2012 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

1-4-2012

Daniel Spuck v. Commonwealth of PA

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential

Docket No. 11-3167

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"Daniel Spuck v. Commonwealth of PA" (2012). 2012 Decisions. Paper 1639.

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DLD-072 NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 11-3167

___________

DANIEL LUKE SPUCK, 

Appellant

v.

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil No. 3-11-cv-00125)

District Judge: Kim R. Gibson

____________________________________

Submitted for Possible Dismissal Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)

or Summary Action Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6

or Issuance of a Certificate of Appealability Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)

December 22, 2011

Before: AMBRO, JORDAN and VANASKIE, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed January 4, 2012)

_________________

OPINION

_________________

PER CURIAM

Daniel Luke Spuck (“Spuck”) is a Pennsylvania state prisoner. He is serving a 

sentence of eleven to twenty-two years, which term was imposed in 1996 after a jury 

found him guilty of both third degree murder in the stabbing death of Michael Cramer, 
2

and recklessly endangering another person in the stabbing of his wife, Cindy Spuck. 

Cramer was Cindy Spuck’s former husband. Spuck’s conviction and sentence were 

upheld on direct appeal, and his numerous applications for postconviction relief have to 

date been unsuccessful.

In May 2011, Spuck initiated this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

1

 In 

his amended complaint, Spuck alleged that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (“the 

Commonwealth”) has unlawfully prohibited him from “re-test[ing] the DNA and Blood 

Evidence to allow the plaintiff to prove his innocence.” Spuck alleged that his 

“Innocence and Defense Theory is that Mr. Cramer and Mrs. Spuck were struggling and 

that Mrs. Spuck was raped by Mr. Cramer earlier that night or evening and it was Mrs. 

Spuck whom [sic] murdered Mr. Cramer, whom [sic] had a .23 alcohol level.” Spuck 

claimed that the Commonwealth’s denial of DNA testing demonstrates that it is 

“violating and continuing to violate the Plaintiff’s . . . Fourteenth Amendment Right of 

Due Process.” 

The District Court dismissed Spuck’s amended complaint for failure to state a 

claim upon which relief could be granted. The District Court reasoned as follows: “Like 

the first complaint, the amended complaint alleges error in the state court’s denial of 

DNA testing, but not a denial of due process. This Court has no jurisdiction to correct 

 

1

Spuck’s original complaint was incorrectly labeled on the District Court’s docket as a 

petition for writ of habeas corpus.
3

mere errors of state law.” Spuck appealed.2

Contrary to the reasoning of the District Court, in both his original and amended 

complaints Spuck explicitly tethered his factual allegations to a due process claim. 

Nevertheless, we will summarily affirm the judgment of the District Court because it 

correctly determined that Spuck failed to state a due process claim upon which relief 

could be granted.

3

In Skinner v. Switzer, --- U.S. ---, 131 S. Ct. 1289 (2011), the Supreme Court of 

the United States held that a convicted state prisoner may request via § 1983 the DNA 

testing of crime-scene evidence. Id. at 1298.4 The basis for such a request does not 

derive from any substantive due process right secured by the Constitution’s Fourteenth 

Amendment. See id. at 1299 (citing Dist. Attorney’s Office for Third Judicial Dist. v. 

Osborne, 557 U.S. 52, ---, 129 S. Ct. 2308, 2322 (2009)). Instead, the request must be 

premised on the violation of a prisoner’s procedural due process rights. However, we 

have noted that “procedural due process does not require that a district attorney disclose 

all potentially exculpatory evidence for postconviction relief.” Grier, 591 F.3d at 678

(emphasis in original). As made clear by Osborne and Skinner, a procedural due process 

 

2 We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Our review is plenary. See Allah v. 

Seiverling, 229 F.3d 220, 223 (3d Cir. 2000). 

3

Summary affirmance is proper when an appeal fails to present a substantial question. 

See Murray v. Bledsoe, 650 F.3d 246, 247 (3d Cir. 2011) (per curiam). We “may affirm 

the District Court’s judgment on any basis supported by the record.” Id.

4 We held as much prior to Skinner in Grier v. Klem, 591 F.3d 672, 678 (3d Cir. 2010).
4

claim will only lie where a State’s procedures for postconviction relief—and in particular 

those procedures in place for consideration of DNA-testing requests—are so flawed as to 

be “fundamentally unfair or constitutionally inadequate.” Id. at 679; see also Skinner, 

131 S. Ct. at 1293 (noting that Osborne “left slim room for the prisoner to show that the 

governing state law denies him procedural due process”).

Liberally construing, and accepting as true, the allegations in Spuck’s amended 

complaint, as we must, see Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007), it is clear that 

Spuck has failed to state a viable procedural due process claim based on the 

Commonwealth’s alleged refusal to conduct DNA testing on evidence from the CramerSpuck crime scene. In particular, we discern no attempt by Spuck to explain how 

Pennsylvania’s specific procedures for postconviction DNA testing5are inadequate as a 

matter of federal law.

Accordingly, we will summarily affirm the judgment of the District Court. 

Spuck’s motions for appointment of counsel and for “amending of newly discovered 

evidence” are denied. Spuck’s request for a certificate of appealability is denied as 

unnecessary.

 

5

 In July 2002, the Pennsylvania legislature amended the State’s Post Conviction Relief 

Act (PCRA) to permit requests for postconviction DNA testing. See Com. v. Williams, 

899 A.2d 1060, 1062-63 (Pa. 2006) (citing 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 9543.1). The 

allegations in Spuck’s amended complaint shed no light on whether the PCRA court 

considered § 9543.1 in denying his most recent PCRA petition. Spuck merely alleges 

that “[t]he motion petition [sic] to test/ retest the blood and DNA evidence was denied . . . 

on April 20, 2011.”