Wallace v. Price

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Decided: June 18, 2007
• Docket: 03-9002
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Opinions of the United 2007 Decisions States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

6-18-2007

Wallace v. Price Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential

Docket No. 03-9002

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

Nos. 03-9002 & 03-9003

WILLIAM WALLACE, JR.,

Appellant

v.

JAMES PRICE, Superintendent

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (D. C. No. 99-cv-00231) District Judge: Hon. Sean J. McLaughlin

Argued June 7, 2007

Before: FUENTES, GREENBERG and ROTH, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: June 18, 2007)

OPINION

ROTH, Circuit Judge:

William Wallace was sentenced to death after a Pennsylvania jury convicted him of

first degree murder in the death of Tina Spalla. The jury also convicted Wallace of robbery, criminal conspiracy, and second degree murder in the death of Carl Luisi. Wallace has filed

a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, challenging his convictions. The District Court,

adopting the Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate Judge, ordered that the first

degree murder conviction be vacated because the trial court did not admit hearsay evidence

of a statement made by Wallace’s accomplice, Henry Brown, that he, not Wallace, shot

Spalla. The District Court held that the refusal to admit this statement violated Wallace’s

rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment and the Due Process Clause

of the Fourteenth Amendment, as set forth in Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973).

The other convictions were allowed to stand, leaving Wallace to serve a sentence of life

imprisonment without the opportunity for parole.

Wallace appealed the judgment of the District Court, raising the following five claims:

First, the exclusion of evidence of Brown’s confession warranted the vacating of all

Wallace’s convictions, not just the conviction for first degree murder. Second, the manner

by which Brown’s testimony was secured violated Wallace’s rights to due process and a fair

trial. Third, Wallace’s trial counsel was ineffective for failing to seek an independent

ballistics test. Fourth, Wallace’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated when the

prosecution enlisted the aid of a jailhouse informant, who later testified against Wallace.

Fifth, the penalty-phase jury instructions regarding mitigation erroneously suggested a need

for unanimity in violation of Mills v. Maryland, 487 U.S. 367 (1988), and that error was not

harmless. The Commonwealth cross-appealed, claiming that the District Court erred in

2 vacating the first degree murder conviction on the grounds that Wallace’s federal

constitutional rights were violated and also erred in not concluding that any possible errors

were harmless.

We do not recount the facts and history of this case, which are well-known to the

parties. The Report and Recommendation and the opinion of the District Court are thorough

and well-reasoned, and we readily affirm the judgment of the District Court in full, with one

exception. On the question of whether the Chambers and Confrontation Clause violations

amounted to harmless error, the District Court conducted de novo review.1 Before doing so,

the District Court should have considered whether the determination by the Supreme Court

of Pennsylvania that any error under Pennsylvania law in failing to admit this evidence for

impeachment purposes was harmless, Com. v. Wallace, 561 A.2d 719, 725-26 (Pa. 1989),

was binding on federal habeas review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). We need not resolve the

issue, however, because the Commonwealth conceded at oral argument that in this case, with

regard to the Chambers and Confrontation Clause violations, we are not bound by the

harmless error determination made by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Because the writ is granted as to Wallace’s conviction for first degree murder, we will

1 In conducting this analysis, the District Court assessed the error under the “substantial and injurious effect” standard set forth in Brecht v. Ambrahamson, 507 U.S. 619 (1992). The District Court was right to use the Brecht standard, regardless of whether the Pennsylvania courts had recognized the precise error at issue and reviewed it for harmlessness under the “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” standard set forth in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). See Fry v. Pliler, ___ S.Ct. ___, 2007 WL 1661463, at *6 (June 11, 2007).

3 dismiss as moot his penalty-phase claim under Mills, which goes only to the sentence on that

conviction.

For the reasons stated above, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.