Opinion ID: 776528
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the aggravating circumstance of torture was improperly applied to him;

Text: 36 X. the aggravating circumstance of knowingly creat[ing] a grave risk of death to another person in addition to the victim was improperly applied to him; 37 XI. the Commonwealth was improperly permitted to introduce testimony that Whitney used an alias; XII. a Commonwealth witness testified about Whitney's post-arrest and post- Miranda silence in violation of the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments; 38 XIII. trial counsel did not render effective assistance because he failed to advise Whitney of his right to testify; 39 XIV. trial counsel did not render effective assistance because he failed to investigate, develop and present evidence of Whitney's innocence of first degree murder; 40 XV. the state supreme court's arbitrary proportionality review denied him due process and rendered his death sentence unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment; 41 XVI. his death sentence violated various constitutional provisions because it was the result of racial discrimination; 42 XVII. all state court counsel did not render effective assistance when they failed to raise and/or litigate the issues discussed in the habeas petition; and 43 XVIII. he is entitled to relief because of the cumulative prejudicial effect of the errors alleged in his case. 7 44 On May 22, 2000, the district court held a hearing to resolve outstanding issues of exhaustion and procedural default. The court also received evidence pertaining to claims II, V, VI, VIII, and XII. Whitney's counsel noted that the Pennsylvania legislature had enacted the time bar for filing PCRA petitions under 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1) while Whitney's appeal from the denial of PCRA relief was pending in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. When his appeal was finally decided in February 1998, the time for filing another PCRA petition containing new claims had already expired. Therefore, argued counsel, Whitney's failure to assert his habeas claims in another PCRA petition should not preclude federal review of the merits of his habeas claims. Counsel also argued that, until November 1998, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had observed a relaxed waiver policy in cases involving the death penalty. Under that policy, the court entertained all claims raised by capital defendants, even though the claims may not have been properly preserved or were procedurally barred. Moreover, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court often reviewed such claims even though they were asserted in PCRA petitions that did not meet the time restrictions of 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9545(b)(1). Thus, counsel argued, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced that the time bar was jurisdictional, see Commonwealth v. Banks, 556 Pa. 1, 726 A.2d 374 (1999), and that it would no longer observe the relaxed waiver rule, see Commonwealth v. Peterkin, 554 Pa. 547, 722 A.2d 638 (1998), any petition filed by Whitney would have been untimely. Habeas counsel therefore, argued that the PCRA time bar was not an adequate and independent state procedural bar precluding federal review of the claims which Whitney had not presented in the state courts. 45 The court accepted Whitney's procedural default argument. The court concluded that, although Whitney had not presented most of his federal habeas claims to the state courts, exhaustion should be excused, and that the PCRA time bar was not an adequate and independent state ground for denying Whitney relief. 46 The district court then proceeded to the merits of Whitney's challenge to the trial court's instruction on voluntary intoxication, and his claim that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to object to it (claim VI). The substance of that jury instruction is set forth later in our discussion. For now, we simply note that the trial judge misstated the Commonwealth's burden of proving specific intent to kill in Pennsylvania when a defendant introduces evidence of voluntary intoxication. The district court concluded that the trial court's misstatement created a substantial possibility that Whitney's jury based its findings on an unconstitutional ground, and that relief was therefore required under Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 381, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988). The district court explained: We have no way of knowing whether one or more jurors found he was too drunk to form the specific intent to kill and then relied on the incorrect voluntary intoxication instruction in finding him guilty of first degree murder, or whether they all believed that he had the specific intent to kill and then relied upon the earlier correct instruction in convicting him. Dist. Ct. Op. at 19. The district court was appropriately concerned with ascertaining with even greater certainty that a death sentence rests on proper grounds. Id. at 20. 47 The district court also concluded that there was a plain and serious deficiency in trial counsel's failure to object to the charge. The court therefore held that Whitney had met the first prong for establishing ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). The court also found that Whitney had been prejudiced by the error based upon the court's conclusion that there was a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's error, the result of the proceeding would have been different. The court found a sufficient possibility that at least one juror would not have voted to convict Whitney of first degree murder if the court had correctly explained that evidence of voluntary intoxication could negate the mens rea required for a conviction of first degree murder. Id. at 21. The district court granted the writ of habeas corpus on that basis and did not reach any of the other grounds for relief that Whitney asserted in his habeas petition. 48 This appeal followed.