Court Opinion

ID: 9491480
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Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:15:23.379841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:46.189904
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OPINION OF THE COURT
ALDISERT, Circuit Judge.
Facing criminal charges at a preliminary hearing before a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania district justice, John K. Henderson signed and filed a standard waiver of counsel form. He then petitioned the state court to allow him to proceed pro se, which was allowed without a recorded colloquy between Henderson and the judge regarding the dangers of self-representation. Henderson was not represented by counsel at a subsequent pretrial hearing where he unsuccessfully moved to suppress his confession. He was represented by counsel at his trial, where a jury found him guilty of burglary, criminal conspiracy, criminal attempt to commit burglary and criminal mischief.
After failing to obtain relief from his conviction in the state court system, Henderson petitioned the district court for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, alleging that his invalid waiver of counsel and subsequent lack of representation at the suppression hearing violated the Sixth Amendment. The district court denied relief and we granted a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). We must consider two separate but related issues: First, did signing a standard waiver of counsel form at the preliminary hearing and later petitioning the court for permission to proceed pro se, by themselves, constitute a knowing, voluntary and intelligent waiver of his right to counsel at a subsequent suspension hearing? Second, if this did not satisfy Sixth Amendment waiver requirements and we grant a writ of habeas corpus, should the grant of the writ be conditioned on his receiving a new trial or merely a hew suppression hearing? Before meeting these issues head-on, we must first decide whether his habeas petition was time-barred under provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, and whether he exhausted state remedies before filing the Petition.
The district court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a), and we have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(c)(1)(A). Henderson’s Notice of Appeal was timely filed. Rule 4, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. We will reverse and remand to the district court to issue the writ, conditioned on the Commonwealth affording Henderson a new suppression hearing and a new trial.
I.
In April, 1992, the Waynesburg, Pennsylvania Police arrested Henderson for receiving stolen property in connection with the burglary of a clothing store. Once in police custody, Henderson confessed to the burglary of the clothing store and also to the attempted burglary of a hardware store a few months earlier. He was subsequently charged with both crimes.
Prior to the preliminary hearing on July 6, 1992, Henderson applied for and was appointed a public defender. Because this particular attorney withdrew from the representation prior to the hearing, he was represented at the hearing by another public defender, Elizabeth Haque. At this hearing, Henderson submitted a form entitled “Waiver of Counsel” to the district justice. The standard form was filled out with Henderson’s name, the charges of “Burglary, Criminal conspiracy, Criminal attempt, Criminal mischief & Criminal Conspiracy” and contains Henderson’s signature below a series of pre-printed statements, including:
I, John Henderson, have been informed that I have the right to have a lawyer represent me, and if I cannot afford one, one will be afforded to me without cost.•• •
I, John Henderson, am a ware of the permissible range of sentences and/or fines for the offenses charged....
*163I knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently waive these rights and choose to act as my own lawyer at this hearing/trial.
App. at 33. The district justice signed the form under the statement, “I HAVE DETERMINED THAT THE DEFENDANT HAS MADE A KNOWING, VOLUNTARY, AND INTELLIGENT WAIVER OF HIS RIGHT TO COUNSEL.” Id.
On July 17, Henderson filed a “Petition to Proceed on own Behalf’, which was granted by the trial court. It is unclear from the record whether Elizabeth Haque continued to serve as court-appointed stand-by counsel for Henderson after this point. Henderson next filed a pro se Motion to Suppress his confession, and after a suppression hearing on September 25 at which he represented himself, and at which Ms. Haque’s presence is not apparent on the record, his Motion was denied. The court then appointed new counsel to represent Henderson at trial and the jury convicted Henderson on all counts. The trial court sentenced him to 5 to 20 years at Huntingdon State Correctional Institution.
Henderson appealed to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, alleging, inter alia, that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel at the suppression hearing. His conviction was affirmed and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denied his Petition for Allowance of Appeal, which raised a violation of “the right to counsel.” The Court of Common Pleas denied his Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act Petition, 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. §§ 9541-9546, which also raised the deprivation of counsel issue.
Henderson gave his Habeas Corpus Petition, which was addressed to the federal district court in Pittsburgh and dated April 16, 1996, to Huntingdon SCI prison officials for delivery. The record does not disclose the precise date that his Petition was handed to the prison officials. The record does reveal that the district court clerk filed the Petition on April 25, one day after the effective date of the AEDPA amendments to the federal habeas corpus statute.
Our review of whether Henderson has exhausted his state remedies is plenary. See Doctor v. Walters, 96 F.3d 675, 678 (3d Cir.1996). Whether the AEDPA applies to this case, i.e., whether Henderson’s Petition was pending on the AEDPA’s April 24, 1996 enactment date, is a jurisdictional question subject to plenary review. See In re Flanagan, 999 F.2d 753, 756 (3d Cir.1993). If we conclude that the AEDPA applies to Henderson’s petition, then we may reverse the state court’s denial of his Sixth Amendment claim only if the decision (1) “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2) ... was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); see Bey v. Morton, 124 F.3d 524, 528 (3d Cir.1997). If the AEDPA’s amendments to § 2254 do not apply, then we exercise simple plenary review. See Bey, 124 F.3d at 528.
II.
The Commonwealth has suggested that Henderson’s Petition was filed after enactment of the AEDPA, which amended the federal habeas statute in two respects relevant to this case: (1) the AEDPA provides for a one-year period of limitations to file § 2254 petitions, running from “the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review”, § 2244(d)(1)(A), and (2) it imposes a new, limited standard of review which restricts federal court action by requiring deference to the state court’s legal resolution of the issue petitioned, § 2254(d).
For several discrete reasons, we are not impressed by the Commonwealth’s tardy presentation of this argument which it neglected to present to the district court. First, we conclude that Henderson’s Petition was timely filed prior to the effective date of the act, April 24, 1996, that therefore his Petition was pending on that date and that the AEDPA does not apply. See Lindh v. Murphy, — U.S.-,-, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 2063, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997). We reach this conclusion because we agree with Henderson’s claim that he handed over his petition, which was dated April 16, 1996, to *164prison officials before April 24, 1996 and therefore it was timely filed. See Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 276, 108 S.Ct. 2379, 101 L.Ed.2d 245 (1988); BuRNs v. Morton, 134 F.3d 109, 112 (3d Cir.1998) (the teachings of Houston — that delivery of a notice of appeal by a pro se prisoner to prison officials is tantamount to filing with the clerk of court— apply to filing a § 2254 habeas petition).
Putting aside that the Commonwealth failed to raise this issue before the district court, we are unable to accept its argument, somehow made with a straight face, that because the clerk received the transmittal from the prison on April 25, Henderson did not place it in the hands of the prison officials until the day before, to-wit April 24; that in a herculean burst of bureaucratic efficiency and postal service it was processed by the various levels of prison administration and delivered to the rural post office in Hun-tingdon, Pennsylvania that same day; that in lightning speed, the U.S. Postal Service carried it from Central Pennsylvania over the mountains to the Pittsburgh metropolitan distribution center — covering half the distance of the state — where, without any delay whatsoever, it was delivered to the district court clerk’s office in Pittsburgh by the next morning. If the Commonwealth had introduced evidence to support this ambitious scenario, it might have received some favorable reception here. But no such evidence was submitted. And what we know as men and women about prison administrative procedures and the pace of U.S. Mail delivery, now described as “snail mail” by e-mail aficionados, we must not forget as judges. We will not accept the Commonwealth’s theory that we should employ a kind of judicial notice to accept its theory.
We recognize that “prison authorities are in a position to easily show when a document was received or mailed under established prison procedures for recording the date and time at which papers are received by prison officials in the prison’s mail room.” Flanagan, 999 F.2d at 757 (citing Houston, 108 S.Ct. at 2384). Thus, the Commonwealth should have been expected to support its untimeliness argument with prison logs documenting that Henderson deposited his Petition with prison authorities on April 24 or April 25, 1996. Absent such proof to the contrary, we conclude that Henderson’s Petition, having arrived in Pittsburgh on April 25, must have been first delivered to prison authorities some time before April 24, and therefore should be deemed filed before the AEDPA effective date. Because the AEDPA does not apply here, the one-year period of limitations of the amended § 2244(d) does not bar the Petition.1 We repeat that, in this case, the Commonwealth had the burden of proving that the Petition had been delivered to prison authorities on April 24 and not before. It not only failed to meet its burden, it did not even see fit to raise this issue in the district court.
III.
A federal court may not grant a writ of habeas corpus unless (1) “the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State”, (2) no such state remedy is available or (3) available remedies are ineffective to protect the applicant’s rights. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1). To exhaust the remedies available in the Pennsylvania courts, Henderson must first fairly present to the Pennsylvania courts all claims he will make in his Habeas Petition, in order to give the state courts “the ‘opportunity to pass upon and correct alleged violations of [his] federal rights.’ ” See Duncan v. Henry, 513 U.S. 364, 365, 115 S.Ct. 887, 130 L.Ed.2d 865 (1995) (per curiam) (quoting Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275, 92 S.Ct. 509, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971)). Henderson raised one issue in his Petition to the district court: “Petitioner did not knowingly and intelligently waive his Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel.” For Henderson to have “fairly presented” this issue to the Pennsylvania courts, his “state court pleadings and briefs must demonstrate that he has presented the legal theory and supporting facts asserted in the federal habeas petition in such a manner *165that the claims raised in the state courts are substantially equivalent to those asserted in federal court." See Doctor, 96 F.3d at 678 (quotation omitted).
The record clearly demonstrates that Henderson, following his conviction, "fairly presented" before each level of state court hierarchy the issue of the effectiveness of his waiver of counsel on his subsequent pro cc representation at the suppression hearing. App. at 56, 61 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania); id. at 363 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania); id. at 85 (Common Pleas Court of Greene County). Moreover, the Commonwealth conceded to the district court in its Answer to Henderson's Habeas Petition that "[tjhe petitioner has exhausted his state remedies as to the issue of his right to counsel at the suppression hearing, albeit under the guise of an assertion of ineffective assistance of counsel." App. at 23.
Notwithstanding the district court's rather detailed analysis of the nuances of exhaustion-it construed Henderson's Petition as raising two Sixth Amendment violations, one at the preliminary hearing and another at the suppression hearing, and conducted a separate exhaustion analysis for each-we are satisfied that Henderson has fulfilled the exhaustion requirement. The Supreme Court has warned that judges should not misread habeas petitions in order to split single claims and conduct separate exhaustion anal-yses for each. Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 124 n. 25, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982) ("A creative appellate judge could almost always distill from these allegations an unexhausted ... claim."). We read the record to indicate that Henderson was without counsel at only one critical stage of his criminal proceeding-the suppression hearing. His right to counsel at this juncture certainly could have been waived, but it is the government's burden to demonstrate that such a waiver was voluntary, knowing and intelligent. See Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 403, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977). That the waiver analysis in this case involves two pieces of evidence at two different times-a waiver form signed by Henderson at the preliminary hearing and his motion to proceed pro so filed before the suppression hearing-does not transform the single, alleged constitutional deprivation into two separate ones.
Any doubt that Henderson raised only a single claim before the state courts and again in his Habeas Petition is answered by Henderson's Habeas Petition itself, which states as'the single, simple ground for review, "Petitioner did not knowingly and Intelligently waive his Sixth Amendment Right To Counsel." App. at 11. We reject the Commonwealth's attempt to split the claim for exhaustion purposes-right to counsel at the preliminary hearing and right to counsel at the suppression hearing-because it was the Commonwealth that broached the issue, notwithstanding Henderson's simple statement of the issue presented. See McMahon v. Fulcomer, 821 F.2d 934, 941 (3d Cir.1987). The legal memorandum Henderson submitted in support of his Petition clarified any ambiguity the district court may have had when he wrote of his "single constitutional issue" that "[t]he legal claim of invalid waiver of counsel at the preliminary hearing is precisely the same as invalid waiver of counsel at the suppression hearing."
What we said in McMahon, 821 F.2d at 941, may be reiterated to control the present matter:
Though appellant's petition may have been inartfully drafted, it was the Commonwealth, not the petitioner, that construed it as containing more than one claim. We find the record below reveals that [Henderson] clarified any ambiguity with respect to the Petition for a Writ of Habe-as Corpus and adequately informed the court that the Petition contained only one issue.
Accordingly, we conclude that Henderson properly exhausted the issue of his right to counsel at the suppression hearing. We turn, then, to the merits of his Petition.2
Iv.
The Sixth Amendment provides, inter alia: "In all criminal prosecutions, the *166accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.” U.S. Const, amend. VI; see Bey, 124 F.3d at 528. The right to counsel attaches at arraignment, extends through the first appeal and guarantees an accused the assistance of counsel at all critical stages of a proceeding. Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 357, 110 S.Ct. 1176, 108 L.Ed.2d 293 (1990). A pretrial hearing considering the suppression of the defendant’s confession is such a critical stage because its “results might settle the accused’s fate and reduce the trial itself to a mere formality.” See id. at 358 n. 5, 110 S.Ct. 1176 (quoting United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 224, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967)).
Concomitant with the right to be defended by counsel during criminal proceedings is the accused’s right to waive counsel and proceed pro se. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 821, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975). In order to establish that Henderson validly waived his right to counsel, the Commonwealth bears the heavy burden of proving that the waiver was voluntary, knowing and intelligent. See Brewer, 430 U.S. at 403, 97 S.Ct. 1232. The district court determined that Henderson validly waived his right to counsel, relying on (1) the waiver form which Henderson signed and filed with the district justice at the preliminary hearing and (2) the “Petition to Proceed on own Behalf’ which Henderson filed pro se with the Court of Common Pleas before the suppression hearing.
We conclude, however, that these documents alone — the generic waiver form unspecific to Henderson’s case and a Petition which states, almost exclusively, “I wish to proceed on my own behalf’ —are insufficient to meet the Commonwealth’s “weighty obligation ... to prove an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.” App. at 33, 35; see Brewer, 430 U.S. at 403-404, 97 S.Ct. 1232.
To ensure that an accused is aware of the pitfalls possible in self-representation, “the district court should advise him in unequivocal terms both of the technical problems he may encounter in acting as his own- attorney and of the risks he takes if his defense efforts are unsuccessful.” See United States v. Welty, 674 F.2d 185, 188 (3d Cir.1982). As a matter of constitutional law, we have imposed a clear and unambiguous obligation upon a trial judge who is faced with an accused who states merely that he is aware of his right to counsel but wishes to waive that right. A statement by a defendant that he wishes to proceed pro se is not enough. Signing a pre-printed form is not enough. See Piankhy v. Cuyler, 703 F.2d 728, 731 n. 4 (3d Cir.1983). Whether it be a U.S. District Judge or a U.S. Magistrate Judge in a federal prosecution or a state judge in a state criminal proceeding, the trial judge must conduct a colloquy with the accused to determine that the waiver is not only voluntary, but also knowing and intelligent. Id. At a minimum,
[t]o be valid [a defendant’s] waiver must be made with an apprehension of the nature of the charges, the statutory offenses included within them, the 'range of allowable punishments thereunder, possible defenses to the charges and circumstances in mitigation thereof, and all other facts essential to a broad understanding of the whole matter.
Welty, 674 F.2d at 188-189 (quoting Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708, 724, 68 S.Ct. 316, 92 L.Ed. 309 (1948) (plurality opinion) (reversing denial of habeas petition because standard, pre-printed waiver of counsel form insufficient to satisfy Sixth Amendment)). We have held that an accused’s protection under the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel is not satisfied when a trial judge has failed to conduct “a penetrating and comprehensive examination” of the accused’s waiver attempt which ensures that the accused is knowledgeable about his decision, even when the colloquy skips just one of the above factors. See Id. at 189 (no waiver where court merely informed defendant that selfrepresentation is “inadvisable”) (quoting Von Moltke, 332 U.S. at 724, 68 S.Ct. 316 (plurality opinion)); see also United States v. Moskovits, 86 F.3d 1303, 1308 (3d Cir.1996) (no waiver notwithstanding trial judge’s detailed colloquy with defendant because judge failed to state that he was authorized to impose *167greater sentence than that imposed in defendant’s first trial).
In this case, neither the waiver of counsel form nor the petition to proceed pro se explained, for example, what sentences or fines Henderson could face if convicted, nor did they demonstrate Henderson’s understanding of “all other facts essential to a broad understanding of the whole matter.” See Welty, 674 F.2d at 189 (quoting Von Moltke, 332 U.S. at 724, 68 S.Ct. 316 (plurality opinion)); see also United States v. Salerno, 61 F.3d 214, 222 (3d Cir.1995) (invalid waiver where no recorded colloquy, notwithstanding trial judge’s apparent familiarity with defendant’s understanding of legal issues in case). As a plurality of the Supreme Court described in Von Moltke, 332 U.S. at 724, 68 S.Ct. 316,“a mere routine inquiry — the asking of several standard questions followed by the signing of a standard written waiver of counsel — may leave a judge entirely unaware of the facts essential to an informed decision that an accused has executed a valid waiver of his right to counsel.” A generic waiver form such as Henderson’s cannot replace the verbal colloquy between judge and defendant,, set forth for the record, to satisfy the judge’s obligation to ensure a waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. See Singer v. Court of Common Pleas, 879 F.2d 1203, 1210 (3d Cir.1989). We therefore conclude that Henderson did not make a valid waiver of his right to counsel at the suppression hearing.
The writ of habeas corpus should have been granted.
V.
But this does not end our deliberation. The Commonwealth urges that if we issue the writ it should be conditioned upon the Commonwealth affording Henderson only the opportunity for a new suppression hearing, and then conducting a new trial only if his confession is suppressed. Henderson suggests otherwise. He argues that he should be entitled to not only a new suppression hearing but also a new trial before a jury, regardless of the outcome of the suppression hearing. To determine what conditions should be attached to the grant of the writ, it isfirst necessary to determine if we have the authority to condition the release on any-proceeding less than a new trial, and if so, we must decide if we should exercise that authority under the circumstances of this case. We begin our analysis by addressing the precise nature of federal court habeas corpus jurisdiction over petitions emanating from criminal convictions in the state court system.
A.
Let there be no misunderstanding that federal habeas corpus review of state criminal convictions is an anomaly in the jurisprudence of res judicata. It is only in the context of a state criminal proceeding that a state court determination of federal constitutional law may be reexamined anew in the federal court system. Thus, where a federal constitutional issue is presented to the state court system in a civil action in a proceeding brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Supreme Court has held that Congress did not intend “to allow relitigation of federal issues decided after a full and fair hearing in a state court simply because the state court’s decision may have been erroneous.” Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 101, 101 S.Ct. 411, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980). Although the writ of habeas corpus is a civil proceeding, at least since 1953 the Court has considered it a special exception to this rule. Thus in Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 500, 73 S.Ct. 397, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953), Justice Frankfurter, speaking for the majority, wrote, “the prior State determination of a claim under the United States Constitution cannot foreclose consideration of such a claim, else the State court would have the final say which Congress, by the Act of 1867, provided it should not have.” Also speaking for the majority, Justice Reed stated, “[t]he state adjudication carries the weight that federal practice gives to the conclusion of a court of last resort of another jurisdiction on federal constitutional issues. It is not res judicata.” Id. at 458, 73 S.Ct. 397.
If there was difficulty trying to reconcile the philosophy of the Brown v. Allen Court in 1953 with the Allen v. McCurry Court in 1980, Justice Brennan, speaking for the *168Court in 1963 in Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 430, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963), carved out a sound jurisdictional basis for the present concept of federal habeas corpus, stating that, “while our appellate function is concerned only with the judgments or decrees of state courts, the habeas corpus jurisdiction of the lower federal courts is not so confined. The jurisdictional prerequisite is not the judgment of a state court but detention simpliciter.” Therein Justice Brennan emphasized that “[hjabeas lies to enforce the right of personal liberty; when that right is denied and a person confined, the federal court has the power to release him. Indeed, it has no other power; it cannot revise the state court judgment; it can act only on the body of the petitioner.” Id. at 430-431, 83 S.Ct. 822.
With this understanding, and conscious that we are not reviewing in ipsis verbis the state court decision but only inquiring into detention simpliciter, we lack the ability to “revise the state court judgment.” It would seem that federal habeas power is limited, first, to a determination of whether there has been an improper detention by virtue of the state court judgment; and second, if we find such an illegal detention, to ordering the immediate release of the prisoner, conditioned on the state’s opportunity to correct constitutional errors that we conclude occurred in the initial proceedings. This is not a direct appeal from a federal conviction, where upon vacating the judgment this Court would have unlimited power to attach conditions to the criminal proceedings on remand. See, e.g., United States v. Gravatt, 868 F.2d 585, 591 (3d Cir.1989). Rather, this is federal habeas corpus relating to a state conviction.
B.
Our relief must thus be fitted between two principles underlying habeas corpus jurisprudence. The first is found in the habeas statute itself: “The court shall summarily hear and determine the facts, and dispose of the matter as law and justice require.” 28 U.S.C. § 2243. The second is that “[b]oth 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.” See Barry v. Brower, 864 F.2d 294, 300 (3d Cir.1988). Within the strictures of these principles, federal courts have most often granted the relief in habeas cases that has required the least intervention into the state criminal process. Courts usually condition the issuance of a writ, which releases the body of the prisoner from custody obtained through unconstitutional means, upon the state’s failure to retry the habeas petitioner within a reasonable time in a way that comports with constituional dictates. See, e.g., Brewer, 430 U.S. at 407 n. 13, 97 S.Ct. 1232.
It is true that under certain circumstances, federal courts have conditioned the issuance of a writ on the state’s conducting proceedings narrower than a full retrial. See Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964) (conditioning writ on state court conducting evidentiary hearing to decide whether petitioner’s confession was voluntary or coerced and thus inadmissible at trial, a decision which the state court had left for the jury to make in contravention of the petitioner’s due process rights in the state trial; further ordering that if the state court decides the confession was coerced, then a new trial would be necessary to avoid the writ). However, such cases make clear that conditional writs must be tailored to ensure that all constitutional defects will be cured by the satisfaction of that condition. The Supreme Court “has repeatedly stated that federal courts may delay the release of a successful habeas petitioner in order to provide the State an opportunity 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) (emphasis added). This Court certainly has the power to condition the writ on a new trial. Before we further parse the relief and limit the condition to a suppression hearing alone, we must examine the nature of the constitutional violation found here in order to be sure that simply conducting the new hearing will completely eradicate the violation, and to be sure we do not “revise the state court judgment.” See Fay, 372 U.S. at 431, 83 S.Ct. 822.
*169C.
The right to the assistance of counsel granted in the Sixth Amendment, including the “correlative right to dispense with a lawyer’s help”, Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 279, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942), is “one of the safeguards of the Sixth Amendment deemed necessary to insure fundamental human rights of life and liberty”, Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 462, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938). This constitutional right “withholds from federal courts [and from state courts via the Fourteenth Amendment, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 345, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963) ], in all criminal proceedings, the power and authority to deprive an accused of his life or liberty unless he has or waives the assistance of counsel.” Johnson, 304 U.S. at 463, 58 S.Ct. 1019. Had Henderson been deprived of his right to counsel at the trial itself, certainly we would require no less than a new trial to prevent a writ from issuing. We must decide, however, whether the deprivation of counsel at Henderson’s suppression cast enough taint on the counseled trial itself that we must condition the writ on a new trial. We conclude that it did.
This ease must first be distinguished from those in which a constitutional violation in the state criminal proceedings could be corrected by issuing a writ conditioned on something less than a whole trial — a hearing, for example. In Jackson, 378 U.S. at 377, 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774, the Supreme Court held unconstitutional a state criminal trial procedure in which a judge was not given the discretion to exclude a defendant’s confession if a “fair question” existed about its voluntariness. Giving the jury the primary responsibility to first determine whether the confession was voluntary, and second, to discredit involuntary confessions which the jury had at that point already heard, violated due process. Id. at 377, 84 S.Ct. 1774. In fashioning a remedy, the Court recognized that the defendant was entitled to a hearing in which the voluntariness, and hence admissibility, of his confession would be determined apart from “the body trying guilt or innocence.” Id. at 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774. The Court concluded:
So far we agree and hold that he is now entitled to such a hearing in the state court. But if at the conclusion of such an evidentiary hearing in the state court on the coercion issue, 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.
In that case, because the constitutional violation suffered by the habeas petitioner was the lack of a necessary hearing, the Court could remedy that defect by ordering a constitutional hearing itself. It was the legal outcome of that hearing alone — a determination about the voluntariness of the confession — that was important. Because it had been missing, the Court was able to “dispose of the matter as law and justice require,” 28 U.S.C. § 2243, by granting the narrow relief of ordering the hearing itself.
However, the nature of the constitutional violation suffered by Henderson is very different than that in Jackson. To be sure, the Court there stated that no new trial was necessary “for Jackson has already been tried by a jury with the confession placed before it and has been found guilty.” Jackson, 378 U.S. at 394, 84 S.Ct. 1774. But the linchpin of the Court’s decision in Jackson, and the sole issue argued and decided there, was not the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel present in this ease, but a determination that “a conviction based upon a coerced confession ... cannot withstand constitutional attack under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id. at 377, 84 S.Ct. 1774. There is a completely different issue presented here, and it is one that requires a completely different analysis. When Henderson was deprived of his Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel at the suppression hearing, he lost much more than an opportunity to have his confession suppressed — the legal outcome of that hearing. Rather, the constitutional defect he suffered in the first suppression hearing was a procedural, structural defect which may have had *170repercussions in plea bargaining, discovery and trial strategy that would not be cured by a new suppression hearing alone. This is a much more sophisticated right and its analysis must always begin where the due process determination leaves off.
The importance of “the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him,” Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 69, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932), cannot be understated. First, representation by counsel in the stages leading up to trial is beneficial to the defendant who may wish to pursue his plea bargaining options and avoid trial altogether. See Grades v. Boles, 398 F.2d 409, 413 (4th Cir.1968) (“Counsel, or effective waiver thereof, is a sine qua non of permissible plea bargaining”). Second, “trained counsel can more effectively discover the case the State has against his client and make possible the preparation of a proper defense to meet that case at the trial.” See Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 9, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970). Third, “the skilled interrogation of witnesses [at a pretrial hearing] by an experienced lawyer can fashion a vital impeachment tool for use in cross-examination of the State’s witnesses at the trial, or preserve testimony favorable to the accused of a witness who does not appear at the trial.” Id. Particularly here, where three of the four witnesses to testify at the suppression hearing testified at Henderson’s trial, see App. at 159, 213, the participation of a skilled attorney at both proceedings certainly would have been beneficial to Henderson’s, ultimate defense. Henderson suffered a constitutional deprivation that went to the heart of the criminal trial process itself, a violation which cannot be remedied by merely ordering a new suppression hearing and conditioning a new trial on its sheer outcome alone. Cf. Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 47-50, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984) (in non-habeas case reviewing state criminal convictions, where defendants failed to have wiretap evidence suppressed in a closed pretrial hearing that violated the Sixth Amendment’s public trial guarantee and were convicted at trial, the Court remanded for new suppression hearing only; however, the Court stressed that the outcome of such hearings often replaced the importance of the trial itself and the Court did not indicate any way in which the procedure and conduct of the suppression hearing, other than its sheer outcome alone, would affect the trial or any other part of the proceedings in that case).
Moreover, the value of counsel to Henderson at the hearing must be underscored because the hearing concerned what was undoubtedly the most damaging piece of evidence offered against Henderson at trial: his confession. Of course, that Henderson failed to have his confession suppressed in no way precluded his attack on the credibility of the confession at trial. See Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986). The judge may not have ruled as a matter of law that the confession was inadmissible, but had a skilled attorney represented Henderson at the suppression hearing, 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. See id. at 691, 106 S.Ct. 2142; Dancy v. United States, 361 F.2d 75, 77 (D.C.Cir.1965) (“defense counsel’s conduct of the cross-examination of witnesses at the trial reflects a tentative and probing approach due to his ignorance of certain doubtful areas in the government’s proof which might well have been known to him had he been able to participate in the preliminary hearing”).
D.
Finally, we decide that the deprivation of Henderson’s right to counsel at the suppression hearing is one of the “structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism, which defy analysis by ‘harmless-error’ standards.” See Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 309, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991); see also Salerno, 61 F.3d at 221-222 (refusing to conduct harmless error analysis to Sixth Amendment violation at sentencing hearing); United States v. Allen, 895 F.2d 1577, 1580 (10th Cir.1990) (harmless error analysis inapplicable to waiver of counsel cases); United States v. Bohn, 890 F.2d 1079, 1082 (9th Cir.1989) (harmless error analysis inappropriate when defendant de*171nied right to counsel at in camera hearing).3 The existence of structural defects, including deprivation of the right to counsel at the trial itself, “requires automatic reversal of the conviction because they infect the entire trial process.” Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 629-630, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993). On the other hand, mere “trial errors,” which usually “occur during the presentation of the case to the jury,” are “amenable to harmless-error analysis” because they “may ... be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented in order to determine [the effect they had on the trial].” Id. at 629, 113 S.Ct. 1710 (quoting Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 307-308, 111 S.Ct. 1246).
Violations of the right to counsel may not always be structural defects which allow a reviewing court to bypass harmless error analysis, see Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 282-283, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993) (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring), but harmless error analysis should never be applied where, as here, “deprivation of the right to counsel affected — and contaminated — the entire criminal proceeding”, Satterwhite v. Texas, 486 U.S. 249, 257, 108 S.Ct. 1792, 100 L.Ed.2d 284 (1988). We are convinced that the absence of counsel at Henderson’s suppression hearing, which handicapped Henderson during the remainder of the proceedings against him and especially injured his attorney’s ability to argue the facts of his confession to the jury at trial, contaminated the entire criminal proceeding in this case. See United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 659 n.25, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984) (“The Court has uniformly found constitutional error without any showing of prejudice when counsel was either totally absent, or prevented from assisting the accused during a critical stage of the proceeding.”). The effect of this determination is that prejudice is presumed by the fact of the constitutional error itself.
E.
The sum of these factors — that the deprivation of counsel from Henderson’s suppression hearing was a procedural, structural defect, that Henderson has the right to introduce facts at trial in an effort to attack the credibility of the confession and the impropriety of a harmless error analysis here — leads us to conclude that the constitutional violation suffered by Henderson will not be corrected absent a new trial.
Moreover, we repeat for emphasis that the conclusion we reach today does not run counter to the teachings of the Supreme Court or prior decisions of this court. First, the views stated here do not conflict with the holding or teachings of Jackson v. Denno, which did not address the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel but discussed only a due process violation. The full guarantee of the Sixth Amendment gives the defendant the right to make proper preparation for trial on the basis of testimony adduced at the suppression hearing, irrespective of the outcome of the hearing, a constitutional issue that was neither argued nor decided by the Court in Jackson. In contrast to the jury in Jackson, which arguably knew too much (and was harmed by what it knew), the jury in this case had too little information. What is at stake here is the opportunity of counsel to utilize at a subsequent trial any information he may have obtained at the suppression hearing. Nor do we think that our view is contrary to the teachings and holdings of cases in this court. For example, in United States ex rel. Harvin v. Yeager, 428 F.2d 1354, 1358-1359 (3d Cir.1970), United States ex rel. Montgomery v. Brierley, 414 F.2d 552, 560 (3d Cir.1969), and United States ex rel. Dickerson v. Rundle, 363 F.2d 126, 130 (3d Cir.1966), we found due process violations where each state prisoner was denied a Jackson hearing. We have already decided that due process requires a very different analysis than the correction of a Sixth Amendment *172deprivation. Moreover, in Yeager, 428 F.2d at 1359, we conditioned the writ on a new Jackson hearing in which the state court would decide whether the prisoner’s statement at issue was voluntary and hence admissible, but stated that even if the state courts “hold the statement admissible, they may still consider the possibility of granting a new trial, especially if there is any substantial difference between the evidence presented at the new hearing and that which had been submitted to the jury at the trial.”
Second, in no way do we ignore the teachings of Brecht, 507 U.S. at 637, 113 S.Ct. 1710, which mandates that habeas relief be used only “to afford relief to those whom society has ‘grievously wronged’ ” and not when there is a mere “reasonable possibility” of harm to the petitioner. Here, we have not suggested a mere possibility that the verdict was tainted by constitutional error; we have found a real constitutional error — to wit, a violation of the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel — one that substantially undermines our confidence in the reliability of the trial.
Third, we do not disregard the teachings of Waller, 467 U.S. at 50, 104 S.Ct. 2210, where the defendant was given a suppression hearing that was closed to the public in violation of the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a public trial. Obviously, the violation in that case was easily cured by ordering a new public suppression hearing. In this case, the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel will simply not be cured by ordering a new suppression hearing alone because the effect of the constitutional error spilled over into the trial itself.
Therefore, although we possess the power to attach conditions other than according a successful habeas petitioner a new trial, we should not do so here. We are not prepared to rule as a matter of law that a lawyer who represents a defendant at an unsuccessful suppression hearing will always be unable, as a result of that hearing, to uncover facts or develop strategy that will ultimately benefit his or her client at trial. Holding that Henderson is entitled only to a new suppression hearing and not a new trial would be to rule just that. If the confession is not suppressed after a new hearing, all that will have been decided is that there was no illegality in the Commonwealth’s obtaining the confession. This ruling of law would not deny the defendant’s right to raise questions of fact and credibility to the jury relating to the putative confession. This is the opportunity that the Sixth Amendment guarantees a criminal defendant in a “trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed”. U.S. Const, amend. VI. It is for efforts like this that the same Amendment affirms and attests his right “to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
* * * * * * % * *
We have considered all contentions of the parties and have concluded that no further discussion is necessary.
The judgment of the district court will be reversed and the proceedings remanded to the district court for entry of a writ of habe-as corpus, which shall be conditioned upon the Commonwealth affording petitioner a new hearing on his motion to suppress his confession and, if the Commonwealth still wishes to pursue the charges, a new trial that will abide the decision reached following the suppression hearing.

. Even if the AEDPA applied here, § 2244(d) would not time-bar Henderson’s Petition because, as this Court recently held, habeas petitions need only be filed before April 24, 1997 to be timely under the new standard. See Burns, 134 F.3d at 111.

. Because we concluded in Part H supra that the AEDPA does not apply to this Petition, we exercise plenary review over the state court judgment. See Bey, 124 F.3d at 528.

. But see United States v. Mills, 895 F.2d 897, 904 (2d Cir.1990) (even though defendant suffered right to counsel violation when denied opportunity to make closing argument pro se in hearing to suppress defendant's incriminating statements, violation was harmless error because, after motion to suppress was denied, government did not introduce statements at trial); Richardson v. Lucas, 741 F.2d 753, 757 (5th Cir.1984) (even if waiver of counsel was invalid, error was harmless).