Hakeim Robinson v. Robert Shannon

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_____________
No. 09-3756
_____________
HAKEIM ROBINSON,
Appellant
v.
ROBERT SHANNON; THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF THE COUNTY OF
PHILADELPHIA; THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF
PENNSYLVANIA
_____________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 2-08-cv-01074)
District Judge: Hon. Norma L. Shapiro
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
February 6, 2012
Before: SLOVITER, VANASKIE, and GARTH, Circuit Judges.
(Filed: February 8, 2012)
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OPINION
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GARTH, Circuit Judge.
Following a conviction for, among other crimes, second degree murder, appellant
Hakeim Robinson filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied. The
District Court issued a certificate of appealability of its denial of the petition, and this
1
court thereafter expanded the scope of that certificate. Consistent with the certificate of
appealability, Robinson now claims that the admission of certain statements of his
codefendants violated his Confrontation Clause rights and claims that his appellate
counsel was ineffective. For the reasons that follow, we will affirm the District Court’s
August 10, 2009 denial of Robinson’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
I.
We write principally for the benefit of the parties and recite only the facts essential
to our disposition.
In April 2002, after a joint trial with two codefendants, appellant Hakeim
Robinson was convicted in the Court of Common Pleas of second-degree murder,
robbery, burglary, and conspiracy and sentenced to a term of life imprisonment, with
lesser terms imposed on the charges other than murder. During the course of the trial,
none of the three defendants testified, but the prosecution introduced redacted versions of
incriminating statements made by each of them. 1 Counsel for all three defendants timely
objected to the introduction of these statements, claiming that the redactions were
1
During investigation of the underlying incident, all three of the codefendants in the
case--appellant Robinson, Robert Jones, and Fred Porter, all confessed to involvement in
the incident, but gave conflicting versions of exactly what had occurred. While all three
acknowledged that they were in the course of committing a planned robbery when the
victim was killed, Robinson told police that one of his two codefendants had accidentally
shot the victim after Robinson had left the victim’s residence; Porter told police that he
was outside the victim’s residence when the victim was killed by either Robinson or
Jones, and Jones told police that Porter had shot the victim. The content of each of these
statements was offered at trial against the individual who had made the statement, with
redactions that, except in one instance where Robinson’s name was simply removed,
replaced the names of any codefendant with terms such as “some guy I know” and with
an instruction that each defendant’s statement could only be considered as evidence
against the defendant who had originally made the statement.
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insufficient to bring the statements into conformity with the Confrontation Clause; these
objections were overruled. Thereafter, a prosecution witness referred to one of the
statements as “redacted,” and the defendants’ counsel jointly moved for a mistrial, which
was denied. During closing argument, the prosecutor commented on Robinson’s failure
to testify despite Robinson’s counsel’s promise during opening statements that Robinson
would testify.
After Robinson’s conviction and the imposition of sentence, he appealed to the
Pennsylvania Superior Court. On appeal, Robinson claimed that the introduction of the
redacted statements of his two codefendants violated his Confrontation Clause rights, that
the prosecutor committed misconduct by commenting on Robinson’s failure to testify,
and that Robinson’s trial counsel was ineffective for promising that Robinson would
testify. The Superior Court, in an unpublished opinion, affirmed Robinson’s conviction
and sentence, determining, inter alia, that Robinson had, by failing to include the claim in
his statement of issues on appeal, waived his claim that a specific redaction of Jones’
statement violated his Confrontation Clause rights under Gray v. Maryland, supra. The
Pennsylvania Superior Court denied all of Robinson’s other claims.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court thereafter granted allocator, with Robinson’s
appeal limited to the question of whether Robinson had been denied his Confrontation
Clause rights by the redaction and introduction of his codefendants’ statements and by
the reference to those statements as “redacted.” After oral argument, the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court dismissed the appeal without opinion as improvidently granted.
Robinson filed a timely petition under the Pennsylvania Post-Conviction Relief Act
3
(PCRA). In his PCRA petition, Robinson sought relief on the grounds of: 1) the
ineffectiveness of both his trial and appellate counsel for failing to raise and preserve
Robinson’s objections to the admission of his codefendants’ statements under the
Confrontation Clause; 2) the ineffectiveness of both his trial and appellate counsel for
failure to raise and preserve Robinson’s objections to the characterization of those
statements as “redacted;” 3) his trial counsel’s ineffectiveness for failure to object to the
prosecutor’s references to the statements during closing argument; and 4) his trial
counsel’s ineffectiveness for promising that Robinson would testify. The PCRA court
dismissed Robinson’s petition, the Superior Court affirmed that dismissal, and the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied allowance to appeal.
Robinson filed a pro se habeas petition in the District Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254. That petition specified four grounds for relief: 1) Confrontation Clause
violations; 2) ineffective assistance of trial counsel for promising that Robinson would
testify; 3) prosecutorial misconduct for referring to Robinson’s failure to testify; 2 and 4)
ineffective assistance of direct appellate counsel for failure to specifically raise all of
Robinson’s appellate claims in his statement of issues on appeal.
The District Court concluded that Robinson’s Confrontation Clause rights were
violated, but determined that those violations were harmless, and denied his petition for a
writ of habeas corpus. The District Court also issued a certificate of appealability “as to
Robinson’s objections concerning the Confrontation Clause claims.” On motion by
2
Robinson does not appeal before us the issues of trial counsel promising that he would
testify and prosecutorial misconduct for referring to his failure to testify.
4
Robinson, this court expanded the certificate of appealability to include Robinson’s
“claim that his appellate counsel rendered ineffective assistance on direct appeal by
failing to argue in the statement of issues on appeal that the redaction of codefendant
Robert Jones’s confession was improper under Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 192-94
(1998)[(holding that the admission of redacted codefendant statements that substitute a
blank or the word “deleted” for the name of a defendant violates the Confrontation
Clause)].” Robinson timely appealed under the expanded certificate of appealability.
II.
We have jurisdiction over Robinson’s appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Where a
district court, in ruling on a habeas corpus petition, “relied exclusively on the state court
record and did not hold an evidentiary hearing on habeas review, this Court’s review is
plenary.” Gibbs v. Frank, 387 F.3d 268, 271 (3d Cir. 2004). “An application for a writ of
habeas corpus . . . shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on
the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim . . . was contrary
to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, . . . [or]
resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in
light of the evidence presented in the State court proceedings.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
III.
Robinson now claims that the Confrontation Clause violations the District Court
determined occurred at his trial were not harmless, and seeks relief on those grounds.
Even if we were to assume, without deciding, that the admission of Jones’ and Porter’s
5
redacted statements violated Robinson’s Confrontation Clause rights, 3 and that the
subsequent reference to the statements as redacted also violated his Confrontation Clause
rights, we nevertheless conclude that any error was harmless.
On collateral review of a state court criminal judgment under 28 U.S.C. § 2254,
such as the present case, “an error is harmless unless it had substantial and injurious
effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Fry v. Pliler, 551 U.S. 112, 116
(2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). This is a less stringent standard for the
demonstration of harmlessness than the standard employed on direct review, which
requires only that the reviewing court be “able to declare a belief that [the error] was
harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967).
We conclude that the evidence introduced against Robinson satisfies the Fry v. Pliler
standard.
The prosecution introduced Robinson’s confession, where Robinson admitted to
his involvement in the robbery which led to the victim’s death and which also admitted to
his presence while the victim was beaten, but before the victim was shot. Robinson never
claimed that the confession was coerced. In addition to this confession, the prosecution
introduced significant additional evidence of Robinson’s presence and involvement in the
3
Although the District Court determined that the admission of Jones’ redacted statement
violated Robinson’s Confrontation Clause rights, Robinson also claims that the District
Court improperly concluded that the admission of Porter’s redacted statement did not. A
careful review of the District Court’s decision reveals that the District Court did not reach
any express conclusion as to the propriety of Porter’s statement, which was admitted into
evidence. The District Court, did, however, consider whether the reference to Porter’s
statement as “redacted” violated Robinson’s Confrontation Clause rights. We therefore
conclude that the District Court held, sub silentio, that admission of Porter’s statement
did not violate the Confrontation Clause.
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criminal enterprise that ultimately led to the charge of murder on which he was
convicted. Most notably, the prosecution introduced the testimony, which Robinson has
never challenged, of a fourth participant in the scheme, which established Robinson’s
presence at the scene of the murder and his involvement in the robbery. 4
Robinson did not call any witnesses in his own defense. Rather, Robinson’s trial
counsel made only two concerted efforts to refute the prosecution’s case. First, counsel
asserted, despite his lack of a claim of coercion, that it was impossible to know what had
happened between Robinson’s arrest and his confession. Second, Robinson argued that
the only uninvolved witness who had been present at the time of the murder had not seen
Robinson in the apartment where the murder took place. Robinson himself admitted to
being in the apartment, and further stated that he did not see that witness in the apartment
either. The evidence also established that the witness was lying down while Robinson or
his codefendants were in the apartment. Because of her lying down position, she did not
see Robinson, and concededly, Robinson did not see her.
In the face of this evidence against Robinson, and absent any evidence introduced
to exonerate him, the admission of Porter’s and Jones’ statements and the subsequent
reference to those statements as “redacted” did not have the required “substantial and
injurious effect” on the fairness of Robinson’s trial and conviction. See, e.g., Fry v.
Pliler, supra; Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427, 430 (1972) (even under a more stringent
standard for harmlessness, any error committed by admitting a codefendant’s statement
4
The prosecution’s theory was that Robinson’s codefendant Porter was the actual
principal “triggerman.”
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was harmless where defendant’s confession and corroborating evidence more than
adequately established guilt). Any impermissible inferences drawn about Robinson from
Jones’ or Porter’s redacted statements would merely have been cumulative of the
substantial evidence of Robinson’s involvement and presence. We therefore conclude
that any Confrontation Clause errors that had been committed at Robinson’s trial were
harmless, and cannot provide grounds for habeas relief.
Robinson also seeks relief on the grounds that his direct appellate counsel failed to
list each of his individual claims in his statement of issues on appeal. Specifically, while
the statement of issues mentions both the alleged inadequacy of redactions and the
prosecution’s reference to the statements as “redacted,” it does not include Robinson’s
contention that a specific redaction in Jones’ statement, distinct from all the other
redactions, violated his Confrontation Clause rights under Gray v. Maryland, supra. 5 To
prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim on federal habeas review, a
petitioner must establish at a minimum that his counsel was responsible for a deficient
performance which prejudiced the defendant. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668,
687 (1984). Robinson has never articulated any colorable claim of prejudice resulting
from his counsel’s failure to include a claim pertaining to Jones’ statement and predicated
on Gray v. Maryland, supra.
5
In his brief to the Superior Court, Robinson claimed that the admission into evidence of
a portion of Jones’ statement where Robinson’s name had simply been removed violated
his rights as established by Gray v. Maryland. Specifically, as introduced at trial, the
redacted statement read, in relevant part: “Me and [. . . ] went up and knocked on the
door.” Robinson’s name had been removed from immediately before the word “went,”
but had not been replaced by any substitute phrase.
8
While Robinson is correct that the Pennsylvania Superior Court disposed of that
claim by concluding that he had waived it by failing to include it in his statement of
issues, he fails to mention the Superior Court’s observation that “were we to review
Robinson’s claim on the merits, we would find that the single inadvertent omission of a
reference to a person was not prejudicial to” Robinson. In order to demonstrate the
prejudice necessary to establish a Strickland violation, a petitioner must “prove that his
[incompetently handled] claim is meritorious.” Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365,
375 (1986). Robinson has failed to argue that he would have prevailed on the defaulted
claim on direct appeal, and the Superior Court has expressly stated that he would not
have done so. We therefore conclude that any deficient performance by his appellate
counsel did not prejudice Robinson, and therefore, cannot provide the basis for habeas
relief.
IV.
Because any Confrontation Clause violations that may have occurred at
Robinson’s trial are harmless and because Robinson has not shown any prejudice
resulting from the alleged ineffectiveness of his appellate counsel, we conclude that no
state decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly
established Federal law.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). We will therefore affirm the District
Court’s denial of Robinson’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
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