Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 383.0

222 

WELLONS  v.  HALL 

Per Curiam 

the  Eleventh  Circuit,  Wellons  “argue[d]  that  the  district 
court erred in denying his motions for discovery and an evi­
dentiary hearing to develop his judge, juror, and bailiff mis­
conduct  claims  because  they  are  not  procedurally  barred.” 
Id.,  at  935.  The  court  disagreed,  holding  that  Wellons’ 
claims were procedurally barred.  Ibid. 

As our dissenting colleagues acknowledge, post, at 226–227 
(opinion of Scalia, J.); post, at 229 (opinion of Alito, J.), the 
Eleventh  Circuit’s  holding  was  an  error  under  Cone,  556 
U. S.,  at  466–467.  “When  a  state  court  declines  to  review 
the  merits  of  a  petitioner’s  claim  on  the  ground  that  it  has 
done so already, it creates no  bar to federal habeas review.” 
Id., at 466.  Both dissenting opinions assume that “the issue 
on which Cone throws light does not affect the outcome” be­
cause  “the  Eleventh  Circuit  .  . .  also  decided  that  petitioner 
was  not  entitled  to  habeas  relief  on  the  merits.”  Post,  at 
227  (opinion  of  Scalia,  J.).  Having  found  a  procedural  bar, 
however,  the  Eleventh  Circuit  had  no  need  to  address 
whether  petitioner  was  otherwise entitled  to  an  evidentiary 
hearing and gave this question, at most, perfunctory consid­
eration  that  may  well  have  turned  on  the  District  Court’s 
ﬁnding of a procedural bar. 

to talk at all, one admitted to being “concerned that she might say some­
thing  that  would  be  used  for  a  mistrial,”  id.,  at  35,  and  none  admit­
ted  to  knowing  how  or  why  the  jury  selected  its  “gifts,”  see  id.,  at 
(Implausibly, Justice Alito suggests that Wellons’ lawyers may 
35–37. 
not have asked how or why the jury selected its “gifts,” post, at 230–231, 
though  he  bases  that  speculation  only  on  the  fact  that  no  questions  ap­
peared in the proffer of facts.)  Rather, the jurors discussed other matters 
and  did  so in  the  briefest  of  terms.  All  told, “everything  that  Petitioner 
. . . learned,” App. C to Pet. for Cert. 38, ﬁlled only a few sheets of paper, 
see id., at 35–37. 

Moreover, the subjects that the jurors did discuss may very well support 
Wellons’ view that his trial was tainted by bias or misconduct.  For exam­
ple, one interviewee “was surprised” that a fellow juror had been allowed 
to  serve  on  a  capital  trial,  given  that  her  sister  had  been  murdered  by  a 
man after he completed serving a life sentence.  Id., at 36.