Opinion
Civil Action 20-5977
11-10-2022
RAFIK STILES, Petitioner, v. JOHN E. WETZEL, et al., Respondents.
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
DAVID R. STRAWBRIDGE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
Before the Court for Report and Recommendation is the pro se petition of Rafik Stiles (“Stiles” or “Petitioner”), a prisoner at the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy, for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Stiles was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison following his conviction in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on two counts of first-degree murder and firearms offenses that he committed when he was a juvenile. He seeks habeas relief on four grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal. He also challenges his sentence as a violation of the Miller and Montgomery cases that interpreted the Eighth Amendment as applied to juveniles convicted of murder. For the reasons that follow, we recommend that the petition be denied and dismissed.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 1
This background is derived from the form Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, accompanying memorandum of law, and exhibits (Doc. 3) (collectively “Pet.”); the Response to Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, with appended exhibits (Doc. 10) (“Resp.”); and the state court record received from the Court of Common Pleas (“St. Ct. Rec.”). Certain documents not included in the state court record but found in the exhibits supplied by the parties include: the “Final Statement of Matters Complained of on Appeal Pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. Rule 1925(b) dated Feb. 5, 2019, see Pet. Ex. D (Doc. 3 at ECF pp. 70-72); the PCRA Court's Supplemental Opinion dated Apr. 15, 2019, see Pet. Ex. C (Doc. 3 at ECF pp. 51-68); and the Superior Court's non-precedential opinion dated Dec. 10, 2019, see Pet. Ex. B (Doc. 3 at ECF pp. 40-49).
Stiles was convicted following trial as an adult for his role in two separate criminal incidents that occurred in July 2010, when he was 17 years old. The first was the killing of Kyle Featherstone, age 16, which occurred just before midnight on July 4, 2010, near the 3400 block of Spring Garden Street, following the fireworks display at the nearby Philadelphia Museum of Art. Eyewitness Lonnie Burton provided an account from his perspective among a group of boys near 31st and Spring Garden Streets, which included victim Featherstone. Talk of a fistfight had spread among his group after one of the boys “spoke to somebody's girl.” N.T. 10/20/14 at 2-15. Several of them ran toward the location where they were going to fight when “somebody started shooting.” Id. at 7, 16-17. Burton was shot in his hand, but he saw that Featherstone was lying on the ground and had been shot in the head. Another individual in the area, Joachim Fundenberg, who did not know Featherstone or Burton, testified that he started running when he heard approximately four gunshots. He suffered a gunshot wound to his left shoulder. N.T. 10/20/14 at 119-29.
A few weeks after the shooting, police took a statement from Katrina Session, Petitioner's sister, in which she acknowledged that she was present when Stiles shot and killed Featherstone. She explained that she was holding the arm of a friend named “Reek” (not Petitioner Rafik Stiles) when another boy walked up to her and grabbed her by the arm before walking away to rejoin his friends. Reek ultimately followed that boy to his friend-group, which prompted the friends to run after Reek. Session then heard gunshots and saw her brother shooting into the crowd and running towards 34th Street. When called at trial, Session disavowed her statement. Detectives, however, testified about the circumstances under which her statement had been taken, as they did for the many subsequent witnesses whose trial testimony diverged from prior statements. See N.T. 10/17/14 at 59-144. 2
A friend who had been with Fundenberg, Parrish Grantham, also gave police a description of the shooter in July 2010. In October 2012, he identified Petitioner from a photo array as the shooter. He acknowledged to detectives at that time that he had not identified Stiles when detectives showed him photographs on a prior occasion because he “didn't want to get involved” or “labeled a snitch.” When it came time to testify at Stiles's preliminary hearing, Grantham claimed that he did not know who shot Featherstone and suggested that detectives had fabricated his statement identifying Stiles as the shooter. At the time of Stiles's trial, Grantham was ruled unavailable to testify and his preliminary hearing testimony was read to the jury. See N.T. 10/22/14 at 77-140.
As forensic and medical experts explained at trial, Featherstone died from three perforating gunshot wounds he suffered in his head, torso, and forearm. Police recovered three bullet specimens from the area of 34th and Spring Garden Streets following the shooting. They determined that they were caliber .38 Special/.357 magnum and were all fired from the same gun. They later determined that the same gun was used six days later in another Philadelphia homicide.
Barbara Crowder was fatally shot in the head at approximately 2:30 a.m. on July 10, 2020 in front of 600 North 53rd Street. Her fiance, Bernard Lewis, told detectives that Crowder would obtain prescription pills like Xanax and Percocet from her doctor and sell them for money on the street. She was going to “make a deal” with someone on 53rd Street and told Lewis to wait for her nearby. Lewis observed her meet up with a man on 53rd Street, whom he described to police. Crowder and the man turned onto Poplar Street and Lewis then heard a gunshot. Crowder ran to the corner and fell, and Stiles and another man ran on 53rd Street toward Wyalusing Avenue. In October 2012, Lewis selected Stiles from a photo array as the shooter. When he testified at trial, however, he suggested that the man he had seen with Crowder had lighter skin than did Stiles. He 3 also testified that he was not close enough to have seen the two men on the night of the shooting. See N.T. 10/20/14 at 37-93.
In December 2011, detectives took a statement from Shiheed Gaskins, who rented a room in a house on North 53rd Street at the time Crowder was shot. He reported that he and his girlfriend had friends over to the house that night, including Stiles and his girlfriend Sapphia Pressley. Gaskins stated that he was in his house when he heard a gunshot. He then heard Pressley run into the house, screaming that “Rafik [Stiles] shot somebody.” N.T. 10/21/14 at 105. Gaskins looked out from the front door and saw [Stiles] biking away toward 53rd and Market Street. See N.T. 10/21/14 at 95-146. At trial, he too denied that this happened and asserted that detectives forced him to sign a statement.
A year later, in December 2012, detectives questioned Pressley, Stiles's one-time girlfriend, about the events described by Gaskins on 53rd Street. She stated that she was on the porch when she heard shots and saw Stiles shooting someone, whom she then saw lying on the ground. She described an older man - presumably Bernard Lewis - running up to the person on the ground and screaming for help. Pressley then ran into the house and called out that “they shooting.” Pressley stated that Stiles later told her that he shot Crowder “because she owed him something,” but he did not state what that “something” was. See N.T. 10/21/14 at 2-44. At trial, she too asserted that she did not recall giving this statement to police and disavowed much of the contents of the statement.
By this time, Stiles had been arrested and charged in the Featherstone killing outside of the Art Museum.
Apart from the forensic testimony linking the July 4th shooting of Kyle Featherstone to the July 10th shooting of Barbara Crowder, the two incidents were also linked through testimony from 4 an informant. Juvenile Z.N. had been placed at the New Castle Youth Detention Center for approximately three months in 2010 when Stiles was placed there for unrelated offenses. Z.N. gave a statement to homicide detectives in August 2011 that during their placement, Stiles told him “about the 4th of July shooting and right after that, he told [him] about another shooting he did where he killed a lady.” N.T. 10/22/14 at 12. Stiles provided Z.N. details of both crimes that were consistent with the descriptions of others of the events. N.T. 10/22/14 at 4-53. Z.N. too disavowed any recollection of his police interview or the statements of Stiles when he was called to testify at Stiles's trial. See generally Commonwealth v. Stiles, 143 A.3d 968, 971-74 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2016) (quoting Trial Court Opinion, filed 10/6/15, at 2-9).
Stiles was arrested in October 2012 and charged as an adult with the murder of Featherstone and, later, Crowder. The Commonwealth initially designated the case as a capital prosecution but withdrew that designation in April 2013. Over a defense objection, the two cases were consolidated for trial, which took place in front of a jury sitting before the Honorable Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi in October 2014. As noted above, all of the purported eyewitnesses to the two killings or admissions by Stiles as to the shootings - Session, Gaskins, Lewis, Pressley, Z.N., and Grantham (via his preliminary hearing testimony) - recanted the statements they had given to investigators. The Commonwealth, however, presented the detectives who had taken the statements from these witnesses. On October 24, 2014, the jury found Petitioner guilty of first-degree murder for each of the two killings, as well as related firearms counts.
At the time of his conviction, Pennsylvania's sentencing laws had been amended to provide that persons who were under the age of 18 at the time they committed a first-degree murder could be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or to a term of years sentence 5 with a mandatory maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole. The Commonwealth sought a sentence of life imprisonment, which required the sentencing court to consider specific factors outlined in the statute. The court convened a hearing on April 28, 2015 but ultimately declined to sentence Stiles to life in prison. Rather, the court sentenced him to 40 years to life imprisonment for each of the first-degree murder convictions, and 2 ½ to 5 years for each of the firearms offenses, all of which were to run concurrent to each other.
The statute set a mandatory minimum term of years depending on the age of the juvenile.
Petitioner filed a direct appeal, challenging the consolidation of the cases for trial, the denial of his motion to suppress eyewitness identifications, and the weight and sufficiency of the evidence. The Superior Court found one claim waived for having not been clearly articulated in the Rule 1925(b) Statement but affirmed the conviction and judgment of sentence in a published decision dated July 19, 2016. Commonwealth v. Stiles, 143 A.3d 968 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2016). Petitioner sought allowance of appeal in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but that court denied his request on December 6, 2016.
On or about May 25, 2017, Petitioner filed a pro se petition in state court pursuant to the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”) challenging appellate counsel's failure to “properly litigate” issues on direct appeal. New counsel was appointed but filed a Finley letter and sought to withdraw. The court gave notice of its intent to dismiss his petition without a hearing, to which Stiles filed objections and asserted additional claims for relief. On January 22, 2018, the court granted PCRA counsel leave to withdraw and dismissed the PCRA petition.
Petitioner appealed the dismissal of his PCRA petition. He initially pursued just his claim concerning the performance of appellate counsel. But after he was provided copies of the notes of testimony and other documents, he filed a supplemental statement of matters complained of on 6 appeal identifying four additional claims: (1) that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to request that his prosecution be transferred to juvenile court and seek appropriate expert testimony concerning that question; (2) that trial counsel should have had him evaluated by a psychologist through the juvenile state court processes; (3) that trial counsel should have presented an expert on whether the circumstances of the eyewitness identifications in his case were unduly suggestive; and (4) that his sentence was illegal under Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012). See Final Stmt. of Matters Complained of on Appeal (Pet., Ex. D; Doc. 3 at ECF pp. 70-72.) The lower court provided a new opinion and, following the appellate briefing addressing this new constellation of issues, the Superior Court affirmed the denial of PCRA relief. Commonwealth v. Stiles, No. 497 EDA 2018, slip opin. at 3-4 (Pa. Super. Ct. Dec. 10, 2019). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied further review on August 18, 2020.
Stiles filed the federal habeas petition presently before us on or about November 13, 2020, asserting the same five grounds for relief that he ultimately presented to the Superior Court on PCRA review. (Doc. 3.) On March 8, 2021, the District Attorney of Philadelphia responded that Stiles's petition should be dismissed with prejudice, as the claims raised were procedurally defaulted and/or without merit. (Doc. 10.) Stiles did not file a reply.
II. APPLICABLE LEGAL STANDARDS
Before proceeding to an analysis of the merits of any of the claims presented, we first describe the obligation of the petitioner to fairly present to the state court any federal claims upon which he seeks federal review and the consequences of his failure to do so. We then discuss the constraints upon a federal court reviewing claims that were adjudicated on the merits in the state court. Finally, inasmuch as several of the claims presented assert violations of the Sixth 7 Amendment right to counsel, we describe the standard under which ineffective assistance of counsel claims are evaluated.
A. Exhaustion requirement; independent and adequate state ground; procedural default
Federal habeas relief is ordinarily available only for a claim where the petitioner has exhausted the corrective processes available in the state courts. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1). It has long been recognized that a petitioner satisfies this obligation and gives the state courts a full and fair opportunity to resolve a federal constitutional claim only when he “fairly presents” his claim in “one complete round of the state's established appellate review process.” O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 845 (1999). This affords state courts “the first opportunity to address and correct alleged violations of [the] prisoner's federal rights.” Walker v. Martin, 562 U.S. 307, 316 (2011). Where a claim was not properly presented to the state court, and state law forecloses further review, the petitioner is considered to have defaulted that claim. See, e.g., Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 749 (1991); Toulson v. Beyer, 987 F.2d 984, 987 (3d Cir. 1993).
A federal court also cannot grant relief where the petitioner “has defaulted his federal claims in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule.” Coleman, 501 U.S. at 749. For relief to be precluded on this basis, the state procedural rule upon which the state court denied review must be both independent of the federal question presented and adequately applied by the state court to support the denial of relief. Nara v. Frank, 488 F.3d 187, 199 (3d Cir. 2007).
A claim that is procedurally defaulted cannot provide a basis for federal habeas relief unless the petitioner can show “cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or [unless he] demonstrates that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750. To establish cause, the 8 petitioner must show “that some objective factor external to the defense impeded [his] efforts to comply with the State's procedural rule” in the presentation of the claim to the state court. Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488 (1986). The fundamental miscarriage of justice exception requires that the petitioner supplement his claims with a “colorable showing of factual innocence” in order to obtain review of the defaulted constitutional claim. McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 495 (1991). To make such a showing, Petitioner must “support his allegations of constitutional error with new reliable evidence-whether it be exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidence-that was not presented at trial.” Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 324 (1995).
B. Deferential standard of review
In cases where the claims presented in a federal habeas petition were properly presented and adjudicated on the merits in the state courts, the federal court may not grant habeas relief unless the state court adjudication:
(1) resulted in a decision that 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) resulted in a decision that 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). The Supreme Court has characterized this standard, codified in the AEDPA, as one that “imposes a highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings” and “demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt.” Felkner v. Jackson, 562 U.S. 594, 598 (2011).
A state court decision is “contrary to” clearly established federal law where the “state court applies a rule different from the governing rule set forth in [United States Supreme Court] cases or if [the state court] decides a case differently than [the United States Supreme Court has] done 9 on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.” Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694 (2002). A state court decision is an “unreasonable application” of clearly established federal law where the state court correctly identifies a legal principle from the Supreme Court but “unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular case.” Id. This standard requires the petitioner to demonstrate that the state court's analysis was “objectively unreasonable.” Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 25 (2002).
C. Strickland standard for ineffectiveness claims
In Strickland v. Washington, the Supreme Court established a two-prong test to evaluate claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment. 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Under Strickland, a defendant who raises claims based on ineffective assistance of counsel must prove that (1) “counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness,” and (2) there is “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 688, 694. To satisfy the first prong, a defendant must show that “counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment.” Id. at 687. In examining counsel's performance, the court must be “highly deferential” and apply a “strong presumption” that counsel's representation was within the “wide range” of reasonable, professional assistance. Id. at 689. With regard to the second prong, a “reasonable probability” of a different outcome is one that is “sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome” of the proceeding. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694.
When reviewing an ineffectiveness claim that a Pennsylvania appellate court has addressed on the merits, our review is “doubly deferential.” Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111, 123 (2009). That is, our analysis of a state court's Strickland application must be guided by the deferential standard of review provided for in § 2254(d). Id. Further, “because the Strickland 10 standard is a general standard, a state court has even more latitude to reasonably determine that a defendant has not satisfied that standard.” Id.
III. DISCUSSION
The five claims presented in Stiles's petition implicate the various doctrines described above. We address them in the order in which they were presented in the petition but also group them, as did Respondents, based upon whether or not they were properly exhausted.
A. Petitioner's claims (a) through (c), challenging the performance of trial counsel, are procedurally defaulted.
Stiles sets out three separate grounds asserting ineffective assistance of trial counsel: (a) in failing to protect his due process rights and file a request to “remove” him from adult criminal proceedings pursuant to 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 6322 and 6355 ; (b) in failing to have him evaluated by an expert witness such as a psychologist where he had a right to such an evaluation under those statutory provisions; and (c) in failing to seek an expert in eyewitness identification to challenge the veracity of four of the Commonwealth's witnesses. (Pet. at ECF p. 25, ¶ 11(a)-(c).)
These provisions describe the standards and mechanism for the transfer of a case from criminal court to juvenile court and vice versa, with particular rules for the circumstance of a juvenile who committed a murder.
Stiles presented these claims in his state court PCRA litigation. He did not do so, however, until his petition had been denied by the PCRA Court. Neither his PCRA petition nor his response to the PCRA Court's Rule 907 notice of intent to dismiss his petition without a hearing included any claims regarding trial counsel's representation. Rather, he raised them for the first time on appeal in his “Final” Statement of Matters Complained of on Appeal pursuant to Rule 1925(b) of the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure, which he served on February 5, 2019. See Pet., Ex. D (Doc. 3 at ECF pp. 70-72). The Superior Court found all three of those claims to be waived on appeal due to the failure of Stiles to have presented them below. Stiles, No. 497 EDA 2018, 11 slip opin. at 4-5. The Superior Court's finding of waiver was based upon state case law and state rules, specifically Pa.R.A.P. 302(a), which provides that “[i]ssues not raised in the lower court are waived and cannot be raised for the first time on appeal.” Id.
Petitioner's failure to preserve and properly present these three claims to the state courts in accordance with state rules provided the state court with an adequate and independent state ground for its dismissal of the claims, which precludes federal habeas review. See, e.g., Werts v. Vaughn, 228 F.3d 178, 194 (3d Cir. 2000) (finding that petitioner's failure to comply with Pa.R.A.P. 302(a) results in procedural default). Rule 302(a) was an adequate basis to support the state court's disposition of these claims, and, as a product of state law, the disposition based on Rule 302(a) does not “depend[] on a federal constitutional ruling.” See Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 75 (1985). Moreover, we can be confident applying the procedural bar here as this rule is firmly established. This waiver provision is a longstanding component of the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure and routinely invoked.
Having determined that the three claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims are procedurally defaulted, we proceed to consider whether Stiles has established any basis to excuse his failure to properly present his claims to the state court. This would require Stiles to show acceptable cause for the default and demonstrate that the default would cause him prejudice, or to demonstrate that the failure to consider the claims will result in a miscarriage of justice. See Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750. Although these doctrines were addressed by Respondents in their response to his petition, Stiles did not file a reply brief to advance any such arguments, nor did his petition packet make any attempt to overcome his default, or even to acknowledge the default of these first three claims, even though the Superior Court identified this defect in its 2019 opinion. In these circumstances, then, the default cannot be excused. See Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 298 12 (1989) (holding that federal habeas court was barred from reviewing defaulted claim where petitioner “d[id] not attempt to show cause for his default”). These three claims remain defaulted, precluding federal habeas review.
B. Petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel is without merit.
In his fourth asserted ground for relief, set out at ¶ 11(d) of his supporting memorandum, Stiles contends that counsel performed deficiently on appeal in effectively waiving a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction. Respondents contend that this ineffectiveness claim is without merit.
On direct review, Stiles attempted to raise, among other issues, a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. The Superior Court, however, found that he had waived this issue by failing to clearly articulate it in his Rule 1925(b) Statement, as he did not identify the particular elements or even crimes as to which he alleged the evidence was insufficient. See Stiles, 13 143 A.3d 968, 982 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2016). The Superior Court added that this claim was “further waived” due to the “utter lack of development” of it in the appellate brief. Id. at 982 n.9.
The counseled 1925(b) Statement filed in 2015 asserted, as one of four issues for appeal, that:
The defendant's convictions are based upon insufficient evidence because the circumstantial inferences drawn from the evidence were unwarranted and unreliable.(St. Ct. Rec. D16.) In its Rule 1925(a) Opinion entered on October 6, 2015, the trial court noted that:
This statement is too broad to apprise this Court of the precise issue to be raised. The only way for this Court to address Defendant's sufficiency claim is to essentially act as counsel for Defendant and try to guess what defense counsel wanted to appeal. When the court has to guess at the issue defense counsel raises, it[s] review and legal analysis is impaired. Consequently, this Court finds that the Defendant has waived this issue.(St. Ct. Rec. D17, at 14 n.3.) Nonetheless, the court proceeded to explain that Stiles's sufficiency claim lacked merit, as sufficient evidence had been presented to establish each element of first-degree murder. See id. at 15-16.
Stiles then put the question before the state courts in his PCRA petition, asserting that appellate counsel provided deficient representation when he failed to adequately address this claim in the direct review 1925(b) Statement. The PCRA Court ultimately dismissed the PCRA petition. Stiles continued to pursue the issue of appellate counsel's ineffectiveness in his PCRA Rule 1925(b) Statement and his appellate brief addressed to the Superior Court.
The PCRA Court believed that Stiles waived this claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel because Stiles did not refer to it in his objections to the PCRA Court's Rule 907 notice. See 1925(a) opinion (May 18, 2018), at 5-6. The Superior Court, however, did not endorse the lower court's view that this claim was waived. Therefore, we do not consider the rationale of the lower court as to this ineffectiveness claim.
Stiles's pro se appeal to the Superior Court articulated his claim that:
IV. Direct Appeal counsel was ineffective for failing to properly develop, in [Appellant]'s first direct appeal as of right, the claim challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction of First[-]Degree Murder when he failed to include the specific elements he was challenging in the initial 1925(b) Statement, thus, allowing the Superior Court to deem the claim waived and not address the merits.Stiles, No. 497 EDA 2018, slip op. at 3-4. The Superior Court proceeded to consider whether the sufficiency claim, if preserved, would have been found to have merit, such that counsel would be ineffective for failing to advance it. Id. at 6-10. Inasmuch as the Superior Court's analysis was an adjudication on the merits of the ineffectiveness claim, we proceed to consider whether the Superior Court's resolution of that claim on PCRA review reflected an unreasonable application of Strickland.
The basis for Stiles's argument in state court as reflected by the Superior Court opinion, and which we presume, in the absence of further elucidation, is his argument here, was that there 14 was insufficient evidence to establish that he was the shooter of either Kyle Featherstone or Barbara Crowder. The “critical inquiry” that would have been before the court had appellate counsel properly presented it on direct appeal was “whether the record evidence could reasonably support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318 (1979). When undertaking this assessment, the reviewing court would examine the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and then consider whether “any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Cavazos v. Smith, 565 U.S. 1, 7 (2011). Addressing the ineffectiveness claim presented on PCRA appeal, the Superior Court explained that it did not agree with Stiles that there was insufficient evidence supporting his conviction:
Instantly, the Commonwealth presented sufficient evidence to identify appellant as the individual who shot Featherstone and Crowder. With respect to Featherstone, the Commonwealth introduced the statement Appellant's sister, Katrina Session (Session), gave to police. In her statement, Session told police that she directly observed her brother (Appellant) shoot and kill Featherstone. N.T., 10/17/14, at 74-75. Regarding Crowder, the Commonwealth introduced the statement Appellant's girlfriend, Sapphia Pressley (Pressley), gave to police. Pressley also told police that she directly observed Appellant kill Crowder. N.T., 10/21/14, at 13-14. Although both witnesses recanted these statements at trial, the record contains sufficient evidence, if believed by the finder of fact, [that] establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant was the individual who shot and killed both Featherstone and Crowder. See Commonwealth v. Brown, 52 A.3d 1139, 1171 (Pa. 2012) (holding that witnesses' out-of-court statements to police may be sufficient to sustain a conviction even if the statements were recanted at trial).
Appellant's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his first-degree murder convictions lacks merit. Thus, Appellate Counsel was not ineffective for failing to preserve the claim. Commonwealth v. Sneed, 45 A.3d 1096, 1115 (Pa. 2012) (“Counsel will not be deemed ineffective for failing to raise a meritless claim.”).15 Stiles, No. 497 EDA 2018, slip op. at 9-10.
Respondents' brief also highlights the other pieces of evidence that strengthened or corroborated the witness accounts cited by the Superior Court, including: Parrish Grantham, a bystander, also identified Stiles to the police as the shooter of Featherstone when presented with a photo array; both Shiheed Gaskins and Bernard Lewis placed Stiles at the crime scene in the moments before or after Crowder was shot; ballistics evidence tied the same gun to both crimes; and Stiles confessed to his fellow juvenile inmate, Z.N., that he committed both crimes. (Doc. 10 at 21.) Although these eyewitness statements were recanted, the jury was permitted to credit the account of the detectives who took the initial statements and accept them as true.
We find nothing unreasonable under Strickland in the state court's analysis of this ineffectiveness claim. It is entirely appropriate, when considering an alleged deficiency in preservation of a claim, to evaluate whether the client was prejudiced by counsel's waiver of the claim. The Superior Court here examined the underlying claim, finding it had no merit, and it properly utilized the Jackson v. Virginia criteria in doing so. Accordingly, the failure to have preserved the sufficiency challenge could not amount to ineffectiveness by counsel. Petitioner has not met his burden to show that the state court unreasonably applied Strickland when it denied him relief on PCRA review. His fourth issue, then, does not provide a basis for habeas relief.
C. Petitioner's challenge to his sentence is without merit.
The final claim that Stiles presents is his contention that the statute under which he was sentenced, 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 1102.1, violates Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S.Ct. 718 (2016), rendering it unconstitutional. 16
As we describe below, in Miller, the Supreme Court noted that a sentence of life without parole is “an especially harsh punishment for a juvenile because he will almost inevitably serve more years and a greater percentage of his life in prison than an adult offender.” Miller, 567 U.S. at 475 (quotations omitted). The Miller Court invalidated statutes requiring the imposition upon a juvenile of a sentence of life without parole, e.g., a “mandatory minimum” sentence of life imprisonment. The Montgomery decision applied Miller retroactively and reiterated that Miller “determined that sentencing a child to life without parole is excessive for all but the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.” Montgomery, 136 S.Ct. at 734.
With the enactment of Section 1102.1, and prompted by the Supreme Court decision in Miller, Pennsylvania's General Assembly modified the sentencing scheme that had previously applied to convictions of first- and second-degree murder and which mandated sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or, in certain circumstances, permitted a capital sentence. By its terms, Section 1102.1 applies to convictions obtained after June 24, 2012 of persons who were under the age of 18 at the time of the commission of their offense. With respect to the crime of first-degree murder, it states that:
A person who at the time of the commission of the offense was 15 years of age or older shall be sentenced to a term of life imprisonment without parole, or a term of imprisonment, the minimum of which shall be at least 35 years to life.18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 1102.1(a)(1).
Stiles first raised a challenge to the constitutionality of § 1102.1 on PCRA review, although he did not do so until the appeal of the dismissal of his PCRA petition was before the Superior Court. He argued that Miller prohibited any mandatory sentencing scheme for a juvenile offender. See, e.g., Final Stmt. of Matters Complained of on Appeal at Issue III (Pet. Ex. D, Doc. 3 at ECF p. 71). 17
This was the same posture in which Stiles raised his three claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel.
The issue was presented as follows, although we have removed the initial capitalization used by Stiles:
III. Pursuant to the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, Mr. Stiles posits that 18 Pa. C.S.A. § 1102.1 is unconstitutional on its face as it violates the fundamental principles of Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012). Moreover, the sentence imposed in light of Section 1102.1 (40 to Life) violates the prohibition of Miller regarding a mandatory sentencing scheme since the plain language to impose a mandatory minimum sentence, [sic] thus, creating an illegal sentence, violating Miller.Final Stmt. of Matters Complained of on Appeal at Issue III (Pet. Ex. D, Doc. 3 at ECF p. 71).
Notwithstanding any defects in the preservation of this issue, the Superior Court addressed it on its merits. It principally relied upon a prior case in which a juvenile argued that the mandatory minimum 35-year sentence required by Section 1102.1 offended the Eighth Amendment as described in Miller. Stiles, No. 497 EDA 2018, slip op. at 5-6 (citing Commonwealth v. Lawrence, 99 A.3d 116, 122 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2014)). It described its understanding that Miller applied to legislatives schemes that “require that all children convicted of homicide receive lifetime incarceration without possibility of parole, regardless of their age and age-related characteristics and the nature of their crimes[.]” Stiles, slip op. at 6. The court noted that Section 1102.1 “does not contain such a sentencing scheme” and instead requires the trial court to consider various age-related factors before it may impose a sentence of life without parole. Id. The Superior Court explained that it did not understand Miller to have interpreted the Eighth Amendment to categorically prohibit a state from imposing any mandatory minimum sentence upon a juvenile convicted of a crime as serious as first-degree murder. Id. See also Lawrence, 99 A.3d at 121 (declining to interpret the Eighth Amendment to require “open-ended minimum sentencing”).
Inasmuch as the Superior Court rendered an adjudication on the merits of Stiles's Eighth Amendment claim, we proceed to consider whether the Superior Court's resolution of that claim on PCRA review reflected an unreasonable application of Miller. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). The Superior Court concluded that Stiles's sentence did not run afoul of Miller because Section 1102.1 did not require that he be sentenced to lifetime incarceration without the possibility of parole and without consideration of age-related characteristics. To be sure, Stiles has the opportunity for parole after forty years, and the sentencing decision followed from a consideration of his background, his age-related characteristics, and the nature of his crimes. See N.T. 4/28/2015 (sentencing hearing). 18
The Pennsylvania Superior Court's application of Miller to Stiles's case was not objectively unreasonable. Again, the Miller Court was concerned with mandatory sentencing schemes where courts were required to impose on juveniles a life sentence without the possibility of parole, depriving the courts from considering the mitigating circumstances of youth. See Miller, 567 U.S. at 479-80. The Supreme Court has yet to hold that the Eighth Amendment protects a juvenile homicide offender from a sentence under which he would not be eligible for parole until much later in life. To be sure, in Miller the Supreme Court contemplated such a scenario - a “lengthy term of years” or a “lifetime prison term with the possibility of parole” sentence - as possible alternative discretionary sentences to mandatory life sentences. See Miller, 567 U.S. at 489. See also United States v. Sparks, 941 F.3d 748, 754 (5th Cir. 2019) (“Given Miller's endorsement of ‘a lengthy term of years' as a constitutional alternative to life without parole, it would be bizarre to read Miller as somehow foreclosing such sentences.”). Accordingly, we do not find that the Pennsylvania Superior Court's analysis was an objectively unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.
Our interpretation has only been bolstered by cases decided subsequent to the Superior Court's December 10, 2019 decision on PCRA appeal. Considering the sentence imposed upon a juvenile in federal court, for example, our court of appeal, sitting en banc, recently determined that imposition of a “lengthy sentence for a homicide that [the defendant] committed as a juvenile,” even if the sentence amounts to “de facto” life without the possibility of parole, does not violate Miller. United States v. Grant, 9 F.4th 186, 193 (3d Cir. 2021). See also id. (“The Miller bar on mandatory LWOP sentencing regimes is a prophylactic that entitles a juvenile homicide offender to a certain sentencing process, but not a particular sentencing outcome[.])”
IV. CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, we recommend that Stiles's petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus be denied and dismissed. His three of claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel were not presented to the state court through all of the proper channels and were 19 justifiably deemed waived under state rules of appellate procedure. A fourth ineffectiveness claim, focusing on the performance of appellate counsel, was reasonably rejected by the state court. And his final claim, regarding his sentences of 40 years to life for the murder convictions, was reasonably rejected by the state court as not violative of the Eighth Amendment as interpreted in Miller.
Pursuant to Local Appellate Rule 22.2 of the Rules of the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third Circuit, at the time a final order denying a habeas petition is issued, the district court judge is required to make a determination as to whether a certificate of appealability (“COA”) should issue. A COA should not issue unless the petitioner demonstrates that jurists of reason would find it to be debatable whether the petition states a valid claim for the denial of a constitutional right. As to claims that are dismissed on procedural grounds, the petitioner bears the additional burden of showing that jurors of reason would also debate the correctness of the procedural ruling. See Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000).
Here for the reasons set forth above, we do not believe a reasonable jurist would find the Court to have erred in denying and dismissing the present petition. Accordingly, we do not believe a COA should issue. Our Recommendation follows. 20
RECOMMENDATION
AND NOW, this 10th day of November, 2022, it is respectfully RECOMMENDED that the petition for a writ of habeas corpus be DENIED AND DISMISSED. It is FURTHER RECOMMENDED that a certificate of appealability should NOT ISSUE, as we do not believe a reasonable jurist would find the Court to have erred in dismissing the present petition nor would they debate whether his petition states a valid claim.
Petitioner may file objections to this Report and Recommendation. See Local Civ. Rule 72.1. Failure to file timely objections may constitute a waiver of any appellate rights. 21