PAUL GEORGE SCHLUETER, III, Appellant v. BENJAMIN VARNER; DISTRICT ATTORNEY NORTHAMPTON COUNTY; ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
No. 03-3928
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
September 14, 2004
Precedential
Opinions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
9-14-2004
Schlueter v. Varner
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Precedential
Docket No. 03-3928
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Recommended Citation
“Schlueter v. Varner” (2004). 2004 Decisions. Paper 280. http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2004/280
Argued June 25, 2004
Before: AMBRO, BECKER, and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges.
(Filed: September 14, 2004)
Michael M. Mustokoff, Stephen A. Mallozzi (argued), Cindy D. Hinkle, Duane Morris LLP, 1650 Market Street, One Liberty Place, 37th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19103-7396, Attorneys for Appellant
John M. Morganelli (argued), District Attorney, Northampton County Government Center, 669 Washington Street, Easton, PA 18042, Attorney for Appellees
OPINION OF THE COURT
GREENBERG, Circuit Judge.
Paul George Schlueter, III, is a Pennsylvania inmate serving a sentence of life in prison for first degree murder. He appeals from an order of the district court entered September 3, 2003, dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the applicable one-year period of limitation barred the petition. For the reasons that follow, we will affirm the district court‘s order.
I. BACKGROUND
In 1985, Schlueter was arrested and charged in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, with the criminal homicide of Carol Ann Bonney. The
Following his conviction, Schlueter met with his attorneys to discuss whether to pursue a direct appeal. Blasco and Crowe advised Schlueter that he would be eligible for parole in approximately 20 years2 and that there were no appealable issues that could reduce his degree of guilt. Accordingly, Schlueter decided to forego a direct appeal. Blasco died about one year later on May 26, 1988. Schlueter contends that his attorneys’ parole advice was erroneous as he never will be eligible for parole. Apparently in part because of having found out his actual parole situation, on August 16, 1988, Schlueter contacted Crowe requesting information for the purpose of pursuing state post-conviction review. Crowe, however, did not respond to Schlueter‘s request.
Two years later, prior to Schlueter filing a PCRA petition, he and his parents learned that the Pennsylvania legislature had amended the PCRA to prescribe a filing deadline of January 16, 1997, in older cases such as Schlueter‘s.3 By letter dated November 10, 1996, Schlueter informed Lauer of the deadline and asked him to file a timely PCRA petition. Lauer replied by letter dated December 2, 1996, that he was “well aware” of the deadline and would file a petition “before year‘s end.” App. at 783. By letter dated December 13, 1996, Lauer also informed Schlueter‘s parents that he was anticipating filing a PCRA petition “prior to the end of this year.” App. at 790. Nevertheless, Lauer did not file a PCRA petition and did not communicate further with Schlueter or his parents. On March 18, 1997, the Clerk of the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas advised Schlueter in response to his inquiry that no one had filed a PCRA petition on his behalf.
On May 27, 1997, the Schlueters retained his current attorneys’ law firm to explore the possibility of filing a PCRA petition. After repeated attempts, the new attorneys retrieved Schlueter‘s files from Lauer on October 2, 1997. Upon reviewing the files, they discovered that they did not include certain files from the Public Defender‘s Office. At Schlueter‘s new attorneys’ request, the Public Defender‘s Office located Schlueter‘s files and arranged for them to review the files and to interview Crowe on December 9, 1997. During the interview with Crowe, they learned that George Blasco and Assistant District
Relying on this information, his attorneys filed a PCRA petition on Schlueter‘s behalf on February 2, 1998, alleging a conflict of interest arising from the Blasco/Narlesky civil law practice. Recognizing the apparent untimeliness of their PCRA petition, they attempted to invoke a statutory exception to the PCRA‘s period of limitation by arguing that the facts of the Blasco/Narlesky arrangement had been unknown and could not have been ascertained through the exercise of due diligence.5 They subsequently reviewed court records and filings and learned that Blasco and Narlesky practiced and shared fees in civil cases, together owned and shared their office space, and shared operating expenses and personnel.
On June 22, 1998, more than 11 years after he was convicted and while his PCRA petition was pending, Schlueter filed a motion seeking restoration of his appellate rights nunc pro tunc, arguing that the court should restore his right to a direct appeal due to his trial attorneys’ erroneous parole advice. After conducting a hearing, the PCRA court dismissed the PCRA petition as untimely and, in the same opinion, denied Schlueter‘s motion to restore his right to appeal nunc pro tunc because Schlueter had “knowingly and voluntarily waived his appellate rights.” App. at 436. On appeal, the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the dismissal of Schlueter‘s PCRA petition as untimely without mentioning his motion to restore his right to file a direct appeal from his conviction nunc pro tunc.6 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Schlueter‘s petition for allowance of appeal without explanation on August 28, 2000.
Through his attorneys, Schlueter filed a federal habeas corpus petition in the district court on October 12, 2000.7
Schlueter has filed a timely appeal.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review
The district court had jurisdiction pursuant to
B. One-Year Period of Limitation
In the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA“) Congress prescribed a one-year period of limitation for the filing of federal habeas corpus petitions by state prisoners. See Douglas, 359 F.3d at 261. Effective April 24, 1996, the AEDPA provides in relevant part:
A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court. The limitation period shall run from the latest of—
(A) the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review; [or]
. . . .
(D) the date on which the factual predicate of the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.
By its language, the one-year period of limitation commences under
We are convinced that if Schlueter had exercised due diligence, he could have discovered the Blasco/Narlesky arrangement long before the AEDPA became effective. Lauer testified at the PCRA hearing that it was common knowledge in the legal community in Northampton County that Blasco and Narlesky shared office space. Lauer also testified that he personally was aware of the arrangement when he represented Schlueter in 1994. Indeed, in our view, it is inconceivable that Blasco and Narlesky could have hidden their arrangement from the relatively small legal community or the public in Northampton County.9
We realize that Lauer advised Schlueter to postpone pursuing PCRA review until the civil proceedings were concluded. But by the time that his parents retained Lauer almost six years had elapsed since the time that Schlueter first contemplated bringing post-conviction review proceedings. Clearly, in allowing this time to pass Schlueter was not diligent. Moreover, Lauer‘s advice, at most, could have delayed Schlueter for only about five months from Lauer‘s retention in June 1994 until November 28, 1994, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused to allow him to appeal.
Overall, we are satisfied that through the exercise of due diligence, Schlueter could have learned the factual predicate of his conflict of interest claim well before April 24, 1996. Therefore, the one-year period of limitation began running under
In reaching our result, we recognize that Schlueter is and has been incarcerated for many years and that physical confinement can limit a litigant‘s ability to exercise due diligence. See Moore v. Knight, 368 F.3d at 940. We observe from the record and references in Schlueter‘s brief, however, that Schlueter‘s parents have been involved actively in their son‘s case for several years. Thus, Schlueter, unlike many other incarcerated litigants, has enjoyed the benefit of his family‘s assistance, involvement and resources. We also point out that Schlueter‘s parents must be well educated as they both are referred to as “Doctor” in the record in this case. Therefore, Schlueter‘s incarceration does not change our view that if he had exercised due diligence he would have discovered the facts supporting his PCRA claims
C. Tolling of the One-Year Period of Limitation
The AEDPA‘s one-year period of limitation is not an absolute limit. See Douglas, 359 F.3d at 261. Rather, it is subject to two possible tolling exceptions both of which Schlueter advances: (1) statutory tolling under
The one-year period should be equitably tolled “only in the rare situation where equitable tolling is demanded by sound legal principles as well as the interests of justice.” Jones v. Morton, 195 F.3d 153, 159 (3d Cir. 1999). Equitable tolling is appropriate:
only when the principles of equity would make the rigid application of a limitation period unfair. Generally, this will occur when the petitioner has in some extraordinary way been prevented from asserting his or her rights. The petitioner must show that he or she exercised reasonable diligence in investigating and bringing the claims.
Miller v. New Jersey State Dep‘t of Corr., 145 F.3d 616, 618-19 (3d Cir. 1998) (internal citations and alterations omitted).
Schlueter bases his equitable tolling argument on what he characterizes as attorney malfeasance. Specifically, he argues that the delay in filing his PCRA petition (and by extension his federal habeas corpus petition) was due to Lauer‘s misconduct in affirmatively misrepresenting that he would file a timely PCRA petition on Schlueter‘s behalf. In this regard we point out that if Lauer had filed the PCRA petition by the state deadline of January 16, 1997, there would have been
Generally, in a non-capital case such as Schlueter‘s, attorney error is not a sufficient basis for equitable tolling of the AEDPA‘s one-year period of limitation. See Johnson v. Hendricks, 314 F.3d 159, 163 (3d Cir. 2002). Nevertheless, we have held, albeit outside the habeas context, that there are “narrow circumstances in which the misbehavior of an attorney may merit” equitable tolling. Seitzinger v. Reading Hosp. & Med. Ctr., 165 F.3d 236, 239 (3d Cir. 1999). Seitzinger involved a Title VII plaintiff who asked her attorney prior to the expiration of an applicable 90-day period of limitations if he had filed a complaint on her behalf. Id. at 238. The attorney falsely stated that he had done so whereas, in fact, he did not file a complaint until one day after the limitations period expired. Id. We held that the attorney‘s affirmative misrepresentation to his client, coupled with the plaintiff‘s extreme diligence in pursuing her claim and the absence of prejudice to the defendant, “created a situation appropriate for tolling.” Id. at 242.
We find that the material facts of Seitzinger are distinguishable from those presented here. In Seitzinger, counsel misrepresented to his client that he already had filed a timely complaint and by the time the client discovered that her attorney had not done so the period of limitations had expired. Here, in December 1996, Lauer informed Schlueter and his parents that he anticipated filing a PCRA petition before the end of the year. When the year ended, Schlueter could have learned, as he did later, that Lauer had not filed a PCRA petition. If he had done so he still would have had a small window of time in which to file a pro se petition and save his PCRA claims from dismissal as untimely. Thus, his situation differs sharply from that of the Seitzinger plaintiff who was misled by what the attorney said he had done, not by what he said he would do.
Moreover, it is apparent that Schlueter was fully aware of his PCRA rights in 1994 when he retained Lauer.11 Schlueter knew that Lauer had done little, if anything, to pursue PCRA relief for more than two years. Notwithstanding this knowledge, neither Schlueter nor his parents took
Schlueter also relies on Spitsyn v. Moore, 345 F.3d 796 (9th Cir. 2003), and Baldayaque v. United States, 338 F.3d 145 (2d Cir. 2003), for the proposition that attorney malfeasance constitutes an extraordinary circumstance sufficient to warrant equitable tolling of the one-year period of limitation. As these cases amply demonstrate, however, a finding that attorney malfeasance is an extraordinary circumstance, without more, is not sufficient to warrant equitable tolling. Spitsyn holds that egregious attorney misconduct may justify equitable tolling, but also requires district courts to examine the petitioner‘s due diligence in pursuing the matter under the specific circumstances he faced. Spitsyn, 345 F.3d at 802. Likewise, Baldayaque holds that “an attorney‘s conduct, if it is sufficiently egregious, may constitute the sort of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ that would justify the application of equitable tolling.” Baldayaque, 338 F.3d at 152-53. Baldayaque, however, expressly states that the presence of extraordinary circumstances “is not enough” – a petitioner “must also show that he acted with reasonable diligence, and that the extraordinary circumstances caused his petition to be untimely.” Id. at 153 (citation omitted). In other words, neither Spitsyn nor Baldayaque holds that attorney malfeasance, standing alone, warrants equitable tolling.13
In view of our disposition we address only briefly Schlueter‘s arguments for equitable or statutory tolling while either his PCRA petition or his motion to reinstate his direct appeal nunc pro tunc was pending in the state courts. We do note that Merritt v. Blaine, 326 F.3d at 161-65, forecloses Schlueter‘s argument for statutory tolling during the time his untimely PCRA petition was pending as it holds that a federal habeas court for purposes of
We also reject his claim that somehow filing his motion to restore his appellate rights on June 22, 1998, more than one year after the AEDPA period of limitations had run, should lead to statutory tolling on the basis that the motion was a “properly filed” application for post-conviction review under
Finally we recognize that the dissent contends that there is a strong argument for equitable tolling predicated on various Pennsylvania state appellate decisions based on Schlueter‘s filing of the PCRA petition and his motion to reinstate his direct appeal nunc pro tunc. Dissenting opinion at 3-4 n.2. This point is critical in the dissent‘s analysis as it points out that equitable tolling during the period from April 24, 1996, until December 9, 1997, “saves Schlueter‘s claim only if we also toll pending resolution of the state-court proceedings.” Id. We need not discuss these state decisions as he pursued both forms of relief after the AEDPA period of limitations already had run.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we
Schlueter v. Varner, et al
No. 03-3928
It is an underlying assumption of our legal system that attorneys actively pursue the best interests of their clients. All too often, attorneys make mistakes. The sad reality is that there are not enough willing defense attorneys to represent competently the interests of the many criminal defendants who cycle through the courts. And thus, necessarily, we afford substantial leeway to attorneys when it comes to “mere ‘attorney error.‘” Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 482 (2000).
But the distinction between mistake and malfeasance is profound. There can be little semblance of justice when an attorney assigned to protect a defendant ignores a blatant conflict of interest, and another counsel does nothing while promising more than once to protect the defendant‘s rights. If the facts are as Paul Schlueter has portrayed them, his trial counsel (George Blasco) disregarded his civil law partnership with the prosecutor (James Narlesky), and his appellate counsel (Philip Lauer) affirmatively misrepresented that he would timely file a petition for relief in order to forestall the inevitable accounting for his long-promised and
I cannot in good conscience bury Schlueter‘s case before it sees the light of day. AEDPA confers on federal courts the authority equitably to toll its limitations period in the interest of justice. If any case is ripe for exercise of that power, this one is. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
* * * * *
As the majority explained, Schlueter‘s habeas petition would ordinarily have been due on April 23, 1997. See Douglas v. Horn, 359 F.3d 257, 261 (3d Cir. 2004). He did not file his petition, however, until October 12, 2000. Thus the petition was timely only if the limitations period was tolled.
The AEDPA filing deadline is subject to equitable tolling “when the principles of equity would make the rigid application of a limitation period unfair.” Miller v. N.J. State Dep‘t of Corr., 145 F.3d 616, 618 (3d Cir. 1998) (internal quotation omitted). While this principle on its face is broad, it is to be applied sparingly. Equitable tolling is appropriate when “the petitioner has in some extraordinary way been prevented from asserting his or her rights. The petitioner must show that he or she exercised reasonable diligence in investigating and bringing the claims.” Id. at 618-19 (internal quotations omitted); see also Jones v. Morton, 195 F.3d 153, 159 (3d Cir. 1999).
We have concluded, as a general matter, that attorney error is not so “extraordinary” as to justify equitable tolling. See, e.g., Johnson v. Hendricks, 314 F.3d 159, 163 (3d Cir. 2002). This rule makes sense, as attorney error is normally attributed to the client. See, e.g., United States v. Boyle, 469 U.S. 241, 250 (1985). But it does not follow that tolling based on deception of the kind alleged by Schlueter in this case is also foreclosed.
Schlueter and his parents wrote to and called Lauer on many occasions over a period of several months. He falsely assured them that he was preparing a PCRA petition and would timely file. But he made no such preparations. After allowing the deadline to pass, he
The law of agency provides a useful framework for understanding the distinction between error and misconduct. See Baldayaque v. United States, 338 F.3d 145, 154 (2d Cir. 2003) (Jacobs, J., concurring). Ordinarily, “[a]ttorney ignorance or inadvertence” does not excuse a petitioner‘s non-compliance with AEDPA, because “the attorney is the petitioner‘s agent when acting, or failing to act, in furtherance of the litigation.” Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 753 (1991) (rejecting attorney error as “cause” for procedurally defaulted habeas claims); see also McCarthy v. Recordex Serv., Inc., 80 F.3d 842, 853 (3d Cir. 1996) (“It is, of course, beyond cavil that the attorney-client relationship is an agent-principal relationship.“). We assume, for better or worse, that a lawyer is acting as the petitioner‘s agent, and the petitioner therefore “bear[s] the risk of attorney error.” Coleman, 501 U.S. at 752-53; cf. Link v. Wabash R.R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, 634 (1962) (“[E]ach party is deemed bound by the acts of his lawyer-agent . . . .“).
But it is a fundamental principle of agency law that the knowledge of an agent is not attributed to the principal when the agent is acting in a manner adverse to the interests of the principal. Restatement (Third) of Agency § 5.04 (Tentative Draft No. 4 2003) (“Notice is not imputed to the principal of a fact that an agent knows or has reason to know if the agent acts adversely to the principal in a transaction or matter for the agent‘s own purposes . . . .“). Mere attorney error does not constitute an “extraordinary circumstance” because a circumstance, to be extraordinary, must be beyond the prisoner‘s control. Harris v. Hutchinson, 209 F.3d 325, 330 (4th Cir. 2000). Thus, we have explained, a client who relies on the faulty advice of his lawyer has not encountered an obstacle to filing that is external to his conduct. Johnson, 314 F.3d at 162-63. Conversely, when, as here, an attorney ceases altogether to serve the interests of his client, the law of agency is clear that the attorney acts alone.
This central tenet—that attorney malfeasance should not be attributed to the client—paves any number of parallel paths to tolling in this case. We might conclude that Schlueter, had Lauer not represented that he was acting on the case, would timely have filed a petition under Pennsylvania‘s Post-Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA“),
Other courts have applied equitable tolling under circumstances like these. In Baldayaque, 338 F.3d at 152, for example, an attorney failed timely to file a § 2255 motion requested by his client and made inadequate efforts to communicate with him. The Second Circuit held that the attorney, “[b]y refusing to do what was requested by his client on such a fundamental matter, . . . violated a basic duty of an attorney to his client.” His actions, the Court continued, “were far enough outside the range of behavior that reasonably could be expected by a client that they may be considered ‘extraordinary‘” and thereby “justify the application of equitable tolling to the one-year limitations period of AEDPA.” Id. at 152–53. See also Spitsyn v. Moore, 345 F.3d 796, 798 (9th Cir. 2003) (“Based upon the unique facts of this case, where an attorney was retained to prepare and file a petition, failed to do so, and disregarded requests to return the files pertaining to petitioner‘s case until well after the date the petition was due, we agree that equitable tolling of the deadline is appropriate.“); United States v. Wynn, 292 F.3d 226, 230 (5th Cir. 2002) (“Wynn‘s allegation that he was deceived by his attorney into believing that a timely § 2255 motion had been filed on his behalf presents a ‘rare and extraordinary circumstance’ beyond petitioner‘s control that could warrant equitable tolling of the statute of limitations.“); cf. Doherty v. Teamsters Pension Trust Fund of Phila. & Vicinity, 16 F.3d 1386 (3d Cir. 1994) (tolling based on the death of the petitioner‘s attorney).
In our Circuit, the principal case on point is Seitzinger. It involved a Title VII claim, though we have since applied its reasoning to habeas cases. See, e.g., Brown v. Shannon, 322 F.3d 768, 774 (3d Cir. 2003). The Supreme Court has cautioned that in the Title VII context “the principles of equitable tolling . . . do not extend to what is at best a garden variety claim of excusable neglect.” Irwin v. Dep‘t Veteran Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 96 (1990). Our task in Seitzinger was to decide whether misconduct by the plaintiff‘s attorney was merely “garden variety” or, rather, was something more egregious. The plaintiff alleged that she repeatedly asked her attorney whether he had filed a complaint, and each time he misrepresented to her that he had. Under these circumstances, we concluded that equitable tolling was appropriate. Seitzinger, 165 F.3d at 241.
Of course, Seitzinger also requires that the client be “reasonably diligent” in pursuing his or her claims. But the facts of Seitzinger leave little doubt that Schlueter has met that burden. In concluding that the plaintiff in Seitzinger was diligent, we emphasized that she: (1) hired an attorney to file her civil complaint; (2) “contacted him before the
Once the deadline had passed, the Schlueters did everything that could reasonably be expected of them. When their phone calls from Lauer were not returned, they wrote to the clerk‘s office directly. That office did not respond until March 18, 1997. The time between the Schlueters’ discovery of Lauer‘s failure to file and their retaining new counsel was just over two months. After that, matters were largely out of Schlueter and his counsel‘s hands. Lauer simply did not turn over the files for many months.
The majority dismisses Schlueter‘s efforts as inadequate. They suggest that he was not entitled to rely on the two written assurances by the attorney whom he had hired to pursue his case; rather, on New Year‘s Day of 1997, he should have ascertained whether Lauer had indeed filed as promised. Never mind that Lauer had ceased to return phone calls on Schlueter‘s behalf. Never mind that when the Schlueters, having received no word from Lauer for months, inquired with the clerk‘s office whether a petition had been filed, it was nearly forty days before they received a response. Schlueter, says the majority, might have done more.
This, I suppose, is theoretically true. But it blinks reality to suggest that Schlueter might have retained substitute counsel willing to prepare a petition within the two short weeks between the end of 1996 and the PCRA filing deadline. Still, he might have filed his own PCRA petition pro se, just in case. That would have been supremely diligent.
But supreme diligence is not required. On the contrary, the standard is a relatively modest one. Schlueter‘s diligence need only have been reasonable under the circumstances. Cf. Baldayaque, 338 F.3d at 153 (“The standard is not ‘extreme diligence’ or ‘exceptional diligence,’ it is reasonable diligence.“) (emphasis in text). I believe that Schlueter‘s protracted efforts handily qualify. But if the majority is not convinced, it seems to me better to remand for the District Court to consider this issue in the first instance rather than dismiss outright his habeus petition. See id.
The gravity of Schlueter‘s situation is self-evident. “Dismissal of a first habeas petition is a particularly serious matter, for that dismissal denies the petitioner the protections of the Great Writ entirely, risking injury to an important interest in human liberty.” Lonchar v. Thomas, 517 U.S. 314, 324 (1996) (emphasis omitted). The majority declines to exercise its power to rectify a fundamental inequity—that Schlueter‘s appellate counsel, rather than assisting him in obtaining the relief he was retained to pursue, crippled Schlueter‘s diligent efforts timely to obtain post-conviction relief for the tainted representation he received from his defense attorney at trial. Thus no court will ever pass on the merits of his habeas claim. Because I believe that under these circumstances “the principles of equity . . . make the rigid application of [the AEDPA] limitation period unfair,” Miller, 145 F.3d at 618 (internal quotations omitted), I respectfully dissent.