Opinion ID: 768203
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Doctor v. Walters

Text: 91 Both Lines and the Commonwealth devote a substantial portion of their briefs to arguing whether Pennsylvania's fugitive forfeiture rule is an adequate and independent state ground under our holding in Doctor as applied to Lines. 92 However, despite the parties' focus upon Doctor , we conclude that our holding there is neither controlling nor helpful to the present inquiry; although the facts in Doctor are quite similar to the facts here. 93 Like Lines, Doctor fled during his bench trial on criminal charges. However, the trial court thereafter entered a guilty verdict against Doctor apparently without conducting any further proceedings or attempting to inform Doctor, his attorney or the Commonwealth about its intention to enter a verdict. 96 F.3d at 678. Lines was not apprehended until five years later, and he was then formally sentenced on the guilty verdict that had been entered when he escaped. Doctor filed a direct appeal, and a state habeas corpus petition. However, the Pennsylvania Superior Court quashed his appeal pursuant to Pa. R. App. P. 1972(6), which allows an appellate court to quash an appeal because the appellant is a fugitive. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Doctor's Petition for Allowance of Appeal, and the United States Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari. However, unlike Lines, Doctor attempted to present his underlying claims on direct appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court as well as his challenges to the Superior Court's application of the fugitive forfeiture rule. 23 94 Thereafter, Doctor filed a petition under 28 U.S.C.S 2254 in an attempt to get federal habeas relief from his state court conviction. Doctor's S 2254 petition included a claim that his conviction in absentia violated his Sixth Amendment right to a trial. The District Court dismissed Doctor's petition for failure to exhaust because the Sixth Amendment claim had not been presented in state court. Doctor argued that it was futile to return to state court to raise any unexhausted claims in a PCRA petition because the Pennsylvania courts had already determined that his flight constituted a waiver of his right to appeal, and they therefore would not address any PCRA petition that he might file in an effort to exhaust his Sixth Amendment claim for federal habeas purposes. 96 F.3d at 680. 95 We affirmed the District Court's dismissal based upon the unexhausted claims in Doctor's petition. However, we also noted that Doctor could resubmit a petition asserting only his exhausted claims. Therefore, in the interests of judicial economy, we addressed the District Court's conclusion that application of Pennsylvania's fugitive forfeiture rule was an adequate and independent state rule barring federal habeas relief. Id. at 683. 96 We concluded that, under Pennsylvania law, Doctor could seek collateral relief by asserting his Sixth Amendment claim in a PCRA petition, see 42 Pa.C.S.S 954146 (Supp. 1996), because all avenues of direct appeal are clearly foreclosed. 96 F.3d at 682. However, we recognized that such collateral review was problematic both because he had not raised his Sixth Amendment claim on direct appeal, and because under the fugitive forfeiture rule[Doctor] waived all rights to have his claims considered. Id. at 681. We noted, however, that Pennsylvania courts allowed for a limited exception to the application of the fugitive forfeiture rule when a petitioner could demonstrate either a miscarriage of justice, which no civilized society can tolerate, or actual innocence. Id . at 682 (citing Commonwealth v. Lawson, 519 Pa. 504, 549 (1988)). We concluded that the unique and rather bizarre circumstances surrounding Doctor's in absentia conviction were such that we could not conclude with certainty that the Pennsylvania courts would not find a miscarriage of justice. 96 F.3d at 682 (Doctor alleges facts that could support a finding that `the proceedings resulting in his conviction were so unfair that a miscarriage of justice occurred which no civilized society can tolerate.' ). 24 97 Moreover, an examination of Pennsylvania cases established that when Doctor escaped, Pennsylvania courts recognized that they had the discretion to hear an appeal so long as custody of the fugitive-appellant had been restored before the appellate process was ever initiated, id. at 685-6, as was the case there. Accordingly, we held that Pennsylvania's fugitive forfeiture rule was not an adequate and independent state rule, and that we could not say with certainty that the state courts would turn a deaf ear to Doctor's Sixth Amendment claim. Thus, we dismissed Doctor's petition and allowed him to attempt to exhaust his claim in state court. However, for all the reasons we have noted, it would be futile for Lines to do so. Moreover, Lines does not argue (nor can he) that our failure to address the merits of his claim would create the substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice that we found in Doctor .