Court Opinion

ID: 9491481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:15:23.385863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:46.199583
License: Public Domain

GARTH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with the majority of the court that: (1) the AEDPA does not apply in this case, (2) Henderson has exhausted his claims, (3) the uncounseled suppression hearing conducted by the Court of Common Pleas violated Henderson’s constitutional rights, and (4) we are therefore obliged to order the district court to issue the writ of habeas corpus. I part company with the panel majority on the one substantial issue in this appeal: the remedy that must be afforded Henderson “to correct the constitutional violation found by the court.” Hilton v. Braunskill, 481 U.S. 770, 775, 107 S.Ct. 2113, 95 L.Ed.2d 724 (1987). Because I feel strongly that the majority’s analysis is deeply flawed on this point, I feel compelled to dissent and to explain my views in some depth.
*173The majority of the panel holds that the writ to be issued must grant Henderson a new trial, even though neither Henderson nor the panel majority claims that the constitutional defect at issue extended beyond the uncounseled suppression hearing to the trial itself. I, on the other hand, relying on Supreme Court and Third Circuit authority, would hold that the writ should be conditioned only on the grant of a counseled and therefore constitutional suppression hearing.
I reach this conclusion because the Supreme Court so held in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). In Jackson, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that, because a new suppression hearing could cure the constitutional wrong entirely and minimized the federal intrusion into state sovereignty, the habeas writ need only direct that a new suppression hearing be held to determine whether the confession was voluntary. Thus, a new trial was not required. See id. at 394-95, 84 S.Ct. 1774. The Supreme Court has stood by this rule. See, e.g., Sims v. Georgia, 385 U.S. 538, 544, 87 S.Ct. 639, 17 L.Ed.2d 593 (1966). Our court has applied the rule in several cases as well, and has in each case limited the habeas relief to a new suppression hearing to determine whether the confession was in fact voluntary. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Harvin v. Yeager, 428 F.2d 1354, 1358-59 (3d Cir.1970) (ordering district court to issue writ conditioned on grant of suppression hearing); United States ex rel. Montgomery v. Brierley, 414 F.2d 552, 560 (3d Cir.1969)(same); United States ex rel. Dickerson v. Bundle, 363 F.2d 126, 130 (3d Cir.1966) (same).
Today the majority has veered away from this well-established line of cases. In the view of the panel majority, a suppression hearing alone is insufficient because it would not completely cure the constitutional wrong, and because it might unduly interfere with state sovereignty. Maj. Op. at 169-172.
Absent Jackson and its progeny, I would still disagree with the majority. Awarding Henderson a new trial in the event that his confession is once again ruled admissible “provide[s] a totally unjustifiable windfall to a petitioner who has not been injured by the actions of which[ ]he complains.” Koski v. Samaba, 648 F.2d 790, 798 (1st Cir.1981). After all, Henderson has not challenged the constitutional adequacy of his trial, at which he testified to the circumstances surrounding his confession. Granting Henderson a bonus new trial based on the “possibility” that constitutional error might have contributed to his trial even if his confession were properly admitted “is at odds with the historic meaning of habeas corpus.” Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993).
Because the Supreme Court has already rejected the majority’s argument in Jackson, however, I am compelled to raise a much more serious objection. I believe that the_ majority’s efforts to finesse and distinguish Jackson v. Denno is a complete derogation of Supreme Court authority. Supreme Court judgments are always superior to our own. Because the Supreme Court has already considered and rejected the view that the Constitution requires a new trial to be granted in such circumstances, and our court has faithfully applied these precepts before in several cases, I believe the majority’s resolution of this case is contrary not only to good sense, but established law. Its fanciful speculation as to the impact that Henderson’s unconstitutional suppression hearing might have had on his trial has unjustifiably disregarded both state prerogatives and the jurisprudence of both the Supreme Court and the Third Circuit.
Under Jackson v. Denno, Henderson is constitutionally entitled to no more than a counseled suppression hearing. If his motion to suppress is again denied, that ends it. “Of course, if the state court, at an evidentiary hearing, redetermines the facts and decides that [Henderson]’s confession was involuntary, there must be a new trial on guilt or innocence without the confession’s being admitted in evidence.” Jackson, 378 U.S. at 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774. Because the majority has refused to recognize the Supreme Court’s teaching, I dissent from the remedy afforded to Henderson by the court.
A.

Jackson v. Denno

In Jackson v. Denno, the Supreme Court invalidated a New York criminal procedure *174by which the voluntariness of confessions was submitted to the jury with appropriate instructions. The habeas petitioner in that case, Jackson, had been charged with murder and had confessed in circumstances indicating that the confession might have been involuntary. Following New York procedure, the state trial judge admitted the confession in evidence at trial. Jackson then took the stand in his defense and recounted the circumstances of his confession. He was then cross-examined by the prosecution. Following closing arguments, the trial court submitted the issue of the confession’s voluntariness to the jury. The jury was told that “if it found the confession involuntary, it was to disregard it entirely, and determine guilt or innocence solely from the other evidence in the case; alternatively, if it found the confession voluntary, it was to determine its truth or reliability and afford it weight accordingly.” 378 U.S. at 374-75, 84 S.Ct. 1774.
The Supreme Court, per Justice White, invalidated the procedure on the basis that the New York procedure did not adequately safeguard the defendant’s “right to be free of a conviction based upon a coerced confession.” Id. at 377, 84 S.Ct. 1774. The problem, quite simply, was that juries were likely to believe that even coerced confessions were truthful. Accordingly, jurors were likely to convict defendants on the basis of coerced confessions despite the instruction to disregard such confessions. See Watkins v. Sowders, 449 U.S. 341, 347, 101 S.Ct. 654, 66 L.Ed.2d 549 (1981) (discussing Jackson). The Court concluded that the procedure’s failure to provide “a reliable determination of the voluntariness of the confession” meant that it could not “withstand constitutional attack under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Jackson, 378 U.S. at 377, 84 S.Ct. 1774.
The Court then turned to the proper remedy, and confronted the issue that divides the panel today. The issue was this: when a state conviction is based on a confession that was admitted in evidence pursuant to a constitutionally flawed procedure, does the Constitution require a federal habeas court to enter a writ conditioned on an entirely new trial, or merely a writ conditioned on the state conducting a proper suppression hearing?
A majority of the Supreme Court chose the latter. Justice White, writing for the majority, agreed that the habeas petitioner was entitled to “an adequate [suppression] hearing productive of reliable results concerning the voluntariness of the confession.” Id. at 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774. However, he wrote, “[i]t does not follow
... that Jackson is automatically entitled to a complete new trial including a retrial of the issue of guilt or innocence.” Id. According to Justice White:
[I]f at the conclusion of such an eviden-tiary hearing ... it is determined that Jackson’s confession was voluntarily given, admissible in evidence, and properly to be considered by the jury, we see no constitutional necessity at that point for proceeding with a new trial, for Jackson has already been tried by a jury with the confession placed before it and has been found guilty.... [W]e cannot say that the Constitution requires a new trial if in a soundly conducted collateral proceeding, the confession which was admitted at the trial is fairly determined to be voluntary.
Id. at 394-96, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (emphasis added). If the confession was in fact voluntary, the Court held, a new trial was not required because the state’s procedure would have created “no constitutional prejudice” to the defendant: “If the jury relied on [the voluntary confession], it was entitled to do so.” Id. at 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774. “Obviously, the State is free to give Jackson a new trial if it so chooses,” Justice White added, “but for us to impose this requirement before the outcome of the new hearing on voluntariness is known would not comport with the interests of sound judicial administration and the proper relationship between federal and state courts.” Id. at 395, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (emphasis added).
In separate dissents, Justice Black and Justice Clark each attacked the majority’s conclusion that a new suppression hearing was sufficient to correct the constitutional violation. According to Justice Clark, a suppression hearing alone “d[id] not cure the *175error which the Court finds present.” Id, at 426, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (Clark, J., dissenting). Justice Black agreed, deeming the court’s remedy a “fragmentizing” device that had improperly succeeded in “sustaining convictions and denying defendants a new trial where all the facts are heard together.” Id. at 410, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (Black, J. dissenting).
B.

Henderson v. Frank

The habeas petitioner in this ease, John Henderson, was also charged with a crime and confessed in circumstances that raised the possibility that the confession was coerced. Like Jackson,.Henderson was unconstitutionally denied “an adequate eviden-tiary hearing productive of reliable results concerning the voluntariness of his confession.” Jackson, 878 U.S. at 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774. In Henderson’s case, his hearing was inadequate because his right to the assistance of counsel, a constitutional right “essential to a fair trial,” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 342, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963), was denied. As was the case with Jackson, Henderson’s confession was nonetheless admitted in evidence at trial, where Henderson was represented by counsel.1 Like Jackson, Henderson took the stand in his own defense at trial and explained to the jury that his confession was coerced.2 Like Jackson, Henderson was then cross-examined by the prosecution. App. 316. As was the case in Jackson’s trial, the trial judge in Henderson’s ease instructed the jury “that you must disregard the confession or the statement unless you are satisfied by a preponderance of the evidence ... that the defendant made the statement voluntarily.... If you find that the defendant made the statement voluntarily, ... then you may consider it as evidence against him.” App. 341-42. Like Jackson, Henderson was found guilty.
The majority of this court has properly concluded that Henderson’s constitutional right to the assistance of counsel was violated when he was permitted to proceed in his suppression hearing pro se without adequate waiver of counsel. See Maj. Op. 165-167. In holding that the right to the assistance of counsel was so fundamental to a fair trial that it was guaranteed to state defendants by the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court in Gideon described the intolerable unreliability of un-eounseled proceedings:
If charged with crime, [the layman] is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence.
Gideon, 372 U.S. at 345, 83 S.Ct. 792 (quoting Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68-69, 53 S.Ct. 55, 64, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932)). The panel majority properly follows our precedent in determining that the trial judge’s failure to ensure that Henderson adequately waived his right to counsel violated those same rights, and permitted Henderson to engage in a critical suppression hearing without “the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense.” Id. That failure denied Henderson that “to which he is constitutionally entitled — an adequate evidentiary hearing productive of reliable results concerning the voluntariness of his confession,” Jackson, 378 U.S. at 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774—much like Jackson.
Where the majority diverges from precedent is in its determination of the proper *176remedy. Instead of following Justice White’s majority opinion in Jackson v. Denno, the panel majority sides with the dissenting Justices in that case and rules that the Constitution requires our court to order a writ conditioned on the grant of an entirely new trial, rather a writ conditioned on the grant of a suppression hearing alone. The panel majority offers two reasons for its conclusion, both of which were categorically rejected by the Supreme Court in Jackson.
First, the panel majority adopts Justice Clark’s dissent and rules that a new trial is required because “merely to have the trial judge hold a hearing on the admissibility of the confession ... does not cure the error which the Court finds present.” Jackson, 378 U.S. at 426, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (Clark, J., dissenting). The panel majority reasons that if a proper (counseled) suppression hearing had been held, it might have had “repercussions in plea bargaining, discovery and trial strategy that would not be cured by a new suppression hearing alone.” Maj. Op. at 170. “[H]ad a skilled attorney represented Henderson at the suppression hearing,” the majority speculates, “he or she would have confronted the witnesses against Henderson and studied the Commonwealth’s trial strategy, in the hopes of preparing a better attack on the factual environment of the confession at a trial by jury.” Maj. Op. at 170. Accordingly, “the constitutional violation suffered by Henderson will not be corrected absent a new trial.” Maj. Op. at 171.
Whatever merit one may find in the majority’s view — and I, for one, find none — it should be enough for us as an inferior court that this position was litigated before the Supreme Court, and that it lost. The Supreme Court explicitly rejected the view that “the constitutional violation suffered by [the petitioner] will not be corrected absent a new trial,” Maj. Op. at 171-, and instead adopted the view that when the voluntariness of a defendant’s confession is determined in violation of the defendant’s rights, “there is no constitutional prejudice ... if the confession is now properly found to be voluntary and therefore admissible. If the jury relied upon it, it was entitled to do so.” Jackson, 378 U.S. at 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774.
In so ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the panel majority’s view that a suppression hearing alone was insufficient to cure the wrong because the petitioner’s position at trial might have been stronger had there been a proper suppression hearing before the trial. Such ‘what if’s do not rise to the level of “constitutional prejudice,” the Court ruled, and thus are inappropriate bases for habeas relief. Id. This view is entirely consistent with the remainder of the Court’s habeas jurisprudence, which has stressed that “granting habeas relief merely because there is a ‘reasonable possibility’ that [the verdict was tainted by constitutional error] is at odds with the historic meaning of habeas corpus.” Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993) (internal citations omitted); see also Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 887, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983) (“The role of federal habeas proceedings ... is secondary and limited.”). In other words, fashioning habeas relief based on unsupported speculation as to how a constitutional suppression hearing might have affected the petitioner’s trial strategy would improperly “provide a totally unjustifiable windfall to a petitioner who has not been injured by the actions of which [the petitioner] complains.” Koski v. Samaha, 648 F.2d 790, 798 (1st Cir.1981).3
*177Second, the majority suggests still another reason for its view that a new trial is required. According to the panel majority, we should be concerned that ordering a suppression hearing alone might improperly exceed a federal court’s authority by improperly “revising] the state court judgment.” Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 431, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963); see also Barry v. Brower, 864 F.2d 294, 300 (3d Cir.1988) (“Both the historic nature of the writ and principles of federalism preclude a federal court’s direct interference with a state court’s conduct of state litigation.”) Maj. Op. at 168. Although the majority never quite fleshes out how this could be the case, the idea that limiting the remedy to a suppression hearing might interfere with the state’s sovereignty is astounding in light of Jackson and our own precedents.4 In Jackson, the Court held that it was limited to ordering a suppression hearing because ordering a full trial would interfere with the state’s sovereignty. See Jackson, 378 U.S. at 395, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (“[F]or us to impose th[e] requirement [of a new trial] ... would not comport with the proper relationship between federal and state courts.”); see also id. at 427, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (Harlan, J., dissenting) (describing the majority’s limited remedy as its “one bow to federalism”). Thus, the majority has suggested that it might be constitutionally forbidden to do what the Supreme Court ruled it was constitutionally required to do — condition the writ on the grant of a suppression hearing only. 5 I am at a loss to understand how this could be true.
C.

Distinguishing Jackson

The panel majority attempts to distinguish Jackson v. Denno by reeling off a list of “factors” that it claims makes Henderson’s case “very different” — even “completely different” — from Jackson. The “sum of these factors,” the majority proclaims, makes Jackson distinguishable and a new trial necessary to cure the constitutional wrong. Maj. Op. at 171. An examination of these “factors” shows that they each applied with equal force to Jackson v. Denno, and thus fail to provide any possible basis from which Jackson can be distinguished.
1.
The weakest of the majority’s arguments that Jackson is distinguishable is that the denial of a Sixth Amendment right to counsel is generally considered a structural defect rather than a trial error under the framework provided by Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991).
I completely agree that the uncounseled suppression hearing suffered by Henderson was a structural defect in his trial. The problem is that the constitutional error in Jackson v. Denno was also a structural defect, for exactly the same reason: without conducting a new hearing, there was no way to determine how heavily constitutional error weighed into the jury’s verdict. See Brecht, 507 U.S. at 629, 113 S.Ct. 1710. In fact, in the two cases in which the' Supreme Court considered unconstitutional suppression pro*178ceedings and ruled that a new trial was not required to remedy the wrong, the errors were both structural defects. See Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 310, 111 S.Ct. 1246 (noting that the error in Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 50, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984)6 was a structural defect that “affeetfed] the framework within the trial proceeds, rather than simply an error in the trial process itself”).7
The error in the majority’s analysis is that Fulminante’s “structural defect”/ “trial error” doctrine is used exclusively to gauge whether a reviewing court needs to grant relief at all following a constitutional error. If the error is a structural defect, the court must grant relief; if it is a trial error, the court need not grant relief unless the admission of the tainted evidence “had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Brecht, 507 U.S. at 631, 113 S.Ct. 1710 (citing Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946) (habeas)). Once the court has determined that it must grant relief, however, and turns to the separate question of what relief must be granted, the “structural defect”/ “trial error” distinction drops out of the analysis and becomes completely irrelevant. Accordingly, the panel majority’s emphasis on the fact that the constitutional wrong is a structural defect answers a question that has not been asked. It provides no guidance or help in determining what remedy is required to cure the constitutional defect.
The majority also argues that this case is different from Jackson because the defect in Jackson was not the Sixth Amendment right to counsel present in this ease, but rather a determination that “a conviction based upon a coerced confession ... cannot withstand constitutional attack under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Maj. Op. at 169 (quoting Jackson, 378 U.S. at 377, 84 S.Ct. 1774) (ellipsis in majority opinion). This, we are told, is a “completely different issue ... that requires a completely different analysis.” Id.
The flaw in this argument begins with the majority’s gross misuse of ellipses to mis-characterize the holding of Jackson. The effect of the selective quotation is to foster the impression that the issue in Jackson was whether a confession was coerced, rather than, as here, whether a reliable evidentiary procedure was followed so that the defendant’s rights to a fair trial were upheld. The entire sentence from which the majority selectively quotes is as follows:
In our view, the New York procedure employed in this case did not afford a reliable determination of the voluntariness of the confessio n offered in evidence at the trial, did not adequately protect Jackson’s right to be free of a conviction based upon a coerced confession and therefore cannot withstand constitutional attack under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Jackson, 378 U.S. at 377, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (emphasis added). As this quotation shows, the constitutional error in Jackson was not that Jackson’s “conviction [was] based upon a coerced confession,” as the majority states, but that the procedure “did not afford a reliable determination of the voluntariness of the confession” so that there was a substantial risk that Jackson’s conviction was based upon a coerced profession.
As a matter of substance, the constitutional wrongs in the two cases were the same: the petitioners’ confessions were determined in unreliable proceedings. Granted, the *179sources of the unreliability are different: in Jackson, the concern was that jurors would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions, whereas here, our concern is that a defendant proceeding without a lawyer would be unable to defend his case. The substance of the constitutional wrongs is the same, however: in both cases, the voluntariness of the confessions was the issue. Because the proceedings in which the voluntariness of the confessions was determined were unfair and unreliable, we just cannot be sure that the petitioners’ convictions were based on voluntary confessions.
Finally, the constitutional wrongs are identical as a matter of form. Both wrongs are violations of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which guarantees to state criminal defendants those federal guarantees listed in the Bill of Rights that are “fundamental and essential to a fail' trial.” Gideon, 372 U.S. at 340, 83 S.Ct. 792. The majority concedes that this was the wrong-identified in Jackson, but then tries to pin the constitutional violation here on the Sixth Amendment, rather than the Fourteenth. Maj. Op. at 169-170, 172. However, Sixth Amendment guarantees apply to state proceedings only insofar as the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment includes them. See Gideon, 372 U.S. at 345, 83 S.Ct. 792. Therefore, this alleged difference is an illusion.
3.
The third and final “factor” that the majority lists as a ground for distinguishing Jackson is that the denial of counsel at Henderson’s suppression hearing “may have had repercussions in plea bargaining, discovery, and trial strategy.” Id. at 169-170. The participation of a skilled attorney at the suppression hearing “would have been beneficial to Henderson’s defense,” we are told, because it might have revealed weaknesses in the Commonwealth’s case that could have only been uncovered in a pre-trial proceeding. Maj. Op. at 169-170. Even if the judge ruled that the confession was inadmissible, “a skilled attorney ... would have confronted the witnesses against Henderson and studied the Commonwealth’s trial strategy, in the hopes of preparing a better attack on the factual environment of the confession at a trial by jury.” Id. at 170. This contrasts with Jackson, we are instructed, because in Jackson the only harm suffered by the habe-as petitioner was the absence of “an opportunity to have his confession suppressed — the legal outcome of that hearing.” Id. at 169. Thus, the majority claims that the jury in Henderson’s trial “had too little information,” whereas the jury in Jackson “arguably knew too much.” Id. at 171.
Here the majority has manufactured a difference between the two cases by comparing apples and oranges: the possibility of actual prejudice in Henderson’s case, as compared with the reality of constitutional prejudice in Jackson. If we apply the same scrutiny to both eases, however, we see that the reason stated for distinguishing Henderson’s case from Jackson actually applies with equal force (or lack thereof) to Jackson’s case.
In terms of actual prejudice, both Jackson and Henderson suffered a missed opportunity to “confront[ ] the witnesses against [them] and [to] stud[y] the Commonwealth’s trial strategy [before trial], in the hopes of preparing a better attack on the factual environment of the confession at a trial by jury.” Id. at 170. Neither petitioner was given an adequate opportunity to probe the prosecution’s ease against him until the trial itself, where all attempts to challenge the voluntariness of the confessions failed. If anything, Henderson fared substantially better on this count than did Jackson: at least Henderson’s lawyer had available to him at trial a transcript of Henderson’s uncounseled suppression hearing. In Henderson’s case, this benefit was substantial, because Henderson managed to delve into the circumstances of his confession in substantially more depth than did Henderson’s counsel at trial. In fact, the transcript of the uneounseled suppression hearing runs 54 pages; Henderson’s entire defense, by comparison, is contained on only 21 pages.8
*180In contrast, Jackson had no opportunity whatsoever to probe the prosecution’s case before trial. If the majority is right that such missed opportunities to gain tactical advantage are constitutionally relevant, then the case in which the absence of such opportunities most cries out for constitutional relief is Jackson’s, not Henderson’s. Cf. Jackson, 378 U.S. at 426, 84 S.Ct. 1774 (Clark, J., dissenting).
But of course the majority is not right. Jackson rejected the view that such possibilities were relevant, and instead adopted the view that there was “no constitutional prejudice” so long as a subsequent suppression hearing later revealed that the confession relied upon by the jury was properly before it. Id. at 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774. In distinguishing between actual prejudice and constitutional prejudice, the Court reasonably tailored the constitutional remedy to the constitutional wrong. Because defendants do not have a constitutional right to an opportunity to gain a tactical advantage in pretrial proceedings, the denial of such opportunities could not create constitutional prejudice that could be a relevant consideration in fashioning habeas relief. Applying this same standard to Henderson’s case leads to the ineluctable conclusion that there could be no constitutional prejudice to Henderson if a subsequent suppression hearing later reveals that the confession relied upon by the jury was properly before it.
D.
This Court’s conclusion that a new trial is required if a counseled suppression hearing reveals that Henderson’s confession was properly admitted at trial is contrary to reason and directly clashes with the Supreme Court’s holding in Jackson v. Denno. I therefore respectfully dissent.

. As noted, Henderson has not challenged the constitutionality of his trial.

. Henderson told the jury that the officers handcuffed him to a chair, threatened him, told him what to write down in the confession, and failed to read Henderson his Miranda rights. App. 303-06 (trial transcript).

. The continuing viability of Jackson's conclusion that a constitutionally proper suppression hearing cures the constitutional wrong when the original hearing was conducted in violation of the defendant's rights is illustrated by the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion in Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 50, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984). In Waller, the Court held that a suppression hearing that (pursuant to a motion by the state) was closed to the public violated the defendant's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to a public trial. On direct review, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction, but concluded that a new trial was not required. Justice Powell wrote that "the remedy should be appropriate to the violation. If, after a new suppression hearing, essentially the same evidence is suppressed, a new trial presumably would be a windfall for the defendant, and not in the public interest.” Id. at 50, 104 S.Ct. 2210 (citing Jackson, 378 U.S. at 394-96, 84 S.Ct. 1774). A new trial was necessary "only if a [constitutionally proper] suppression hearing results in the suppression of material evidence not suppressed at the first trial, or in some other *177material change in the positions of the parties.” Id.
The fact that the Court concluded that a new suppression hearing cured the constitutional wrong on direct review in Waller is especially strong evidence that a new trial is an inappropriate remedy here. The Supreme Court has often stressed that the writ of habeas corpus is an extraordinary remedy, and that "an error that may justify reversal on direct appeal will not necessarily support a collateral attack on a final judgment.” Brecht, 507 U.S. at 634, 113 S.Ct. 1710. Given the much freer hand courts have in remedying constitutional wrongs on direct review, the fact that the unanimous court believed that a new trial was unnecessary on direct review in Waller strongly reinforces the conclusion in Jackson that it is unnecessary on habeas review.

. See United States ex rel. Harvin v. Yeager, 428 F.2d 1354, 1358-59 (3d Cir.1970); United States ex rel. Montgomery v. Brierley, 414 F.2d 552, 560 (3d Cir.1969); United States ex rel. Dickerson v. Rundle, 363 F.2d 126, 130 (3d Cir.1966).

. The patent weakness of the majority’s suggestion that a limited remedy might improperly "revise the state court judgment,” Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 431, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963), is further illustrated by the fact that Justice Brennan, the author of Fay v. Noia, provided the fifth vote for the majority in Jackson one year later.

. Discussed in note 3, supra.

. Because Jackson was decided before the Supreme Court first introduced the harmless error doctrine in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), and nearly a quarter century before Fulminante formalized the distinction between structural defects and trial errors, the Jackson opinion could not actually state that its error was a structural defect. However, we can be confident that the error in Jackson was a structural defect because (1) the Fulminante court specifically held that a nearly identical error in Waller was a structural defect, see Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 310, 111 S.Ct. 1246, and (2) the error in Jackson was not something that could be "quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented in order to determine the effect it had on the trial.” Brecht, 507 U.S. at 629, 113 S.Ct. 1710.
Notably, the majority has not made any argument that the error in Jackson was not a structural defect.

. Compare App. 158-211 (uncounseled suppression hearing) with App. 298-319 (trial). Of course, the adequacy of Henderson's trial counsel is not at issue in this petition.