Julius Edwards v. Gerald Rozum, Superintendent

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 08-1477
JULIUS EDWARDS,
Appellant
v.
GERALD ROZUM, SUPERINTENDENT;
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. 07-cv-01736)
District Judge: Honorable John R. Padova
Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
July 6, 2009
Before: SLOVITER, AMBRO, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges
(Filed: July 8, 2009)
OPINION

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SLOVITER, Circuit Judge.
Julius Edwards appeals from the District Court’s order denying his petition for
habeas corpus and dismissing it with prejudice. Because the District Court did not reach
the merits of Edwards’ claim, our review is plenary.
I.
On July 15, 1998, Edwards and his friend David Carson, both of whom were
armed, approached Romie Webb, who was selling drugs on a street corner, and demanded
money. Webb denied having money but offered Edwards and Carson a bottle containing
drugs. Soon thereafter Carson shot Webb four times in the back. Sometime after the first
of these shots was fired, Edwards turned and started running in the other direction. Webb
died that night.
Edwards was charged with first, second, and third degree murder; involuntary and
voluntary manslaughter; robbery; and possession of instruments of crime. He was tried
separately from Carson in a bench trial. Although the criminal complaint had included a
charge of conspiracy to commit murder and both the prosecutor and the defense attorney
referred to the conspiracy charge during the preliminary hearing, the conspiracy charge
was not included in the information. After the Commonwealth had called its last witness,
it sought to amend the information to add a conspiracy charge pursuant to then

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The rule was renumbered after trial in this case as Pa. R.1
Crim. P. 564. At the time of the trial the rule read:
The court may allow an information to be amended
when there is a defect in form, the description of the
offense, the description of any person or property, or
the date charged, provided the information as
amended does not charge an additional or different
offense. Upon amendment the court may grant such
postponement of trial or other relief as is necessary
in the interests of justice.
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Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 229. The trial court allowed the addition, and1
at the end of the bench trial found Edwards guilty of robbery, second degree murder (i.e,
felony murder), possession of an instrument of crime, and criminal conspiracy. Edwards
received a life sentence for the murder, a two-and-a-half to five-year sentence for
possession of an instrument of crime, and a five to ten-year sentence for conspiracy, all of
which were to be served concurrently. The robbery conviction merged with the felony
murder conviction.
On direct appeal Edwards challenged the trial court’s order permitting amendment
of the information. The Superior Court found that the amendment was acceptable under
Pa. R. Crim P. 229.
Edwards did not raise this issue at any time during the PCRA proceeding. After
Edwards’ PCRA claim was rejected at the trial and appellate levels, he filed a petition for
a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania. The Magistrate Judge to whom the matter was referred requested that the

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The Court denied a COA on the question of whether2
“Edwards’ due process rights were violated.” App. at 43.
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parties file supplemental briefs discussing, inter alia, whether Edwards’ claim that the
trial court improperly allowed the amended information raised a constitutional question
cognizable on federal habeas review and whether Edwards had exhausted his state
remedies. During the oral argument on these issues, Edwards sought to amend his habeas
claim to include a federal constitutional issue, but the statute of limitations had expired.
The Magistrate Judge recommended denying the amendment, and the District Court
agreed. In addition, both the District Court and Magistrate Judge believed that Edwards
had failed to exhaust his state remedies.
The District Court issued a certificate of appealability (“COA”) on two issues:
“(a) whether Edwards’ claim of trial court error in allowing the amendment to the bill of
information is cognizable on federal habeas, and (b) whether this claim was fairly
presented to the state courts.” App. at 65.2
II.
Edwards’ appeal was timely filed and we have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1291 and 2253. Although the Commonwealth argued the District Court did not give
proper consideration to the merits of Edwards’ claim before issuing the COA, we are
satisfied that the District Court did in fact conduct the inquiry required by 28 U.S.C. §
2253(c)(2).

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III.
As we noted above, the District Court listed two issues in its certificate of
appealability, but review of the second issue, i.e., whether Edwards exhausted his state
remedies, convinces us that federal habeas relief is foreclosed in this case.
When his case was before the District Court, Edwards sought to argue that his
federal due process rights were violated when the state trial court allowed an amendment
to the information to charge an additional offense at the close of the prosecution’s case.
However, Edwards did not present this issue to the state court. He therefore failed to
properly present his federal claim in the state court, and thus failed to exhaust his state
court remedies.
When Edwards challenged the decision of the trial court on direct appeal he only
challenged the trial court’s order permitting addition of the conspiracy charge in the
information under the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure. This was a state law
claim, in support of which Edwards cited only state cases. The amendment to the
information was not raised at all during the PCRA appeal.
Edwards presents two arguments in which he contends that he did, in fact, present
his federal claim in state court. He states that in his petition to the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania “he stated with regard to the trial court’s ruling that it was ‘probably not in
accord with . . . decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania or the Supreme Court of
the United States,’” and he then states, “[t]he fact that this statement was not in the

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appellant’s Pennsylvania Superior Court direct appeal brief is not determinative.”
Appellant’s Br. at 26. This bold statement alone is not sufficient to raise a federal due
process claim. Moreover, even this statement is of no help to Edwards as it was not
presented to the Pennsylvania Superior Court that approved the trial court’s order
amending the bill of information (the decision at issue before us).
Edwards’ second argument is likewise unavailing. He argues that one of the cases
he cited in his brief to the Superior Court contained a sentence that mentioned due
process and cited a United States Supreme Court case. As the District Court noted,
“[r]equiring courts to follow a ‘daisy chain[]’ to divine the federal constitutional claim is
[an] insufficient presentation of the federal claim.” App. at 56 (quoting Howell v.
Mississippi, 543 U.S. 440, 443-44 (2005) (per curiam)). We agree. See also Adams v.
Robertson, 520 U.S. 83, 89 n.3 (1997) (“[T]he passing invocations of ‘due process’ we
found [in papers filed in the trial court] fail to cite the Federal Constitution or any cases
relying on the Fourteenth Amendment . . . and thus . . . did not meet our minimal
requirement that it must be clear that a federal claim was presented.”) (emphasis in
original).
As Edwards failed to properly present his federal due process claim to the state
court, he failed to properly exhaust his state court remedies, and it follows that his federal
claim must be dismissed. We will therefore affirm the order of the District Court
dismissing the petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

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