Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 1 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

CARLTON JOYNER, WARDEN v.
 

WILLIAM LEROY BARNES
 

CARLTON JOYNER, WARDEN v.
 

JASON WAYNE HURST 

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED 

STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
 

No. 14–395. Decided June 29, 2015
 

The motions of respondents for leave to proceed in forma 

pauperis are granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari

is denied.

 JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE ALITO joins,

dissenting from the denial of certiorari. 

The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit made

the same error in these cases that we have repeatedly

summarily reversed this Term. I see no reason why these 

cases, which involve capital sentences that the State of 

North Carolina has a strong interest in imposing, should

be treated differently. We should be consistent, and use 

our discretionary review authority to correct this error. 

I 

This petition arises from two cases, which involve two

separate defendants and trials. I discuss each in turn. 

A 

On October 29, 1992, William Leroy Barnes accompanied two other men, Robert Lewis Blakney and Frank 

Junior Chambers, to the home of B. P. Tutterow and his 

wife, Ruby, with the intent to rob them. State v. Barnes, 

345 N. C. 184, 200, 481 S. E. 2d 44, 51 (1997). The three 

targeted the Tutterows because Chambers knew that 

B. P., a deputy sheriff who worked at a jail where he had 

been held, often carried a significant amount of cash in his 
 

2 JOYNER v. BARNES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

wallet. In the course of the robbery, Barnes and Chambers shot and killed the Tutterows. They then went to the

apartment of some friends, where Barnes and Chambers 

showed off the guns they had stolen from the Tutterows.

The three men were tried together on two counts of firstdegree murder, two counts of robbery with a dangerous

weapon, and one count of first-degree burglary. The jury

found them guilty on all counts. During the penalty phase

of the trial, Chambers’ attorney warned the jurors as 

follows that they would answer for their vote before God: 

“All of us will stand in judgment one day. . . . [D]oes a 

true believer want to explain to God, yes, I did violate

one of your commandments. Yes, I know they are not 

the ten suggestions. They are the ten commandments. I know it says, Thou shalt not kill, but I did it

because the laws of man said I could. You can never 

justify violating a law of God by saying the laws of 

man allowed it. If there is a higher God and a higher 

law, I would say not.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 172a. 

The jury recommended that Barnes and Chambers be 

sentenced to death for each murder and that Blakney be

sentenced to two mandatory terms of life imprisonment.

After the jury made these recommendations, defense

counsel moved to question the jury based on allegations 

that a juror had called a minister to seek guidance about

capital punishment. Defense counsel acknowledged that

there was no evidence that the juror had discussed the

facts of the case with the minister. The trial court denied 

his motion. 

On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of North Carolina

concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion 

in denying that motion. It explained that “[t]he trial court 

was faced with the mere unsubstantiated allegation that a

juror called a minister to ask a question about the death

penalty” and that there was “no evidence that the content 
 

 

 

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THOMAS, J., dissenting 

of any such possible discussion prejudiced defendants or 

that the juror gained access to improper or prejudicial

matters and considered them with regard to th[e] case.” 

Id., at 228, 481 S. E. 2d, at 68. 

After unsuccessfully seeking state collateral review,

Barnes pursued federal relief, arguing that the Supreme 

Court of North Carolina had unreasonably applied clearly 

established federal law as determined by this Court when

it denied relief on his juror misconduct claim, see 28 

U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). The U. S. District Court for the 

Middle District of North Carolina rejected that argument.

The Court of Appeals reversed. Barnes v. Joyner, 751 

F. 3d 229 (CA4 2014). Over a dissent, the Court of Appeals concluded that the North Carolina court had unreasonably applied this Court’s decision in Remmer v. United 

States, 347 U. S. 227 (1954), which held that “‘any private

communication, contact, or tampering, directly or indirectly, with a juror during a trial about the matter pending

before the jury is . . . presumptively prejudicial.’” 751 

F. 3d, at 241 (quoting Remmer, supra, at 229; emphasis 

deleted)). Although Remmer did not provide further guidance as to what constituted “the matter pending before the

jury,” the panel concluded, based on the Court of Appeals’ 

own precedents, that the death penalty generally was “the

matter pending before the jury.” 751 F. 3d, at 248. The 

court remanded the case for the District Court to consider 

whether Barnes could show actual prejudice from the

error under Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993). 

B 

On June 9, 2002, Jason Wayne Hurst—the second defendant involved in this petition—murdered Daniel Lee 

Branch after arranging to buy a pump-action shotgun 

from him. State v. Hurst, 360 N. C. 181, 184–186, 624 

S. E. 2d 309, 314–315 (2006). As Hurst later recounted, 

“‘[he] knew [he] was going to kill [Branch]’” as soon as 
 

 

4 JOYNER v. BARNES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

they finished scheduling the sale. Id., at 185, 624 S. E. 2d, 

at 315 (brackets in original). The two men met in a field, 

where Hurst asked if he could test-fire the gun. As 

Branch walked into the field to set up some cans and 

bottles for that purpose, Hurst opened fire. Hurst shot 

Branch three times. His first shot struck Branch in the 

ribs or stomach, prompting him to yell, “‘[N]o, no, don’t

shoot.’” Ibid. His second shot struck Branch in the side, 

causing him to fall. Hurst then walked over to Branch 

and shot him in the head, before taking his keys and 

driving off in Branch’s car. 

A jury convicted Hurst of first-degree murder and recommended that he be sentenced to death. The trial court 

adopted the recommendation. In a later petition for state 

collateral review, Hurst asserted that his constitutional 

rights were violated when a juror asked her father where

she could look in the Bible for passages about the death 

penalty. He attached an affidavit from juror Christina 

Foster, in which she stated that she had “often had lunch 

with [her] father who worked near the courthouse” during

the trial and, before deliberations, had asked him “where 

[she] could look in the Bible for help and guidance in 

making [her] decision for between life and death.” App. in

No. 13–6 (CA4), p. 441. Her father gave her “the section in

the Bible where [she] could find ‘an eye for an eye.’” Ibid. 

The state court rejected Hurst’s argument. It first noted 

that the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had

“determined that the Bible does not constitute an improper

external influence in a capital case.” Id., at 481–482. It 

then found that Hurst had “presented no evidence” that

Foster’s father either “knew what case juror Foster was 

sitting on” or “deliberately attempted to influence her vote

by directing her to a specific passage in the Bible.” Id., at 

482. The court therefore denied Hurst relief, and the 

Supreme Court of North Carolina summarily denied a 

petition for review. 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 5 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Hurst then filed an application for federal relief, arguing, among other things, that the North Carolina court 

had unreasonably applied clearly established federal law 

as determined by this Court in rejecting his jurorinfluence claim. See §2254(d)(1). As with Barnes’ application, the U. S. District Court for the Middle District of 

North Carolina denied relief, but the Court of Appeals

reversed. Hurst v. Joyner, 757 F. 3d 389, 400 (CA4 2014).

Although two judges on the panel expressed their misgivings in a concurrence, ibid. (opinion of Shedd, J., joined by 

Niemeyer, J.), the panel concluded that the earlier “holding in Barnes dictate[d] the same result” in Hurst’s case, 

id., at 398. The panel remanded for a further hearing on 

the matter to determine whether the juror’s communication with her father actually prejudiced Hurst under 

Brecht, supra, at 637. 

II 

This Court should have granted a writ of certiorari to

review the decisions below. In recognition of the serious

disruption to state interests that occurs when a federal 

court collaterally reviews a state-court judgment, the

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996

imposes strict limits on that review. Among those limits 

are the prohibitions found in §2254(d), which dictates that

a federal court may not grant relief “with respect to any

claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court

proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim—” 

“(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or 

involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme 

Court of the United States; or 

“(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the 

evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 
 

 

 

6 JOYNER v. BARNES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

We have repeatedly explained that the §2254(d) “standard 

is difficult to meet.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U. S. 86, 

102 (2011). Yet some courts continue to misapply this

“part of the basic structure of federal habeas jurisdiction.” 

Id., at 103. 

One of the all too common errors that some federal 

courts make in applying §2254(d) is to look to their own

precedents as the source of “clearly established Federal 

law” for purposes of §2254(d)(1), even though that provision expressly limits that category to Supreme Court

precedents. See, e.g., Glebe v. Frost, 574 U. S. ___, ___ 

(2014) (per curiam) (slip op., at 3); Lopez v. Smith, 574 

U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (per curiam) (slip op., at 6); White v. 

Woodall, 572 U. S. ___, ___, n. 2 (2014) (slip op., at 4, n. 2). 

The Fourth Circuit’s decision in Barnes—upon which it 

relied in Hurst—committed the same error. That court 

reasoned that our decision in Remmer “created a rebuttable presumption of prejudice applying to communications

or contact between a third party and a juror concerning 

the matter pending before the jury.” 751 F. 3d, at 241. 

But Remmer offered no specific guidance on what constituted “the matter pending before the jury.” 347 U. S., at 

229. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals turned to its own 

precedents to determine whether the moral and spiritual

implications of the death penalty as a general matter 

constituted “the matter pending before the jury.” It cited 

its earlier decisions in Stockton v. Virginia, 852 F. 2d 740 

(CA4 1988), and United States v. Cheek, 94 F. 3d 136 (CA4

1996), as setting forth a “‘minimal standard’” under which 

“[a]n unauthorized contact between a third party and a

juror concerns the matter pending before the jury when it

is ‘of such a character as to reasonably draw into question 

the integrity of the verdict.’” 751 F. 3d, at 248. Neither of 

those decisions is a precedent of this Court. 

Remmer was the only proper source of “clearly established Federal law,” and it provided no support for the 
 

 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 7 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Court of Appeals’ decision. That case involved a third 

party who “remarked to [a juror] that he could profit by 

bringing in a verdict favorable to the [defendant].” 347 

U. S., at 228. The third-party communication in Barnes’ 

case involved nothing of the sort. Instead, it concerned a 

juror who asked her minister a question about the death 

penalty generally and did not discuss the facts of the case.

No precedent of this Court holds that such a communication concerns “the matter pending before the jury.” Accordingly, the state court reasonably concluded that the

juror’s question about the death penalty generally—not 

the case specifically—did not concern the matter pending

before the jury. Barnes, therefore, was not entitled to 

relief under §2254(d)(1). 

Despite the obvious error in Barnes, that decision has 

already begun to distort the law of the Fourth Circuit. 

When presented with Hurst’s claim that the North Carolina court violated clearly established federal law as determined by this Court when it denied his Remmer claim, 

§2254(d)(1), the panel deemed itself bound by Barnes. 

Even acknowledging that the affidavits submitted to the

state court “did not allege that Juror Foster discussed with

her father the facts or evidence that had been presented in

the trial, or the status of the jury’s deliberations,” and that 

Hurst presented no “evidence that Juror Foster’s father

expressed any opinion about the case or attempted to 

influence her vote,” the panel concluded that the “holding

in Barnes dictate[d] the same result in [Hurst’s] case.” 

Hurst, 757 F. 3d, at 398. That conclusion was just as 

erroneous as the one in Barnes itself. 

* * * 

I would have granted the writ of certiorari to review

these cases. The Court of Appeals deviated from the 

requirements of federal law, declared two reasonable 

decisions of state courts “unreasonable,” and put the State 
 

 

 

8 JOYNER v. BARNES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

to the burden of two wholly unnecessary Brecht hearings.

It committed an error that we have repeatedly corrected,

including multiple times this Term. See supra, at 5. 

Because I see no reason why these cases should be treated 

differently than the many others that we have reviewed

for the same error, I would have granted the petition for a 

writ of certiorari.