Court Opinion

ID: 9702351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:07:47.6754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:36.914208
License: Public Domain

Justice NIGRO,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with the majority that Appellant is entitled to a remand regarding his layered ineffectiveness claim that appellate counsel was ineffective for not raising trial counsel’s failure to investigate and present certain mitigating evidence at his penalty phase hearing, but I differ as to the scope of the remand to which Appellant is entitled. While the majority remands this matter for a full evidentiary hearing on Appellant’s claim, and specifically on Appellant’s claim as it relates to trial counsel, I would only remand the matter to allow Appellant to properly develop his claim of appellate counsel’s ineffectiveness pursuant to this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. McGill, 574 Pa. 574, 832 A.2d 1014 (2003), as I believe Appellant has already demonstrated on the record before us that trial counsel was ineffective at Appellant’s penalty phase hearing.
The facts relevant to the only issue subject to the majority’s remand are as follows. Appellant was originally represented by Thomas Ciccone, Esq., a court-appointed attorney. A few days before trial, Appellant retained Oscar Gaskins, Esq. to represent him. Given that he was hired only a short time before Appellant’s trial was set to begin, Gaskins claims to have filed a motion for a continuance, which, according to Gaskins, the trial court denied. The case proceeded to trial as scheduled on October 3, 1991, and the jury returned a guilty verdict against Appellant late in the afternoon of October 9, *31991. Appellant’s penalty phase hearing began first thing the following morning, for which Gaskins readily admits he was unprepared. In his aflldavit/declaration attached to Appellant’s PCRA petition, Gaskins states point-blank that he “did not have time to investigate the penalty phase.” Affidavit/Declaration of Oscar Gaskins at 2. Nor was Gaskins able to rely on previous preparation done by Appellant’s prior trial counsel as Ciccone states in his own affidavit/declaration that “at the time that I turned the case over to Gaskins, I had not investigated or prepared a penalty phase defense.” Affidavit/Declaration of Thomas Ciccone at 1.
Appellant now claims that had trial counsel conducted any kind of investigation for the penalty phase, he would have discovered valuable evidence of mitigation, including evidence of Appellant’s severe mental health impairments and dysfunctional family life. In support of his claim, Appellant points to, among other things, a mental health evaluation conducted three years before, an affidavit from a forensic psychiatrist outlining evidence of Appellant’s mental impairment, and evidence of Appellant’s dysfunctional family history, including the fact that both of Appellant’s parents abused alcohol, that Appellant’s father beat his mother, and that Appellant made suicide threats as a child. Given counsel’s clear admission that he did not even attempt to investigate whether this or any other potential evidence of mitigation existed, and given that such evidence did in fact exist, it is clear, at least to me, that Appellant has demonstrated on the record before us that his ineffectiveness claim has arguable merit. See Commonwealth v. Malloy, 579 Pa. 425, 856 A.2d 767, 787-88 (2004) (appellant’s claim that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present certain mitigating evidence, including evidence that appellant suffered an abusive childhood and was abandoned by his drug-addicted mother, had arguable merit where appellant established that such evidence was discoverable and could have been forwarded in mitigation had counsel undertaken even a minimal investigation).
Appellant has also shown, in my mind, that counsel had no reasonable basis for failing to investigate and present this *4mitigating evidence. In finding otherwise, the PCRA court below first noted that Gaskins actually presented nine witnesses at Appellant’s penalty phase hearing, who basically testified that Appellant was well-liked, respectful, a good student, and a good father. One of the nine witnesses, Appellant’s mother, also testified that Appellant had been left by his father at a young age and grew up in a bad neighborhood. The PCRA court found, in effect, that the presentation of this testimony constituted a reasonable strategy on the part of Gaskins. However, as the trial investigator hired by Gas-kins states in his own affidavit/declaration:
I did not conduct a penalty phase investigation. Mr. Gas-kins and I got a list of names from [Appellant] of people who could “cry and beg” the jury not to sentence [Appellant] to death. I never had time to interview any of these witnesses. I was unable to collect relevant records. Mr. Gaskins was forced to ... put defense witnesses on the stand, in both the guilt/innocence and penalty phase, cold. He had no idea what they would say.
Affidavit/Declaration of Karim Shabazz at 3.1 Given these circumstances, I simply do not see how the PCRA court could find that counsel’s strategy was reasonable, when the evidence shows that such a strategy amounted to little more than blindly throwing witnesses up on the stand with the mere hope that they would offer some sort of testimony that would resonate' with the jury. In any event, in light of counsel’s admission that he conducted no investigation whatsoever for the penalty phase, it is clear to me that counsel’s decision not to present the mitigating factors Appellant cites to here was *5not one based upon a reasonable strategy. See Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 527-28, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003) (reasonableness of strategy depends upon reasonableness of investigation); Malloy, 856 A.2d at 788 (counsel’s failure to present mitigating evidence regarding appellant’s background was not based on reasonable strategy where record showed that counsel did not even conduct cursory review of appellant’s background and failure to present evidence was not caused by appellant’s or appellant’s family’s failure to cooperate in supplying information).
Finally, I believe that Appellant has also shown that he was prejudiced by counsel’s admitted failure to conduct any investigation at all for the penalty phase. Such a failure ultimately resulted in the jury being deprived of important evidence in deciding whether or not certain mitigating factors were applicable or had been established. Instead, the only non-record-based mitigating evidence presented by counsel was a series of witnesses who, although counsel had “no idea what they would say,” were called upon to “cry and beg” for Appellant’s life.2 Under these circumstances, and where the jury ultimately found and weighed one mitigating circumstance against the three aggravating circumstances it also found, I agree with Appellant that had counsel done any investigation for the penalty phase and presented the mitigating evidence that such investigation would have uncovered, there is a reasonable probability that the ultimate outcome of the jury’s penalty phase deliberations would have been different.3
*6In the end, I believe that Appellant has aptly demonstrated that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to conduct any investigation for his penalty phase hearing. Indeed, in support of his claim, Appellant has furnished this Court, as he did the PCRA court below, with what really amounts to a “smoking gun,” a signed statement from his attorney all but conceding that he was ineffective by failing to conduct any investigation or meaningful preparation whatsoever for Appellant’s penalty phase hearing. Appellant has also provided this Court, again as he did the PCRA court below, with evidence of mitigation that was discoverable and could have been presented at his penalty phase hearing had his counsel undertaken even a minimal investigation. I simply fail to see what additional support for his claim the majority expects Appellant to produce at an evidentiary hearing or indeed, what other evidence Appellant needs to produce above and beyond what he has already provided to the Court.
While I would not remand for an evidentiary hearing, I do recognize that Appellant’s underlying claim of trial counsel’s ineffectiveness is not the viable claim before the Court. Instead, as this Court explained in McGill, in collateral cases involving layered claims of ineffectiveness, the only viable ineffectiveness claim is that related to the most recent counsel, usually, as in this case, appellate counsel. Thus, McGill made clear that a petitioner’s ineffectiveness claim must focus on appellate counsel’s representation and to that end, he must plead appellate counsel’s ineffectiveness in his PCRA petition, which Appellant has done here, and present argument in his brief on all three prongs of the ineffectiveness test as it relates to appellate counsel’s deficient representation. McGill, 832 *7A.2d at 1021-1022. Here, Appellant has, in my view, established the arguable merit of his claim that appellate counsel was ineffective by demonstrating that trial counsel was indeed ineffective for his failure to investigate and present the evidence of mitigation cited by Appellant. See id. at 1022-23 (explaining that arguable merit prong of claim relating to appellate counsel ineffectiveness can only be established by showing that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance). However, in presenting his argument regarding appellate counsel’s ineffectiveness, Appellant has failed to develop the second and third prongs of the ineffectiveness test as it relates to appellate counsel. Significantly, such an omission is not fatal to Appellant’s claim as McGill recognized that in light of the previous confusion regarding the mechanics of preserving layered ineffectiveness claims, a remand may be necessary to give a petitioner the opportunity to properly develop his claims of appellate counsel’s ineffectiveness. See id. at 1024. Indeed, such is the case here, and thus, consistent with McGill, I would remand the matter solely to give Appellant the opportunity to further develop his assertion that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the claim that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and present the evidence of mitigation on which Appellant relies.4

. See also Affidavit/Declaration of Joan Gibson at 4 ("[A]t no time before trial did any attorney for [Appellant] ask me any questions about [Appellant’s] background. Mr. Gaskins didn’t tell me until right before the penalty phase that he might call me to testify, and never prepared me for my testimony.”); Affidavit/Declaration of Leora Johnson at 4 (stating that she had no idea what she was going to be asked when she took the stand at the penalty phase because no one had talked to her about her testimony and that no one ever asked her about Appellant’s background); Affidavil/Declaration of Niema Williamson at 4 (stating that before testifying at the penalty phase, "one of the defense lawyers told me that I should get up on the stand and plead for [Appellant’s] life. Nothing else was said to me about what I was doing there.”).

. Counsel also asserted that Appellant's age and his lack of a significant criminal history were mitigators. The jury found the existence of the latter.

. The PCRA court below found that Appellant was not prejudiced by counsel’s admitted failure to conduct any investigation for the penalty phase because “it is pure conjecture on [Appellant’s] part that the sentencing jury would have found [Appellant’s] intoxication, substance abuse or background a mitigating factor. Further, even if the jury did find that these were mitigating factors, it is pure speculation that this would have outweighed the three aggravating factors found buy the jury for each murder count.” PCRA Ct. Op. at 16-17. Of course, there will always be some degree of speculation implicated by allegations that counsel failed to present relevant evidence of mitigation, as courts cannot say with absolute certainly what a jury would have done had it *6possessed additional evidence of mitigation during its deliberations. In recognition of this, this Court has stated that to establish prejudice in this context an appellant must only show "the reasonable probability that, absent counsel’s failure to present the mitigating evidence [in question], he would have been able to prove at least one mitigating circumstance by a preponderance of the evidence and that at least one jury member would have concluded that the mitigating circumstance(s) outweighed the aggravating circumstance(s).” Commonwealth v. Ford, 570 Pa. 378, 809 A.2d 325, 332 (2002) (emphasis added), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1150, 124 S.Ct. 1144, 157 L.Ed.2d 1044 (2004). As indicated above, Appellant has, in my view, met this burden here.

. Although Appellant has attached an affidavit form his appellate counsel to his brief to this Court, he did not submit that affidavit to the PCRA court and therefore, it may not be considered here. See Commonwealth v. Crawley, 541 Pa. 408, 663 A.2d 676, 681 n. 9 (1995) (document attached to appellant's brief could not be considered by this Court because it was not part of official record).