Court Opinion

ID: 9555900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-15 17:00:40.630486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:36:50.863971
License: Public Domain

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

                           UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                                     ____________

                                           No. 22-2126
                                             ______

                                     JUSTIN GLOVER, JR.,
                                          Appellant

                                                 v.

      SUPERINTENDENT FAYETTE SCI; ATTORNEY GENERAL PENNSYLVANIA
                              ____________

                         On Appeal from the United States District Court
                             for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
                                  (D.C. Civ. No. 3-14-cv-01800)
                          District Judge: Honorable Matthew W. Brann
                                          ____________

                       Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
                                        July 13, 2023
                                       ____________

                   Before: PHIPPS, McKEE, and RENDELL, Circuit Judges.

                                     (Filed: August 15, 2023)
                                           ___________

                                            OPINION *
                                           ___________

PHIPPS, Circuit Judge.

       Justin Glover, an inmate serving a life sentence at State Correctional Institution – Fayette,

appeals the denial of his Rule 60(b)(6) motion for relief from a judgment denying his petition for

a writ of habeas corpus. In that motion, he claimed actual innocence for the first time as a basis

*
 This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute
binding precedent.
for allowing reconsideration of the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims that the District

Court rejected in denying his petition. For the reasons below, we will affirm that order.

       In 2006, Glover was criminally charged in the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin

County, Pennsylvania, for first-degree murder, conspiracy to murder, and abuse of a corpse. At

trial, the prosecution argued that Glover and a codefendant killed another man, Wesley Person,

for skimming proceeds from a fraudulent loan scheme that the three men ran together. Person

was last seen shopping a couple of days before Christmas in 2005, and through circumstantial

evidence, the prosecution asserted that Glover along with his codefendant killed Person in a

house in Harrisburg owned by the codefendant and afterwards burned Person’s body on the side

of Interstate 83, across the Pennsylvania border in Maryland. Although the prosecution had no

direct evidence that Glover was at either the murder scene or the body dump, cell phone data

suggested that Glover was in Maryland near the location of the burned body on the night of the

murder. Also, several witnesses testified about the fraudulent loan scheme and Glover’s

incriminating behavior during the days surrounding Person’s disappearance. One of those

witnesses, Abdul McCauley, testified that he had seen Person leaving the shopping mall with

Glover the day Person disappeared, and that Glover had seemed anxious and paranoid in the days

following the murder and at Person’s funeral. The jury convicted Glover on all three counts, and

he received a life-without-parole sentence.

       Glover challenged his conviction through the state-court system. On direct appeal, his

conviction and sentence were sustained. Later, he collaterally challenged his conviction through

a series of petitions and appeals under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act, commonly

referred to as the ‘PCRA.’ See 42 Pa. Cons. Stat §§ 9541–46. Those efforts were similarly

unsuccessful.

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       In 2014, after the denial of the first of his PCRA petitions and the related appellate

proceedings, Glover petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the Middle District of

Pennsylvania. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254; see also id. § 2241(d) (permitting prisoners in state custody

to file habeas petitions in either the federal district in which they are incarcerated or the federal

district encompassing the state court in which they were convicted). In his petition, Glover

claimed that his state-court trial counsel was ineffective for failing to impeach McCauley based

on a plea bargain that McCauley received from the prosecution on unrelated charges.

       But Glover had not presented that argument in his initial PCRA challenge. By not doing

so, Glover waived his ability to raise it on further PCRA petitions. See 42 Pa. Cons. Stat.

§ 9544(b) (“[A]n issue is waived if the petitioner could have raised it but failed to do so before

trial, at trial, during unitary review, on appeal or in a prior state postconviction proceeding.”).

And because that rule foreclosed collateral review of that issue in the state courts, the District

Court considered that claim procedurally defaulted and dismissed his petition. See Shinn v.

Ramirez, 142 S. Ct. 1718, 1732 (2022) (“Under [the] doctrine [of procedural default], federal

courts generally decline to hear any federal claim that was not presented to the state courts

‘consistent with [the State’s] own procedural rules.’” (last alteration in original) (quoting

Edwards v. Carpenter, 529 U.S. 446, 453 (2000))). Glover attempted to appeal that ruling, but

this Court denied a certificate of appealability, and the Supreme Court rejected Glover’s petition

challenging that order. See Glover v. Superintendent Fayette SCI, 2017 WL 7798635, at *1 (3d

Cir. Nov. 16, 2017) (denying certificate of appealability); Glover v. Lane, 138 S. Ct. 1991

(mem.) (denying petition for writ of certiorari). See generally 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c).

       On May 3, 2021, Glover filed pro se a motion for relief from judgment with respect to

the order of August 1, 2017, denying his federal habeas petition. He did so under Rule 60(b)(6),

claiming actual innocence as a gateway to excuse the procedural default as to his ineffective-

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assistance-of-counsel claim. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6); Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524,

531–32, 532 n.4 (2005) (recognizing that Rule 60(b)(6) motions challenging procedural default

are not barred as second or successive petitions under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)). The District Court

denied that motion, finding that the evidence Glover presented did not satisfy the standards of

Rule 60(b)(6) or establish his actual innocence necessary to consider the merits of his

procedurally defaulted ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim. Glover timely appealed, and this

Court granted a certificate of appealability. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253.

        To overcome the procedural default and allow consideration of the merits of his

ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, Glover must establish actual innocence. See Howell v.

Superintendent Albion SCI, 978 F.3d 54, 59 (3d Cir. 2020); see also McQuiggin v. Perkins,

569 U.S. 383, 386 (2013). But proving actual innocence is a heavy burden: the petitioner must

demonstrate that “in light of the new evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to

find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 329 (1995) (emphasis

added). That “demanding” standard is “satisfied only in the ‘rare’ and ‘extraordinary’ case.”

Reeves v. Fayette SCI, 897 F.3d 154, 161 (3d Cir. 2018) (quoting McQuiggin, 569 U.S. at 386,

392).

        Glover’s Rule 60(b)(6) motion does not clear that high threshold. His principal evidence

of actual innocence is a sworn statement by McCauley’s former cellmate, who claims that

McCauley provided false testimony against Glover in return for the favorable plea deal. But the

crux of that statement is hearsay – the former cellmate’s statement about McCauley, see Fed R.

Evid. 801(c) – and that falls well short of the reliability required for an actual innocence claim.

As this Court has recognized, actual innocence is “a supremely high bar” that cannot be cleared

by “the second-hand retelling of a jailhouse confession.” Sistrunk v. Rozum, 674 F.3d 181, 192

(3d Cir. 2012); see also Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 417 (1993); Howell, 978 F.3d at 59

                                                  4
(evaluating the reliability of the new evidence before turning to the inquiry as to whether the jury

could have convicted petitioner in light of the new evidence). 1

        Nor could the affidavit – even if it were reliable – overcome the other evidence presented

at trial of Glover’s guilt. If taken as reliable, the affidavit suggests that there was a basis for

impeaching McCauley as his plea agreement provided a strong motive for him to lie: in return

for his testimony, he served only 30 days of probation for a crime for which he faced up to 11

years in prison. Even so, that alone does not clear the actual innocence bar because “mere

impeachment evidence is generally not sufficient to show actual innocence by clear and

convincing evidence.” Munchinski v. Wilson, 694 F.3d 308, 335 (3d Cir. 2012).

        And in this case, Glover does not complement McCauley’s impeachability with

additional “individual and fact-specific” reasons that support actual innocence. Howell, 978 F.3d

at 60. To the contrary, despite not attempting to impeach McCauley on the basis of his plea

deal, 2 Glover’s trial counsel conducted an extensive cross-examination and impeached

McCauley on other grounds – prior inconsistent statements and an evidence-tampering

conviction. Also, while McCauley was an important witness, the prosecution could make its

case without him as multiple other witnesses testified to Glover’s involvement in the loan

1
  The District Court found that the delay between the swearing of the affidavit (June 2019) and
Glover’s filing of his Rule 60(b)(6) motion (May 2021) also undermined the reliability of the
affidavit. While a court “may consider how the timing of [the petitioner’s] submission . . . bears
on the probable reliability of that evidence,” Reeves, 897 F.3d at 161 (quoting House v. Bell,
547 U.S. 518, 537 (2006)), this delay is not the type that raises reliability concerns. See House,
547 U.S. at 558 (Roberts, C.J., concurring) (noting fourteen-year delay in witnesses coming
forward following trial undermined the testimony’s reliability). It is reasonable for a party,
especially an incarcerated person, to secure a sworn statement while a witness is willing and able
to provide it – even before such a statement may be used in litigation.
2
 McCauley’s sentence of thirty days’ probation and a fine became final on November 14, 2006,
well before McCauley testified in Glover’s trial in February of 2008. The fact that McCauley
had already served his sentence by the time of Glover’s trial diminishes any prejudice that
Glover may have suffered by Defense counsel’s failure to impeach for bias based on his plea
agreement; he had little to gain by cooperating further with the Government.

                                                   5
scheme and his suspicious behavior the day of and following Person’s disappearance. In

addition to that testimony, the prosecution presented cell phone data that placed Glover near the

precise location Person’s body was found the night of the murder.

       Thus, Glover cannot show his actual innocence, and this Court cannot reach his

underlying ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim. Accordingly, we will affirm the District

Court’s order denying Glover’s Rule 60(b)(6) motion.

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