[ J
- 57
- 2020 ] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

EASTERN DISTRICT

BAER , C.J., SAYLOR , TODD, DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, JJ.

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA,

Appellee

v.

MELVIN SPEIGHT, Appellant : : : : : : : : : : : No. 778 CAP Appeal from the Order entered on March 20, 2019 in the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County, Criminal Division at No. CP

51

- CR

- 1036271

- 1992. SUBMITTED: May 29, 2020

O PINION

JUSTICE DOUGHERTY DECIDED: April 29, 2021 In 2017, t he United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
denied appellant Melvin Speight’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus relative to challenges to the guilt phase of his state c riminal trial, but granted relief with respect to
his death sentence and remanded the case to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for resentencing. In granting this limited penalty

- phase relief the District Court ’s order cited only the agreement of th e parties indicating such relief was unopposed

. For that reason,

w hen appellant’s case finally returned to the state court for resentencing in 2019, the court
declined to resentence him

. The sentencing court took the position that the federal District Co urt lacked authority to grant relief based exclusively on the agreement of the parties in the absence of an independent judicial determination consistent with 28 U.S. C . §2254(d) ( habeas corpus relief shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court proceedings unless the adjudication resulted in a decision that[J

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was contrary to , or an unreasonable application of , federal law, or the decision was bas ed on an unreasonable determination of facts in light of the evidence presented)

. As a result,
th e sentencing court issued an order declaring appellant’s “sentence of death stands.”
W e now vacate the court’s order and remand for resentencing

. The facts s upporting appellant’s c onvictions are largely irrelevant to the issues before us

. It suffices to say he was convicted in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in 1993 of two counts of first

- degree murder and related offenses and sentenced to death. This Court affirm ed hi s judgmen t of sentence on direct appeal and , later, t wice affirmed orders denying him post

- conviction relief. Commonwealth v. Speight , 677 A.2d 317 (Pa. 1996) , cert. denied

, 519 U.S. 1119 (1997); Commonwealt h v. Speight , 854 A.2d 450 (Pa. 2004); Commonwealth v. Speight , 986 A.2d 759 (Pa. 2009) ( per curiam )

. Appellant also sought relief in the federal courts. In 2005, he petitioned the United States District Court fo r the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for a writ of habeas corpus raising seventeen claims for relief

— some of which pointedly a ttacked the validity of his
death sentence

. See Speight v. Beard , No. CV 04

- 4110, 2017 WL 914907, at *3 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 7, 2017) (Qui ñ ones Alejandro, J.)

. For its part, the Commonwealth, represented by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, filed an answer on December 22, 2014, in
which it contested appellant’s claims pertaining to his convictions but raised no procedural or substantive defense s to the claims of se ntencing error. M ost relevant for our purpos e s , the Commonwealth conveyed to the court that it was “‘ not contest[ing] a conditional grant of relief as to [appellant]’s death sentence [,] ’ ” and , further , that it “‘ will not seek a new capital sentencing proc eeding in connection with this case

. ’ ” Id. , quoting Response to Habeas Petition , 12/22/2014 , at 10 n.11. 1

1 Of note, however, the Commonwealth’s response went on to explain that its agreement to sentencing relief was made with “the understanding that this will not be understood or argued to constitute a concession that any of [appellant]’s claims have merit.” Id . Indeed,[J

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The District Court subsequently referred the case to a magistrate judge to issue a report and recommendation on appellant ’s petition. See 28 U.S.C. §636(b)(1)(B) (“a judge may also designate a magi strate judge

. . . to submit to a judge of the court proposed findings of fact and recommendations for the disposition . . . of applications for posttrial relief made by individuals convicted of criminal of f enses and of prisoner petitions challenging conditions of confinement”). “Following an extensive review of [appellant]’s claims and the record,” the magistrate judge recommended the “petition for habeas
corpus relief be denied and dismissed as to the guil t phase of [appellant]’s trial, and . . . [appellant]’s sentence of death be vacated and [appellant] sentenced to life imprisonment, in accordance with [the Commonwealth’s] representations and stipulation to the grant of this limited relief.” Speight v. B eard , No. CV 04

- 4110, 2016 WL 8459847, at *4 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 29, 2016) (Caracappa, C.M.J.). 2 Appellant filed objection s to the magistrate judge’s report and the Commonwealth responded. On March 7, 2017, the District Court issued an order and written opinion approving and adopting the magistrate judge’s recommendations to deny appellant guilt

- phase relief but grant penalty

- phase relief. See Speight , 2017 WL 914907, at *1 (“Upon a thoroug h and independent review of the state record, the relevant court filings, and a de novo

beyond its general and vague acquiescence to penalty

- phase relief, the Commonwealth otherwise “did not address any of [appellant]’s claims that challenged his sentence.” Id

. The parties have curiously omitted any discussion of this aspect of the Commonwealth’s position in their briefs before this Court.

2 Relative to this latter recommendation, the magistrate judge candidly acknowledged her report did “not address [appellant]’s claims two, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen, which deal with [his] sentencing[,]” “because [the Commonwealth had ] stated [it] will not contest a grant of relief as to [his] death sentence[.]” Id . In other words, it is unclear which (if any) of appellant’s various sentencing claims the magistrate judge b elieved was meritorious , whereas the Commonwealth apparently believed there was no meritorious claim

— or at least none that it was willing to admit at that time, even though it agreed that relief was proper.[J

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review of [appellant]’ s objections, . . . this Court overrules [appellant]’s objections , approves and adopts the [Report and Recommendation ] , and denies the petition fo r a writ of habeas corpus as to the guilt phase of [appellant]’s trial. With respect to [appellant]’s sentence of death, upon agreement of the parties (as described herein), [appellant]’s death sentence is vacated, and [appellant] is to be re

- sentenced to a term of life imprisonment”)

. The District Court’s accompanying order mirrored the court’s written opinio n , stating in relevant part : With respect to the penalty of death, upon agreement of [appellant] and [the Commonwealth], the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is GRANTED , and [appellant]’s case is remanded to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for re - sentencing. District Court Order, 3/7/2017 , at 1 (emphasis in original)

. According to appellant, as a consequence of this order the Dep artment of Corrections removed him from death row and transferred him to general population

. See Appellant’s Brief at 14. Meanwhile, he elaborates, he sought a certificate of appealability from the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit with respect t o the denial of his guilt phase claims, which

was denied on June 15, 2018 , at docket number 17

- 1725.
T he case then returned to the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia and was assigned to the (now retired) Honorable Kathryn Streeter L ewis. But when the p arties joint ly request ed that the court schedule a resentencing hearing in conformity with the District Court’s order, Judge Streeter Lewis instead directed the parties to file memoranda addressing the legal effect of the federal court’s grant of relief pr emised only on the parties’ agreement , especially in light of the decisions in Commonwealth v. Brown , 196 A.3d 130 (Pa. 2018) , and Sibron v. New York , 392 U.S. 40 (1968). 3 On March 8, 2019,

3 As it relates to the present case , these decisions generally stand for the proposition that

“ a district attorney ’ s concession of error is not a substitute for independent judicial review. ” Brown , 196 A.3d at 146; see Sibron , 392 U.S. at 58 (“Confessions of error are, of course,[J

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appellant complied and filed a memorandum in which he asserted neither Brown nor Sibron “alter the conclusion that the federal court Order binds this Court.” Appellant’s Memorandum, 3/8/2019, at 4. Moreover , he argued those cases are distinguishable in that th ey both involved situations in which courts were deciding whether to accept a prosecutor’s con fession of error ; they did not address the present circumstances in which a federal court already exercised its judgment and granted habeas relief. See id . The Commonwealth fully agreed with this assessment

. See Commonwealth’s Memorandum, 3/8/2019, at 1.
But Judge Streeter Lewis was not persuaded

. O n March 20, 2019, she issued an order declaring the court “ has no authority to vacate [appellant]’s sentence . . . pending an independent judicial determination by the [f]ederal c ourt of [appellant]’s habeas corpus death penalty claim as required pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. §2254(d)(1)(2).” Trial Court Order, 3/20/2019, at 1

- 2. In support of this order, Judge Streeter Lewis reasoned: “An agreement between the parties, ab sent a judicial determination of a violation of clearly established [f]ederal law as determined by the United States Supreme Court or an unreasonable determination of facts in light of the evidence presented in the [s] tate court proceeding, is not sufficie nt to warrant the grant of habeas corpus relief, direct that the original sentence imposed be vacated, and order resentencing.” Id . at 2, citing

, e.g. , Sibron , supra ; Young , supra ; Brown , supra

. Judge Streeter Lewis ultimately concluded that, “pending a determination on the merits of [appellant]’s death penalty claim , pursuant to [Section 2254(d)] by the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, [appellant]’s sentence of death stands .” Id . (emphasis added).

entitled to and g iven great weight, but they do not ‘relieve this Court of the performance of the judicial function.’”), quoting Young v. United States , 315 U.S. 257, 258 (1942).[J

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Appellant filed an u nopposed motion for reconsideration on April 4, 2019, in which he contended the court’s March 20th order “is a nullity because it purports to hold [him] under a sentence of death that was invalidated as a matter of law two years ago.” Motion
to Reconsider , 4/4/2019, at 2; see also id . at 5 (arguing the “federal court order here thus invalidated [his] death sentence, and the Commonwealth could re

- impose a death sentence only through a capital resentencing proceeding”). However, less than two weeks later th e Honorable Lillian H. Ransom was appointed to take over the case , a s Judge Streeter Lewis wa s no longer sitting in th e jurisdiction due to her retirement from
the bench

. See Appointment Order, 4/17/2019, at 1. Five days after that , on April 22, 2019, ap pellant filed t h e present appeal , thereby divesting the common pleas court of jurisdiction to rule upon hi s motion for reconsideration of Judge Streeter Lewis’s order,
which was entered more than 30 days prior to that point

. S ee Pa.R.A.P. 1701(a) (except as otherwise prescribed, after an appeal is taken, the trial court may no longer proceed further in the matter); 42 Pa.C.S. §5505 (“Except as otherwise provided or prescribed by law, a court upon notice to the parties may modify or rescind any other within 30 days after its entry . . . if no appeal from such order has been taken or allowed.”)

. Significantly, approximately two months after Judge Streeter Lewis r etired and the common pleas court had lost j urisdiction by virtue of appellant’s notice of appeal, the federal District Court clarified its prior order granting appellant habeas relief

. This clarification appeared i n a June 18, 2019 order, in response to a June 13, 2019 motion filed by appellant and consented to by th e Commonwealth, which “asked the D istrict Court to clarify that its judgment had vacated [appellant]’s death sentence as a matter of law [

. ]” Appellant’s Brief at 15 (emphasis added)

. 4 In its June 18th order, t he District Court not

4 Apparently, the court of common pleas’ March 20th order announcing that appellant’s “sentenc e of death stands” prompted the Department of Corrections, on June 6, 2019, to[J

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only instructed the Department of Corrections to return a ppellant to the general prison popul ation and reiterated that his “execution shall remain stayed [ , ] ” but it also explained as follows: In the underlying motion, [appellant] advises this Court that a state court judge refused to resentence him and deemed this Court’s Order and Judgment “not sufficient to warrant the grant of habeas relief” and, therefore, [appellant] moves for a clarifying order. [Appellant] has also appealed the state court judge’s refusal to resentence him to the Pennsylvania [Supreme] Court. In light of this procedural posture, [appellant]’s consent motion is denied without prejudice to its refiling, if appropriate, fo llowing the conclusion of [appellant]’s current state court appellate proceedings. Further, the Court’s Memorandum Opinion and Order of March [ 7, 2017 ], are unambiguous and need no clarification. A reasonable reading of this Court’s March 7, 2017 Memoran dum Opinion and Order shows that [appellant]’s sentence of death was invalidated as a matter of federal law . Nevertheless, this Court’s determination and judgment that [appellant] is no longer death

- penalty eligible is a determination that must be upheld and enforced by the state prison authority unless and until advised otherwise. This Court will allow for the state court appellate process to address [appellant]’s issues with the state Common Pleas Court judge’s opinion. District Cou rt Order, 6/18/2 019, at 1 n.1 (emphasis added). A few months later, J udge Ransom author ed a Pa.R.A.P 1925(a) opinion with respect to this appeal

. She opined at the outset that “this case provides an opportunity to consider a novel question of law: d oes the Supremacy Cla use obligate a state court to abide by an order of the District Court where the District Court has failed to follow the requirements of 28 U.S.C.A. §2254(d)(1)(2)?” Trial Court Op., 9/16/2019, at 2. She then proceeded to answer that question in the negat ive, adopting Judg e Streeter Lewis’s position that the court of common pleas was “not compelled to resentence [appellant] without an independent judicial determination made by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.” Id

. at 2

- 3; see also id

. at 3

- 4 (“Absent a judicial

remove appellant from the general prison population and place him back on death row , which in turn pro mpted appellant’s federal motion

. See Appellant’s Brief at 15.[J

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determination of a violation of clearly established law as determined by the United States Supreme Court or an unreasonable determination of facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court procee ding, an agreement between the parties is not sufficient to warrant the grant of habeas corpus relief [.]”). In Judge Ransom’s view, like that of Judge Streeter Lewis, it appeared the District Court “ did not make an independent decision” because the court’ s March 7 th order “ only references . . . review of the Report and Recommendation submitted by [the magistrate judge], in which [the magistrate judge] accepted the agreement of the parties rather than conducting an independent review of
the evidence submitt ed by the parties.” Id . at 4 (internal quotations omitted). Judge Ransom cited as support the circumstances and result in Wright v. Lamas , No. 13

- CV

- 06420

- WB, 2018 WL 2201585 (E.D. Pa. May 14, 2018), vacated , 2019 WL 1492208 (E.D. Pa. Apr. 3, 2019) . In t hat matter, Judge Streeter Lewis similarly declined to abide by a federal court’ s order which had directed t he vacatur of Wright ’s judgment of sentence for first

- degree murder so that he could plead guilty to third

- degree murder. When the parties returned to federal court to contest Judge Streeter Lewis’ s refusal , the magistrate judge issued a new report and recommendation in which he specifically stated he had independently considered all of the relevant material and concluded habeas relief
was proper as a matter of federal law

. Wright v. Lamas , No. 13

- CV

- 06420

- WB, 2019 WL 1496055, at *9 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 29, 2019) (“Because the Court of Common Pleas expressed doubt about whether there was a ‘determination on the merits’ of the petition for habeas
corpus , I will elaborate on the legal bases for the determination made in this case.”). T he District Court accepted the magistrate judge’s re vised report and recommendation , see Wright , 2019 WL 1492208 , at *1, and Wright was thereafter resentenced in state cour t in
accordance wi th the terms of the agreement.[J

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Although Judge Ransom recognized the magistrate judge in the Wright matter was critical of Judge Streeter Lewis’s approach , see Wright , 2019 WL 1496055, at * 8 n.10 (asserting , inter alia , that the “authority to comply with the federal court’s judgment inheres in the judgment itself, under the Supremacy Clause, whether or not a state official views the order as erroneous in some respect”), she nevertheless concluded the magistrate judge’s reproach was contradi cted by the holding in yet another case of the same ilk. In this respect, Judge Ransom pointed to the decision in Wharton v. Vaughn , 371 F. Supp. 3d 195 (E.D. Pa. 2019) (Goldberg, J.). There, Judge Goldberg stated: The federal statute authorizing a district court to grant habeas relief t o a state prisoner, 28 U.S.C. [ § ] 2254, limits a district court’ s authority to grant such relief. Specifically, [ § ] 2254(a) provides, in relevant part, that “ a district court shall ent ertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus

. . . only on the ground that [the state prisoner] is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States

. ” (emphasis added) [.] Thus, under [ § ] 2254, a district court’ s auth ority to grant the writ is limited to those cases in which there has been a violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States. It logically follows that a district court cannot dispense with this limitation merely because the prosecutor has now c hanged its position and conceded that there has been such a violation. In addition to being consistent with the plain text of [ § ] 2254, this conclusion is supported by the cases that address the effect of a state ’ s concession of a habeas claim. At least two Courts of Appeals

— the Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Seventh Circuits

— have squarely addressed the question and concluded that such a concession does not relieve a court of its responsibility to consider the merits of a habeas claim. See Johnson v. McCaughtry

, 265 F.3d 559, 564 (7th Cir. 2001); Every v. Blackburn , 781 F.2d 1138, 1140

- 41 (5th Cir. 1986). Id . at 199 (emphasis supplied by District Court). Based on this non

- binding precedent, Judge Ransom held that, as ultimately occurred in the Wright case, the District Court here was “required to make an independent review of the case rather than simply accept [ ] the[J

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agreement of the parties and issu [e] a Report and Recommendation based solely on the acceptan ce of the agreement.” Trial Court Op., 9/16/2019, at 6. 5
Before address ing the sentencing court’ s order and attendant legal conclusions , we must first determine whether jurisdiction properly lies in this Court. We previously recognized that the unique procedural posture of this appeal would likely pose equally unique jurisdictional concerns, so we deferred a determination of our jurisdiction , and directed the parties to advance a developed argument on the matter , particularly given
the sentencin g court’s conclusion that the District Court’s order was issued without authority. Order, 12/9/2019, at 1 ( per curiam ). This threshold jurisdictional i ssue presents a question of law over which our standard of review is de novo and our scope of review
is plenary. Commonwealth v. Kindler , 147 A.3d 890, 8 93 (Pa. 2016). Appellant forwards two plausible ways to characterize the lower court’s order: (1) the District Court invalidated appellant’s death s entence, but the sentencing court re

imposed it when it stated in its order that his “sentence of death stands”; or (2) the sentencing court decided the District Court had failed to comply with federal law, and on that basis refused to comply with the federal court’s order and mandate, allowing the
death senten ce to remain in effect through its inaction

. See Appellant’s Brief at 3. Recognizing this latter view, so interpreted, would create a “strange jurisdictional beast,”
id ., appellant urges that we adopt his first proposed interpretation.

5 In her op inion, Judge Ransom seemingly expressed her acknowledgment of the District Court’s June 18, 2019 order directing the Department of Corrections to remove appellant from death row and stay ing his execution. See id . at 2. But, for reasons that are unclear, she made no mention at all of the District Court’s footnoted, supplementary explanation th at appellant’s sentence of death was , in fact, “ invalidated as a matter of federal law.” District Court Order, 6/18/2019, at 1 n.1. In any event, we observe it makes no difference whether Judge Ransom was aware of the District Court’s clarification or not because, as detailed supra , she had already lost jurisdiction over appellant’s case by the time the District Court issued it.[J

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Viewing Judge Streeter Lewis ’s order in that way
— i.e. , as effectively re

- impos ing a death sentence after the federal court had vacated it

— appellant argues the order triggered this Court’s automati c review under 42 Pa.C.S. §9711(h)(1) (“A sentence of
death shall be s ubject to automatic review by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania pursuant to its rules.” ). S ee also Pa.R.A.P. 702, Note (“it is the imposition of the sentence of death that triggers Supreme Court direct review”). Appellant also directs us to Section
722 o f the Judicial Code, which states that this Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction of appeals from final orders of the courts of common pleas in certain classes of cases, including “ [a]utomatic review of sentences as provided by 42 Pa.C.S. §§9546(d) (rela ting to relief and order) and 9711(h) (relating to review of death sentence).” 42 Pa.C.S. §722(4). In appellant’s v iew, this Court’s capital precedents indicate that “the general class of cases under §722(4) includes those in which a death sentence has b een imposed and has not been conclusively vacated.” Appellant’s Brief at 7 (emphasis in original), citing Commonwealth v. Cooper , 941 A.2d 655, 6 60 (Pa. 2007) ( “In prior cases that involved collateral review, we have characterized matters in which a lower court vacated the death sentence as ones ‘in which the death penalty has been imposed,’ thus triggering our review” ) (citation omitted) ; Commonwealth v. Bryan t , 780 A.2d 646, 648 (Pa. 2001) (“the legislature did not require that the sentence of death actu ally be pending in order for this Court to have jurisdiction” pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. §9546(d) ). “As in Cooper and Bryant ,” appellant concludes , “this appeal concerns a trial court order deciding the validity of that sentence” and so “falls squarely within the class of cases governed by §722(4).”
Id . at 7

- 8. As a backstop, appellant additionally submits that, even if the language of Sections 722(3), 9546(d), and 9711(h) is ambiguous as applied to the unusual circumstances of this case, we should still exe rcise exclusive jurisdiction. Se e id

. at 8

- 9. This is so, he[J

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argues , because “[i]n assigning exclusive review of all death penalty appeals to this Court, the Legislature’s core purpose was to ‘assur[e] the integrity of the capital sentencing process.’” Id

. at 9, quoting Commonwealth v. Graham , 661 A.2d 1367, 1369 n.1 (Pa. 1995); see also Commonwealth v. Appel , 53 9 A.2d 780, 781 (Pa. 1988) (“automatic review by this Court in all cases in which the sentence of death has been imposed is an integral and abso lutely essential procedural safeguard . . . to ensure that the sentences imposed comport with the requirements of our death penalty statute and may be legitimately executed”). Appellant posits that the unprecedented nature of the sentencing court’s order heightens the need for the “ essential procedural safeguard ” of this Court’s review because the sole question in this appeal is whether he “is under a death sentence that ‘may be legitimately executed,’ and the Legislature clearly intended that this Court

w ould answer that question.” Appellant’s Brief at 9. The Commonwealth is in full accord with appellant’s jurisdictional argument. It

a dds that, by choosing not to resentence appellant, Judge Streeter Lewis disposed of the sole claim before her and precluded further proceedings on the issue, thereby rendering the order final and immediately appealable. Commonwealth’s Brief at 9

- 10, citing , e.g. , Pa.R.A.P. 341(a) (“[A]n appeal may be taken as of right from any final order of a . . . trial court.” ). The Commonwealth further shares appellant’s belief that this Court , rather than the Superior Court, is the proper forum to hear the appeal, pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. §9711(h). It explains that “[ t ]his Court’s capital appeal jurisdiction under [Section] 9 711 exists for precisely this type of defendant

— one who is actually aggrieved by the murder sentence below and whose life/death outcome is unclear.” Id . at 11 (internal quotations omitted); see also id

. at 7 (this Court has jurisdiction in cases “in whi ch the finality of a defendant’s sentence of death is unsettled”). C f. Commonwealth v. Rompilla , 983 A.2d 1207, 1211 (Pa. 2009) (holding that Rompilla was not the type of defendant for whom this[J

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Court’s capital appeal jurisdiction exists since the trial c ourt resentenced him to life imprisonment following a federal habeas grant of penalty

- phase relief). Alternatively, the Commonwealth suggests it would be appropriate to exercise our King’s Bench jurisdiction over this appeal to asse r t our supervisor y powe rs over the common pleas co urt. Commonwealth’s Brief at 11. The parties rightfully recognize this case is , in more ways than one , quite peculiar

. See , e.g. , Appellant’s Brief at 3 (“This case reaches this Court in an unusual posture[.]”); Commonwealth’s Brief at 11 (“Because of the unusual way the Common Pleas Court handled it, this is not a typical case.”). In an effort to un pack some of those peculiarities, which will in turn aid in both our jurisdictional and substantive discussion, we find it helpful to begin by repeating some brief background on the role of federal courts and the purpose of federal collatera l review of state convictions. [I] n 1996, Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), which included a new an d deferential federal habeas standard of review. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), federal habeas relief may be granted to a state prisoner only if the state court ’ s review of a claim

“ resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable appli cation of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts [.]” Under AEDPA, the federal court is no longer free to grant a sta te prisoner habeas relief simply because the court disagrees with a state court determination of a federal question. Moreover, a state court judgment can be said to be unreasonable under federal constitutional law only when it is measured against settled precedent from the highest court in the land. In contrast to the substantive standards governing federal habeas review of state convictions, the nature of the habeas remedy has remained comparatively constant. In Fay v. Noia , [ 372 U.S. 391, (1963) ] , the U.S. Supreme Court, per Justice Brennan, addressed the habeas remedy, noting that when a federal court determines that the right of personal liberty has been denied by the state and a person confined as a result, “ the federal court has the power to r elease him

. . . it has no other power; it cannot revise the state court judgment ; it can act only on the body of the petitioner. ” Id

. at [ 430

- 31 ] (emphasis added). Indeed, federal habeas corpus proceedings are civil in nature because they exist “ for the[J

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enforcement of a right to personal liberty, rather than as a stage of the state criminal proceedings or as an appeal therefrom [.]” Id . at [ 423

- 24 ]

. Thus, a proper grant of federal habeas relief to a state prisoner does not purport to revise or interfere with the state court ’ s criminal judgment. Fay , supra ; Henderson v. Frank

, 155 F.3d 159, 168 (3d Cir. 1998). Indeed, any attempt to so interfere is patent error. See , e.g. , Dickerson v. Vaughn , 90 F.3d 87, 92 (3d Cir. 1996) (district court should not di rectly order state court to grant defendant an appeal); Smith v. Lucas , 9 F.3d 359, 367 (5th Cir. 1993) (district court ’ s directive to Mississippi state courts to impose sentence of life imprisonment did not comply with federal law); Duhamel v. Collins , 95 5 F.2d 962, 968 (5th Cir. 1992) (federal court does not have authority to commute death sentence to sentence of life imprisonment); Magwood v. Smith , 791 F.2d 1438, 1450 (11th Cir. 1986) (federal district court and court of appeals have no appellate authority over state court and, hence, have no authority to “remand” case to state court). Instead, federal habeas directives to state authoriti es are designed to be coercive. Thus, the federal courts issue a “ conditional ” grant of the writ, which delays implementing the writ, i.e. , the release of the prisoner, to allow the state the opportunity to correct the perceived constitutional violation. Henderson , 155 F.3d at 168 ( “ It would see m that federal habeas power is limited, first, to a determination of whether there has been an improper detention by virtue of the state court judgment; and second, if [the federal court] find[s] such an illegal detention, to ordering the immediate release of the prisoner, conditioned on the state ’ s opport unity to correct constitutional errors that [it] conclude[s] occurred in the initial proceeding. ” ); see also Smith , 9 F.3d at 367; Duhamel , 955 F.2d at 968. Such indirect orders not only pay heed to the h istorical use of the writ and the interests of the habeas plaintiff, but also recognize the signif icant state interests at stake. As the U.S. Supreme Court explained in Jackson v. Denno , [ 378 U.S. 368, 393 (1964) ] , “ a state defendant should have the oppor tunity to have all issues ” tried in a state court “ under appropriate state procedures. ” But the “ State, too, has a weighty interest in having valid federal constitutional criteria applied in the administration of its criminal law by its own courts and jur ies. ” Id

. The federal remedy should be narrowly designed to enable the state court to fulfill its constitutional obligation. Dickerson , 90 F.3d at 92; see also Henderson , 155 F.3d at 168 (noting “ federal courts have most often granted the relief in habe as cases that has required the least intervention into the state criminal process. ” ). Furthermore, once the state court or other authority timely acts to address the perceived violation forming the basis for the issuance of the conditional writ, the final writ will not issue. Commonwealth v. Lesko , 15 A.3d 345, 363

- 65 (Pa. 2011) (emphasis in original; footnotes omitted).[J

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Taking this background into account , we agree with the parties that the most natural understanding of what transpired in this matter is that the District Court’s March
7 , 2017 order vacated appellant’s death sentence , which the common pleas court then

e ffectively re - imposed through its March 20, 2019 order proclaiming that appellant’s “sentence of death stands.” Several proofs support this conclusion. F or one, the federal magistrate judge’s report plainly recommended that appellant’s “sentence of death be
vacated [.]” Speight , 2016 WL 8459847, at *4 (emphasis added). Likewise, the District Court, upon adopting the magistrate’s report and recommendations, explicitly stated appellant’s death sentence “ is vacated , and [he] is to be re

- sentenced to a term of life imprisonment.” Speight , 2017 WL 914907, at *1 (emphasis added). These statements clearly d emonstrate that appellant’s sentence was vacated by the federal court , a practice that appears consistent with federal habeas pr inciples generally

. 6 See , e.g. , Magwood v. Patterson , 561 U.S. 320, 332 (2010) (where a conditional writ of habeas is granted, “the State may seek a new ju dgment (through a new trial or a new sentencing proceeding ) ” ) ( internal quotations and citation omitted; emphasis in original); Wilkinson v. Dotson , 544 U.S. 74, 83 (2005) (“a case challenging a sentence seeks a prisoner’s ‘release’ in the only pertinent s ense: [i]t seeks invalidation (in whole or in part) of the judgment authorizing the prisoner’s confinement”); Sumner v. Mata , 449 U.S. 539, 543

- 44 (1981)

6 We say “generally” because, as J ustice Todd astutely observes in her concurrence, a federal court ordinarily “does not itself alter the state judgment, but merely gives the state the opportunity to do so” through the issuance of a conditional writ. Concurring Opinion (Todd, J.) at 2. A s such, there is arguably some tension between what should have occurred in this case at the federal level and what actually occurred . N evertheless, our focus here is not on what the federal court should or should not have done, but rather on the state co mmon pleas court’s response to what the federal court actually did. In this regard, as explained above, the District Court’s order plainly and unmistakably vacated appellant’s sentence of death . It is for this reason we respectful ly disagree with Justice Todd’s position that , in this atypical situation , appellant’s “death sentence remained extant” when the case returned to the state common pleas court. Id

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(“It has long been established, as to those constitutional issues which may properly be
raised under [ § ] 2254, that even a single federal judge may overturn the judgment of the highest court of a [s] tate insofar as it deals with the application of the United States Constitution or laws [

. ] ”) ; see also 1 Randy Hertz & James S. Lie bman, F EDERAL H ABEAS C ORPUS P RACTICE AND P ROCEDURE § 9.1 (7th ed. 2019) (“[F]ederal habeas corpus is a regime that permits the federal courts to vacate a final conviction or sentence[.]” ).
The se statements from the federal court opinions also cut directly against the common pleas cour t’s position that it had been tasked with vacating appellant’s sentence. See Trial Court Order, 3/20/2019, at 1

- 2 (maintaining court of common pleas “has no authority to vacate [appellant]’s sentence” absent an independent judicial fin ding consistent with 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)). In fact, contrary t o the common pleas co urt’s belief,
there was actually no occasion for it to vacate appellant’s sentence because the District Court had already accomplished that much in 2017; all that remained was resentencing

. When Judge Streeter Lewis declined to impose a new sentence and instead declared
that his “sentence of death stands,” id . at 2, we conclude that , for all practical purposes,
she effectively re - imposed a sentence of death on appellant

. This action constitu ted a final order that was immediately appealable as of right. See Pa.R.A.P. 341(b)(1) (a final order is any order that disposes of all claims and of all parties). And , g iven o ur interpretation of her order as discussed above, there can be no doubt appellant properly filed his appeal with this Court

. See 42 Pa.C.S. §9711(h)(1); Pa.R.A.P. 702, Note; 42 Pa.C.S. §722(4). 7

7 Our jurisdiction over this matter i s further supported by our prior jurisprudence in this arena. As the parties persuasively offer, our precedents involving other complex jurisdictional questions in death penalty cases are in harmony insofar as they can broadly be understood as permit ting a direct appeal to this Court in situations where a death sentence has been imposed and not conclusively vacated. Compare Kindler , 147 A.3d at 893

- 94 (Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain direct appeal from interlocutory orders[J

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Having resolved the threshold jurisdictional issue, we now turn to the merits. The parties’ arguments again proceed in lock

- step. Both principally rely on the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, which provides, in pertinent pa rt: “This Constitution, and the L aws of the United States . . . shall be the supreme L aw of the L and; and the J udges in every S t ate shall be bo und thereby, any T hing in the Constitution or
L aws of any State to the C ontrary notwithstanding.” U.S. C ONST . art. VI, cl. 2. More to the point, the parties assert that under the Supremacy Clause, the state common pleas court was duty

- bound to respect an d obey the District Court’s judgment invalidating appellant’s death sentence. See , e.g. , Appellant’s Brief at 20

- 21 , citing Cooper v. Aaron , 358 U.S. 1, 18 (1958) (supremacy of federal law is “a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system” and federal court orders have “binding effect on the States”) ; accord Commonwealth’s Brief at 17. As the parties see it, t his princi ple holds true “[e]ven where a state court or other state official believes that a federal court lacked jurisdiction, issued an erroneous order, resolved a case pursuant to the parties’ agreement, or requires action contrary to state law[.]” Appellant’s B rief at 23; see also Commonwealth’s Brief at 16 (“[t]he obligation to give effect to an d enforce the District Court’s order does not depend on whether the [ state

entered in criminal case on remand for resentenc ing after federal court vacated Kindler ’s death sentence; “if a defendant has not been sentenced to death, this Court has no jurisdiction under Subsection 9711(h) to consider in the first instance an appeal from an order or judgment ente red in a criminal p rosecution”) and Rompilla , 983 A.2d at 1211 (the “statutory reference to a ‘sentence of death [ ] ’ [in Section 9711(h)] . . . plainly does not encompass cases in which the death penalty was imposed at one time but subsequently was vacated and a judgment of sentence of life imprisonment was imposed”) with Cooper , 941 A.2d at 660 (applying Bryant ’s holding and concluding the Court’s jurisdiction over a di rect appeal was proper where the trial court vacated Cooper’s death sentence and the Commonwealth sought to have it re

- imposed). Here, notwithstanding the District Court’s order, b ecause of the uncertainty caused by Judge Streeter Lewis’s pronouncement that appellant’s “sentence of death stands,” we cannot say that appellant’s death sentence has been conclusiv ely vacated, as in Kindler and Rompilla ; if anything, the unique circumstances presented are more akin to those in Cooper

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court] , in its own judgment, agrees with it”), citing Washington v. Fishing Vessel Ass ’n , 443 U.S. 658 , 695

- 96 (1979) ( “State

- law prohibition against compliance with the District Court’s decree cannot survive the command of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution”; “ [e] ven if those orders may have been erroneous in some respects,
all parties have an un equivocal obligation to obey them while they remain in effect.”). To bolster this position, appellant stresses that “[s]tate courts do not have any expertise in deciding if federal courts got the complex process of federal habeas review wrong.” Appellant’s Brief at 25 ; see id . (“the lower court’s attempt to grade the work of the federal
court took it into uncharted seas that it was ill

- equipped to navigate”). Initially, w e conclude there is no need to wade into the general issue of, as the
lower court framed it, whether “the Supremacy Clause obligate[s] a state court to ab ide by an order of the District Court where the District Court has failed to follow the requirements of 28 U.S.C.A. §2254(d)(1)(2)?” Trial Court Op., 9/16/2019 , at 2. Simply put, that is not the situation before us. On the contrary, as the District Court made clear by its June 18, 2019 order , it vacated appellant’s death sentence as a matter of federal law, as mandated by Section 2254(d)

. See District Court O rder, 6/18/2019, at 1 n.1 (“A reasonable reading of this Court’s March 7, 2017 Memorandum Opinion and Order shows
that [appellant]’s sentence of death was invalidated as a matter of federal law. ” ) ; Speight , 2017 WL 914907, at *1 (District Court stating it had made “a thorough and independent review of the state record [and] the relevant court filings”); see also Appellant’s Brief at 25 (“[t]he exhaustive briefing and extended proceedings in this case . . . belie the [ lower court’s] suggestion that the Distr ict Court failed to make an ‘independent judicial
determination ’ of constitutional error”)

. 8

8 Justice Mundy exp resses a concern that the District Court may not have actually engaged in an independent review of the legal questions raised in appellant’s habeas petition

— particularly since it “did not explain what federal laws were violated or how they[J

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We recognize, of course, that Judge Streeter Lewis did not have the benefit of the District Court’s later explanation when she entered her order on March 20 , 2019 , and she retired from the bench only weeks later

. Moreover, by the time the District Court entered its clarifying order, Judge Ransom, who had taken over the case from Judge Streeter Lewis, was powerless to act on that new information

— assuming she was even aware of it in the first place. See supra at n.5. Nevertheless , we are compelled to conclude that Judge Streeter Lewis’s order, as well as Judge Ransom’s opinion , both erroneously (though perhaps understandably) presumed the District Court’s order w as premised on nothing more than the agreement of the parties

. In that same vein, and even more importantly, we conclude both jurists incorrectly considered the central issue before them was whether they had the authority to vacate appellant’s death sente nce. As we have explained, the District Court had already vacated appellant’s death sentence , and the state common pleas court’s only task at that juncture was to resentence him

. The court declined to do so because it misapprehended the basis for the District Court’s order granting habeas relief , just as it misunderstood the order’s effect. S ince those errors formed the entire basis for the lower court’s decision, we vacate its order and remand for resentencing. 9

were violated[ .]” S ee Concurring Op inion (Mundy, J.) at 4

. R espectfully , we are aware of no requirement imposed on a federal d istrict c ourt to explicitly state in its order the specific ground upon which relief is granted

. Cf. 28 U.S.C. §636(b)(1)(C) (“A judge of the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate judge.”). Nor are we presently willing to second

- guess the District Court’s clear statement that appellant’s “sentence of death was invalidat ed as a matter of federal law.” District Court Order, 6/18/2019, at 1 n.1.

9 Given our disposition, we render no judgment on any of the constitutional arguments pressed by the parties

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Chief Justice Baer and Justices Saylor, Donohue and Wecht join the opinion. Justices Todd and Mundy file concurring opinions.