Albrecht v. Horn

Alfred Albrecht, Sr. was found guilty by a Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Court of Common Pleas jury of first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder, and arson for causing the death of his wife, his mother, and his daughter by setting the family home on fire on the morning of May 1, 1979.He was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife.He also received two life sentences for the second degree murder convictions for the deaths of his mother and daughter, and a sentence of ten to twenty years imprisonment for arson, each sentence to run consecutively to the other and the sentence of death.In an order entered on April 21, 2004, the District Court granted a writ of habeas corpus and vacated the death sentence pursuant to Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988), because of an ambiguous jury instruction concerning whether mitigating circumstances had to be found unanimously.The District Court, applying Third Circuit precedent at that time, determined that Mills could be applied retroactively because it did not announce a new rule of constitutional law, Banks v. Horn, 316 F.3d 228 (3d Cir.2003) (addressing Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 ( 1989)).Although we agree that a Mills violation occurred in Albrecht's case, subsequent to the District Court's granting the writ our decision in Banks was reversed by the United States Supreme Court in Beard v. Banks, 542 U.S. 406 (2004), which held that Mills announced a new rule of constitutional law that would not apply retroactively to any case, such as this one, that became final prior to Mills.The Commonwealth did not argue the nonretroactivity defense in the District fire.Attorney Marc Steinberg represented Mrs. Albrecht and filed a Protection from Abuse Petition in the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County.The state court issued a restraining order barring Albrecht from the house and directing him to refrain from abusing his wife for one year.On February 7, 1979, Steinberg again saw his client, and she complained that Albrecht had beaten her the night before.Steinberg testified that Mrs. Albrecht had black and blue marks on both her arms, a black eye, and bare spots on her scalp where her hair had been pulled out.Carol and Terry Kuhns, neighbors, testified that, one day in January 1979, Mrs

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