Opinion ID: 3010471
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Importance/Separateness

Text: The Commonwealth maintains that the district court's order holding Christy's habeas petition in abeyance resolves an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action. Christy submits that the order appealed from merely deferred resolution of the petition and did not resolve any important issue. The Supreme Court has instructed that the importance of the right asserted has always been a significant part of [the] collateral order doctrine. Lauro Lines S.R.L. v. Chasser, 490 U.S. 495, 504, 109 S. Ct. 1976, 1980 (1989). Therefore, we must assure ourselves that the issue presented herein is important enough to merit immediate appeal. See Praxis Properties, 947 F.2d at 56. We have held that the importance/separateness prong of Cohen contemplates orders that are important in a jurisprudential sense. See Praxis Properties, 947 F.2d at 56 (citing Nemours Found. v. Manganaro Corp., 878 F.2d 98, 100 (3d Cir. 1989)). The question whether a district court may hold an unexhausted habeas petition in abeyance pending resolution in state court of certain claims remains unsettled. While some of our district courts have found such authority, See Beasley v. Fulcomer, No. 90-4711, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5408 (E.D. Pa. Apr. 22, 1991); Edwards v. Horn, No. 1:CV-95-1876 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 21, 1996), Szuchon v. Lehman, No. 94-195E (W.D. Pa. Feb. 6, 1995), another circuit has determined that district courts lack the authority to hold such petitions in abeyance, Victor v. Hopkins, 90 F.3d 276 (8th Cir. 1996). Given the important nature of capital habeas cases in general, we conclude that this appeal presents an issue that is important enough in a jurisprudential sense to require an immediate 8 interlocutory appeal. Nemours Foundation, 878 F.2d at 101. In addition to determining whether this appeal presents an important issue, we also must decide whether the order appealed from is separate from the merits of the underlying action. This separateness requirement derives from the policy against piecemeal appeals. Cone, 460 U.S. at 12 n.13, 103 S. Ct. at 945 n.13 (citations omitted). We do not believe that the order appealed from here involves considerations that are enmeshed in the factual and legal issues comprising the [petitioner's] cause of action. Coopers and Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 469, 98 S. Ct. 2454, 2458 (1978). The order appealed from and the precise legal issue it presents will not thrust us into the merits of the underlying habeas petition. Here, we are asked only to determine the propriety of a district court order which keeps an unexhausted habeas petition in abeyance while the petitioner returns to state court to exhaust certain claims. Such a determination is sufficiently ancillary to the underlying action that we need not become enmeshed in the merits of the dispute. We therefore conclude that the order appealed from satisfies the separateness prong of the collateral order doctrine.