if the accused is denied counsel at a critical stage of
his trial.” United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 659 (1984). Williams argues
that he was denied his right to counsel when he was nominally represented by the
Lehigh County Public Defender’s Office while they were actively trying to
withdraw from the case. He further argues that this was a critical stage of his case
because it was during this period that the court set a firm date for his trial, and
thus that he was denied his constitutional rights.
A critical stage is “every stage of a criminal proceeding where substantial
rights of a criminal accused may be affected.” Mempa v. Rhay, 389 U.S. 128, 134
(1967). The PCRA Court concluded that “[t]he setting of a trial date is a
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ministerial matter . . . and does not remotely constitute a critical stage.” App’x A-
133. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed. App’x A-93. Williams has not
shown that this conclusion was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable
application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme
Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). 2
Second, Williams argues that an informal conference with the Chief Justice
of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court violated his due process rights because the
party who petitioned for the hearing “failed to properly invoke the court’s
jurisdiction,” and because “the decisions to substitute counsel and to provide the
new lawyer with a mere 21 days to prepare were made in these improperly
conducted proceedings.” Appellant’s Br. at 27.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that the “Chief Justice did not
make any definitive ruling” at the conference. App’x A-93. 3 Because no
definitive ruling with respect to the trial date was made at the conference, the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded, there was no due process violation
2
Williams cites extensively to Yohn v. Love, 76 F.3d 508, 522 (3d Cir. 1996), in
support of his argument. Yohn, however, was not “determined by the Supreme
Court of the United States,” and is thus not sufficient to overcome § 2254(d)(1).
See Brown v. Wenerowicz, 663 F.3d 619, 630 (3d Cir. 2011).
3
This factual finding was not “based on an unreasonable determination of the facts
in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding,” and we are bound
to accept the finding. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2).
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“regardless of the technical propriety of the proceedings . . . .” Id. We agree—
assuming, without deciding that the hearing was technically inappropriate, it did
not result in a definitive ruling, and any resulting error was harmless. 4
Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.
4
Williams argues that this alleged error is a “structural” error not subject to
harmless error review. We disagree. Given the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s
finding that no definitive ruling was made at the conference, any error arising out
of that hearing did not “infect the entire trial process,” and thus was merely a
“trial” error. See generally United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 148-51
(2006) (discussing the difference between trial error and structural error); Palmer
v. Hendricks, 592 F.3d 386, 397 (3d Cir. 2010) (same).
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