Conn v. Lavan , 331 F. App'x 122 ( 2009 )

Opinions of the United
2009 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
5-28-2009
Conn v. Lavan
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 05-4444
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"Conn v. Lavan" (2009). 2009 Decisions. Paper 1300.
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 05-4444
____________
JOHN CONN,
Appellant
vs.
THOMAS LAVAN; THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF THE
COUNTY OF PHILADELPHIA; THE ATTORNEY
GENERAL OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
____________
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
(D.C. Civ. No. 04-CV-01990)
District Judge: Honorable Lawrence F. Stengel
____________
Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
March 2, 2009
Before: BARRY, WEIS and ROTH, Circuit Judges.
(Filed: May 28, 2009)
____________
OPINION
WEIS, Circuit Judge.
John Conn appeals the District Court’s order denying his habeas corpus
petition. We will affirm.
1
On February 20, 1981, a jury empaneled in the Court of Common Pleas of
Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, convicted Conn of second degree murder, arson,
burglary, and theft. The convictions arose from a series of events in which Martha
Greiss, an elderly, deaf woman was killed and her house was burgled and set ablaze.
Conn was sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment for murder and a
consecutive term of five to ten years for arson.
After exhausting his direct appeal capabilities, Conn filed a pro se petition
under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541 et seq.,
raising a number of claims for relief. The Court of Common Pleas denied his petition.
The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed on October 2, 2003, and the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal on February 18, 2004.
On May 7, 2004, Conn filed a pro se petition for habeas corpus in the
District Court. In that petition, Conn set forth a claim he had pursued during his PCRA
proceedings – that he received ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial counsel
failed to investigate or call Robert Dugan as a witness. On June 7, 2004, Conn filed a
motion to amend his habeas corpus petition. The District Court granted Conn’s motion
on June 9, stating, “Petitioner’s amendment shall be filed by July 9, 2004.” Conn filed an
amended petition on July 7, 2004, that raised seven additional issues.
A magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation on Conn’s petition
on January 31, 2005. With respect to the claim that he received ineffective assistance of
2
counsel because his trial counsel failed to call for Dugan’s testimony, the magistrate
judge found that the Pennsylvania Superior Court reasonably applied Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). The magistrate judge also determined that the
remainder of Conn’s claims, which were presented in his amended petition, were barred
by the statute of limitations set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d).1 Accordingly, the magistrate
judge recommended that Conn’s petition be denied.
In an order entered August 31, 2005, the District Court approved and
adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation over Conn’s objections and
denied his habeas corpus petition in its entirety. Subsequently, on January 22, 2008, we
granted Conn’s petition for a certificate of appealability as to the following issues:
“1) whether [Conn’s] trial attorney was ineffective for failing
to investigate or call Robert Dugan as a witness; and 2)
whether the District Court erred in denying appellant
equitable tolling because the Magistrate Judge’s order
granting his motion to amend misled him into believing he
had until July 9, 2004, to add his new claims.”
Since the District Court did not hold an evidentiary hearing, our review of
its order is plenary. Holland v. Horn, 519 F.3d 107, 111 (3d Cir. 2008).
We will address the ineffective assistance of counsel issue first. Conn
argues that the Pennsylvania Superior Court “utterly failed” in applying Strickland to his
1
28 U.S.C. § 2244(d) provides, with qualifications, a general one-year
period of limitations for persons in custody pursuant to a state court judgment to file a
petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
3
PCRA petition.
We agree with the District Court that the Superior Court’s application of
Strickland was not unreasonable. “[A] federal court may not grant a state prisoner’s
habeas application unless the relevant state-court decision ‘was contrary to, or involved
an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the
Supreme Court of the United States.’” Knowles v. Mirzayance, 129 S. Ct. 1411, 1418
(2009) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)). Given the overwhelming qualitative and
quantitative evidence of Conn’s guilt at trial and our “doubly deferential” review in this
case, id. at 1420, we cannot say that the Superior Court’s conclusion was unreasonable.
Conn did not demonstrate a reasonable probability that the result of his trial
would have been different had counsel investigated Dugan’s knowledge of the events at
issue or called Dugan as a witness. See id. at 1422 (to establish the “prejudice” that
Strickland requires, a claimant of ineffective assistance of counsel must demonstrate “a
reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the
proceeding would have been different” (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694)).
Consequently, Conn is not entitled to habeas corpus relief on his claim that he received
ineffective assistance of counsel.
We do not have authority to review the second issue identified in the
certificate of appealability – whether the District Court erred in denying equitable tolling
of § 2244(d)’s statute of limitations for the remaining claims presented in the amended
4
habeas corpus petition.
The Supreme Court has held that when a District Court denies a habeas
corpus petition on procedural grounds, a certificate of appealability “should issue . . .
when the prisoner shows . . . ‘that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the
petition states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right and that jurists of reason
would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its procedural ruling.’”
Jimenez v. Quarterman, 129 S. Ct. 681, 684 n.3 (2009) (quoting Slack v. McDaniel, 529
U.S. 473, 484 (2000)).
The District Court’s denial of the seven habeas claims first presented in the
amended petition of July 7, 2004, was founded on a procedural basis. Conn has not
demonstrated that jurists of reason would debate that any of the seven issues first
presented in that petition state a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right. After
further review, we conclude that we improvidently granted the certificate of appealability
on the equitable tolling issue. See Khaimov v. Crist, 297 F.3d 783, 786 (8th Cir. 2002) (a
certificate of appealability initially granted by the Court of Appeals was improvidently
granted in an appeal from the denial of a habeas corpus petition because, while the
District Court’s resolution of procedural issues was debatable, the substantive
constitutional claims raised by the petitioner were meritless). Consequently, we lack
jurisdiction over the equitable tolling issue we identified in the certificate of appealability.
See Lambert v. Blackwell, 387 F.3d 210, 230 (3d Cir. 2004) (“[w]e only have jurisdiction
5
if this Court or a District Court has properly issued a certificate of appealability pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)”).
In sum, we lack jurisdiction to review the merits of the procedural issue, but
will affirm the District Court’s order denying Conn’s habeas corpus petition.
6