[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

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No. 778 CAP

Appeal from the Order entered on 

March 20, 2019 in the Court of 

Common Pleas, Philadelphia 

County, Criminal Division at No. CP51-CR-1036271-1992.

SUBMITTED: May 29, 2020

OPINION

JUSTICE DOUGHERTY DECIDED: April 29, 2021

In 2017, the 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 criminal 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 the parties indicating such relief was unopposed. For that reason, 

when 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 

Court 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 
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was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, federal law, or the decision was based 

on an unreasonable determination of facts in light of the evidence presented). As a result, 

the sentencing court issued an order declaring appellant’s “sentence of death stands.” 

We now vacate the court’s order and remand for resentencing.

The facts supporting appellant’s convictions 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 affirmed his judgment of sentence on direct appeal and, later, twice affirmed 

orders denying him post-conviction relief. Commonwealth v. Speight, 677 A.2d 317 (Pa. 

1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1119 (1997); Commonwealth 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 for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for a writ of habeas corpus

raising seventeen claims for relief — some of which pointedly attacked 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) (Quiñones 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 defenses to the claims of sentencing error. Most relevant for our purposes, 

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 proceeding 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, 
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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 magistrate 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 offenses 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 guilt 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. Beard, No. CV 04-4110, 2016 WL 8459847, at *4 (E.D. Pa.

Jan. 29, 2016) (Caracappa, C.M.J.).2 Appellant filed objections 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 thorough 

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 

believed 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.
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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 for 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 

opinion, 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 Department 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 to the denial of his guilt phase claims, which 

was denied on June 15, 2018, at docket number 17-1725.

The case then returned to the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia and was 

assigned to the (now retired) Honorable Kathryn Streeter Lewis. But when the parties 

jointly requested 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 premised 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, 
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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 they both involved situations in which courts were deciding whether to accept a 

prosecutor’s confession 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. On 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 court 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, absent 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 sufficient 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 given 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-57-2020] - 6

Appellant filed an unopposed 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 the Honorable Lillian H. Ransom was appointed to take over the case, as 

Judge Streeter Lewis was no longer sitting in the jurisdiction due to her retirement from 

the bench. See Appointment Order, 4/17/2019, at 1. Five days after that, on April 22, 

2019, appellant filed the present appeal, thereby divesting the common pleas court of 

jurisdiction to rule upon his motion for reconsideration of Judge Streeter Lewis’s order, 

which was entered more than 30 days prior to that point. See 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 retired and the 

common pleas court had lost jurisdiction by virtue of appellant’s notice of appeal, the 

federal District Court clarified its prior order granting appellant habeas relief. This 

clarification appeared in a June 18, 2019 order, in response to a June 13, 2019 motion 

filed by appellant and consented to by the Commonwealth, which “asked the District 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, the District Court not 

 

4 Apparently, the court of common pleas’ March 20th order announcing that appellant’s 

“sentence of death stands” prompted the Department of Corrections, on June 6, 2019, to 
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only instructed the Department of Corrections to return appellant to the general prison 

population 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, following 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 Memorandum 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 Court Order, 6/18/2019, at 1 n.1 (emphasis added).

A few months later, Judge Ransom authored 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: does the Supremacy Clause 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 negative, adopting Judge 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 prompted appellant’s federal motion. See Appellant’s Brief at 15.
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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 proceeding, 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 7th 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 submitted 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 that matter, Judge Streeter Lewis similarly declined 

to abide by a federal court’s order which had directed the 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.”). The 

District Court accepted the magistrate judge’s revised report and recommendation, see

Wright, 2019 WL 1492208, at *1, and Wright was thereafter resentenced in state court in 

accordance with the terms of the agreement.
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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 contradicted 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 to 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 entertain 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 authority 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 

changed 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 
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agreement of the parties and issu[e] a Report and Recommendation based solely on the 

acceptance of the agreement.” Trial Court Op., 9/16/2019, at 6.5

Before addressing 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 sentencing court’s conclusion that the District Court’s order was issued without 

authority. Order, 12/9/2019, at 1 (per curiam). This threshold jurisdictional issue 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, 893 (Pa. 2016).

Appellant forwards two plausible ways to characterize the lower court’s order: (1) 

the District Court invalidated appellant’s death sentence, but the sentencing court reimposed 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 sentence 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 opinion, 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 staying 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 

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

a death sentence after the federal court had vacated it — appellant argues the order 

triggered this Court’s automatic review under 42 Pa.C.S. §9711(h)(1) (“A sentence of 

death shall be subject to automatic review by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania 

pursuant to its rules.”). See 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 of 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) (relating 

to relief and order) and 9711(h) (relating to review of death sentence).” 42 Pa.C.S. 

§722(4). In appellant’s view, this Court’s capital precedents indicate that “the general 

class of cases under §722(4) includes those in which a death sentence has been imposed 

and has not been conclusively vacated.” Appellant’s Brief at 7 (emphasis in original), 

citing Commonwealth v. Cooper, 941 A.2d 655, 660 (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. Bryant, 780 A.2d 646, 648 (Pa. 2001) 

(“the legislature did not require that the sentence of death actually 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 exercise exclusive jurisdiction. See id. at 8-9. This is so, he 
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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, 539 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 absolutely 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 

would answer that question.” Appellant’s Brief at 9.

The Commonwealth is in full accord with appellant’s jurisdictional argument. It 

adds 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] 9711 

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 which the finality of a 

defendant’s sentence of death is unsettled”). Cf. Commonwealth v. Rompilla, 983 A.2d 

1207, 1211 (Pa. 2009) (holding that Rompilla was not the type of defendant for whom this 
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Court’s capital appeal jurisdiction exists since the trial court 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 assert our supervisory powers over the common pleas court. 

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 unpack 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 collateral review of state convictions. 

[I]n 1996, Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty 

Act (“AEDPA”), which included a new and 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 

application 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 state 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 release 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
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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 directly 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, 955 

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 authorities 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 seem 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 opportunity 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 historical use of the writ and the interests of the habeas 

plaintiff, but also recognize the significant 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 opportunity 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 juries.”

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 habeas 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).
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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 

effectively re-imposed through its March 20, 2019 order proclaiming that appellant’s 

“sentence of death stands.” Several proofs support this conclusion. For 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 demonstrate that appellant’s sentence was vacated by the federal court, a practice

that appears consistent with federal habeas principles 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 judgment (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 sense: [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 Justice 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. As such, there is arguably some tension between what should have 

occurred in this case at the federal level and what actually occurred. Nevertheless, our 

focus here is not on what the federal court should or should not have done, but rather on 

the state common 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 respectfully 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.
[J-57-2020] - 16

(“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. Liebman, FEDERAL HABEAS 

CORPUS PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE §9.1 (7th ed. 2019) (“[F]ederal habeas corpus is a 

regime that permits the federal courts to vacate a final conviction or sentence[.]”).

These statements from the federal court opinions also cut directly against the 

common pleas court’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 finding 

consistent with 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)). In fact, contrary to the common pleas court’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 constituted 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, given our 

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 is 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 permitting 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-57-2020] - 17

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 part: “This 

Constitution, and the Laws of the United States . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land; 

and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or 

Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” U.S. CONST. 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 and 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, this principle 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 Brief at 23; see also Commonwealth’s Brief at 16 (“[t]he obligation to 

give effect to and enforce the District Court’s order does not depend on whether the [state 

 

entered in criminal case on remand for resentencing 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 entered in a criminal prosecution”) 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 

direct 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, because 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 conclusively vacated, as in Kindler and Rompilla; if anything, the unique 

circumstances presented are more akin to those in Cooper.
[J-57-2020] - 18

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 unequivocal 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, we 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 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. 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 Order, 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 District Court failed to make an ‘independent judicial 

determination’ of constitutional error”).

8

 

8 Justice Mundy expresses 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-57-2020] - 19

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 was 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 sentence. 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. Since those errors 

formed the entire basis for the lower court’s decision, we vacate its order and remand for 

resentencing.9

 

were violated[.]” See Concurring Opinion (Mundy, J.) at 4. Respectfully, we are aware 

of no requirement imposed on a federal district court 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 invalidated 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.
[J-57-2020] - 20

Chief Justice Baer and Justices Saylor, Donohue and Wecht join the opinion.

Justices Todd and Mundy file concurring opinions.