Opinion ID: 2638240
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Gardner's Successive Post-Conviction Claim Is Facially Implausible

Text: ¶ 21 In Gardner III, we did not review Gardner's successive post-conviction claim, the same claim at issue before us now, under the good cause common law exceptions. We declined to reach this analysis because we held that Gardner's successive post-conviction claim was facially implausible. [41] We held that [i]n order to reach analysis under the Hurst factors, a claim must be facially plausible. Gardner's [claim] is not, so we do not reach such an analysis. [42] We stated that [i]t is absurd to suggest that any reasonable juror could find that Gardner was aware that he was firing a loaded handgun into his victim's face from a short distance away, but was not reasonably certain that his action would cause death. [43] We noted explicitly that we were determining the case solely on a procedural basis and were not reaching the merits of Gardner's claim. [44] In other words, determining that Gardner's successive post-conviction claim was facially implausible was not a substantive merits review, but rather a procedural inquiry that we conducted before reaching consideration under the good cause common law exceptions. ¶ 22 In Gardner III, we left open the question of whether Gardner's successive post-conviction petition would have been procedurally barred in 1990, before the PCRA was enacted. [45] We must now determine whether, under the common law in 1990, we would have arrived at the same conclusion that we did in 2004  declining to reach analysis under the good cause common law exceptions because Gardner's claim is facially implausible. We conclude that this is exactly what we would have done. We will now discuss our common law procedural bar jurisprudence as it existed in 1990 and illustrate its application to Gardner's successive post-conviction claim.