O'Halloran v. Ryan

650 F. Supp. 818, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15891
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedDecember 30, 1986
DocketCiv. A. No. 86-2433
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 650 F. Supp. 818 (O'Halloran v. Ryan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
O'Halloran v. Ryan, 650 F. Supp. 818, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15891 (E.D. Pa. 1986).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

JOSEPH S. LORD, III, Senior District Judge.

Petitioner seeks a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. I referred his petition to a United States magistrate for a report and recommendation. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). The magistrate concluded that petitioner had exhausted his state remedies as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b), that the state court’s findings of fact were entitled to a presumption of correctness under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), that a federal evidentiary hearing was not needed, and that petitioner was not entitled to relief. Petitioner timely filed objections to the magistrate’s report and recommendation. Accordingly, I have reviewed the re'cord and determined the issues de novo. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). For the reasons explained herein, I disagree with the magistrate’s conclusion that petitioner has exhausted his state remedies, and therefore I will not adopt the report and recommendation.

I.1

In relation to a burglary that occurred on September 9, 1981, petitioner and two codefendants were charged with burglary, criminal trespass, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, carrying firearms without a license, and criminal conspiracy. Pursuant to a plea bargain, the terms of which are contested by the parties, petitioner entered a plea of guilty to the burglary charge, and the state dropped the five additional charges. Petitioner entered that plea without the assistance of counsel. He received a sentence of four to ten years.

Thereafter, through counsel, petitioner moved for reconsideration of sentence and/or to withdraw his guilty plea. He alleged, inter alia, that his sentence violated his plea bargain, which petitioner contended included a promise that he would receive the same sentence as his codefendant, Edward Henderson, who had received a sentence of five years probation. He also complained that, because he had entered his guilty plea with the belief that he would receive the same sentence as Henderson, the plea was not knowingly and voluntarily entered.

The trial court held an evidentiary hearing on petitioner’s motion. Petitioner testified on his own behalf, and Michael McIntyre, the assistant district attorney with whom petitioner had discussed the terms upon which he might enter a guilty plea, testified for the state. No other witnesses were called. By order dated May 23, 1983, the trial court denied petitioner’s motion, and some time thereafter issued a memorandum opinion explaining its ruling. The [820]*820court found that the only bargain between petitioner and the state was that, if petitioner pleaded guilty to burglary, the state would drop all additional charges. Insofar as it addressed petitioner’s claim that his guilty plea was not knowing and voluntary, the court stated that, pursuant to its colloquy with petitioner at the time he pleaded guilty, it had found that his plea was being entered “knowingly, understanding^, intelligently, and voluntarily.”

Petitioner filed a pro se appeal. On July 26, 1985, the Superior Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment of sentence. Commonwealth v. O’Halloran, 348 Pa.Super. 634, 501 A.2d 293 (1985). In a memorandum opinion, the court held, inter alia, that petitioner’s guilty plea had been entered knowingly and voluntarily, and that the trial court had correctly found that there was no plea agreement as to petitioner’s sentence.

The Superior Court also addressed petitioner’s claim, raised for the first time on appeal, that the attorney who represented him at the hearing on his motion for reconsideration of sentence and/or to withdraw his guilty plea was ineffective. As to this claim, the court rejected petitioner’s contention that his attorney was ineffective in failing to subpoena Henderson, his codefendant, and Ms. McCadden, the trial judge’s law clerk, to testify at the hearing. The court concluded that petitioner had “not shown that the testimony of the above-mentioned persons would have been helpful to his defense.” Commonwealth v. O’Halloran, No. 01683 PHL 83, slip op. at 8-9 (Pa.Super.Ct. July 26, 1985). In a footnote, the court elaborated on this deficiency as follows:

[Petitioner] also includes in his appellate brief an argument entitled “AFTER DISCOVERED EVIDENCE.” He alleges therein that on December 15, 1983, he learned that a Ms. McCadden was employed as a clerk to the sentencing judge, is the wife of [ajttorney Huber, and a witness to the [assistant [district [attorney's plea bargain proposal. He further alleges that Huber never informed him of these facts and failed to subpoena Ms. McCadden to testify concerning the agreement. These allegations are without support in the record. This [c]ourt can only consider the facts in the record and not those facts located only in a party’s brief.

Id. at 9 n. 4 (citations omitted).

Following the Superior Court’s affirmance of his judgment of sentence, petitioner unsuccessfully sought allocatur in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Commonwealth v. O’Halloran, No. 986 (Pa. Apr. 7, 1986). Shortly after allocatur was denied, petitioner filed this federal habeas action.

II.

One of the grounds upon which petitioner seeks relief is that his attorney was ineffective for failing to subpoena McCadden to testify at his post-sentence hearing.2 He states in his petition that McCadden sat next to him during the plea negotiations and therefore that she has firsthand knowledge of the terms of the plea bargain.

In Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), the Supreme Court established a two-part test for the determination of claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. There must be a showing that counsel’s performance was deficient and that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. at 2064. To be entitled to relief, petitioner would have to show, as a threshold matter, that McCadden would have testified that the assistant district attorney represented to petitioner that he would, in return for pleading guilty to burglary, receive the same sentence as Henderson. Without such a showing, petitioner could not satisfy either part of the Stickland test, for it could have been neither deficient performance nor prejudicial for counsel to fail to call McCadden as [821]*821a witness if she would not have corroborated petitioner’s testimony.

It is apparent from the state court record that this threshold factual determination has not been made. It could not have been made by the trial court at the post-sentence motions hearing, because the claim arises out of counsel’s alleged omissions at that hearing. However, once petitioner appealed, his case was no longer before a court which could make the necessary factual findings.

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650 F. Supp. 818, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15891, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ohalloran-v-ryan-paed-1986.