Court Opinion

ID: 9766596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:54:24.983171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:23.936596
License: Public Domain

Justice CASTILLE,
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion, with the exception of the following two points.
First, with respect to appellant’s claim that the penalty phase jury instructions and verdict sheet were unconstitutional under Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988), the Majority correctly notes that appellant litigated this very claim on direct appeal, and therefore, he cannot seek to relitigate it in the face of the previous litigation proscription of the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”).1 Despite this clear statutory bar against relitigation, however, *466the Majority appears to entertain on the merits appellant’s request that he be permitted “reconsideration” of the issue on grounds that, in a case decided three years after this Court decided his direct appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided Frey v. Fulcomer, 132 F.3d 916 (3d Cir.1997), cert. denied, 524 U.S. 911, 118 S.Ct. 2076, 141 L.Ed.2d 151 (1998), which held that a similar Pennsylvania jury instruction violated Mills. Instead of rejecting this claim outright, the Majority declines to revisit the Mills issue on the basis that this Court has not accepted the Frey Court’s view of the merits of the Mills question. The Majority’s analysis leaves the impression that, if the Court were in agreement with the substance of the Frey decision, reconsideration of the previously litigated claim would be appropriate upon PCRA review. Indeed, in a footnote, the learned author of the Majority Opinion notes his preference that this Court reexamine its view of Mills in light of the Third Circuit’s later, contrary precedent. Op. at 932-33 & n. 17.
In my view, appellant’s Frey-based argument fails, not simply because this Court disagrees with Frey on the merits, but for the more fundamental reason that non-binding, subsequent decisions of the lower federal judiciary are no basis upon which this Court can dismiss the PCRA’s previous litigation provision. The PCRA contains no such exception to the previous litigation bar for the very reason that decisions of lower federal courts do not bind this Court. Thus, for PCRA previous litigation purposes, it would not matter if a majority of this Court evolved to feel that the Frey Court articulated a “better” view of the Mills question: the point is that final decisions of issues cannot be subject to relitigation every time a court somewhere renders a decision which may be helpful to the defendant. Accordingly, even if this Court were inclined to reconsider its view of Mills in an appropriate case, this case would not be the appropriate vehicle to do so because, as the Majority states, appellant’s Mills claim has already been finally litigated.
The PCRA’s rational limitation upon relitigation is particularly salutary in matters raising Mills procedural questions. *467As the Majority notes, the U.S. Supreme Court recently held, in a capital case arising from Pennsylvania, that Mills established a new constitutional rule and therefore it is not subject to retroactive application. See Beard v. Banks, 542 U.S. 406, 124 S.Ct. 2504, 2508, 2515, 159 L.Ed.2d 494 (2004).2 Since Mills itself is not subject to retroactive application, the Third Circuit’s non-binding interpretation of Mills in Frey certainly cannot be permitted to have the super-retroactive effect of defeating the PCRA’s previous litigation bar. The persuasiveness or non-persuasiveness of Frey is irrelevant to the previous litigation question before the Court: the Frey-based argument fails because it cannot, as a matter of law, defeat the statutory previous litigation bar.3
Second, I do not join in footnote 20 of the Majority Opinion, which suggests certain points a trial court should address with *468the defendant before he may waive the right to present mitigation evidence at capital trials. The Majority correctly notes in a footnote that a footnote in this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Crawley, 514 Pa. 539, 526 A.2d 334, 340 n. 1 (1987) directed that trial judges in such an instance conduct a colloquy to determine two points: (1) whether it is the defendant himself who is making the decision not to present mitigation evidence; and (2) that the defendant is aware that the verdict must be a sentence of death if the jury finds at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstances. The Majority expands upon the procedural rule found in the Crawley footnote, as it directs that “a trial court should conduct an on-the-record colloquy informing [the defendant] of the right to present such proof, its importance, and, after ensuring that he understands the importance and the risks associated with a waiver, whether he wishes to forego the presentation of mitigating evidence.” Slip op. at 934-35 n. 20. Respectfully, I think that the question of whether or when the trial court should be deemed obliged to conduct such a colloquy sua sponte, as well as the question of the specific contours of the inquiry, should be reached only in a case actually posing such issues with adversarial presentations; or failing that, in connection with the more thorough evaluation which would be available in the formal rule-making arena. In my view, referring the question to the Criminal Procedural Rules Committee is a far more preferable course than adopting and refining such rules of procedure on an ad hoc basis in footnotes in capital cases.4 Proceeding by way of formal rulemaking would allow this Court to issue a single, easily-found pronouncement addressing the specific contours of the rule, including the required areas of inquiry, the consequences of a failure to so inquire, and most importantly, the effective date upon which the new procedural rule would be deemed *469operable in Pennsylvania trials. Accordingly, I would refer this question to the Criminal Procedural Rules Committee.
With the exception of the above concerns, I join the Majority Opinion.

. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541 et seq.

. The Supreme Court’s holding on Mills retroactivity proves the error inherent in this Court's former relaxed waiver practice, to the extent that relaxed waiver permitted entirely new procedural rules of constitutional dimension in capital cases, which were not themselves entitled to retroactive application, to operate retroactively in trials in which the relevant objection was never timely raised. See Commonwealth v. Freeman, 573 Pa. 532, 827 A.2d 385, 395-96 (2003). Such is apparently what occurred in this case, as this Court entertained a waived Mills claim on direct review. In my view, the Supreme Court having definitively rejected the retroactive application of Mills, that case cannot fairly form the basis for any successful collateral attack—whether previously litigated or not—upon a conviction secured before the case was decided, where the defendant did not raise the Mills objection at trial. Thus, even if the previous litigation bar did not exist, for purposes of PCRA review, I would not indulge the fiction that appellant preserved a Mills objection at trial, when he clearly did not.

. It bears noting that the question of whether the Pennsylvania standard charge would pass muster under Mills was briefed before the U.S. Supreme Court in Beard v. Banks, but was not reached given the Court’s finding that Mills is not subject to retroactive application. In its brief in Beard v. Banks (which is available online via the U.S. Supreme Court’s website), the Commonwealth argued that the Third Circuit had "flip-flopped” in its view of the reasonableness of this Court’s interpretation of Mills, shifting from a view that our interpretation was "plausible” to a conclusion that it was objectively unreasonable only after the federal habeas review standard changed under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA”). AEDPA significantly altered the federal habeas corpus review paradigm by requiring federal courts to defer to reasonable state court interpretations of clearly established U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

. I note that the footnote in Crawley apparently has been honored in the breach more than in the observance. It would appear that the footnote in question has had little effect in capital litigation since its original promulgation in 1987; the lack of effect may have resulted from its obscure origins.