Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 392.0

Cite as: 558 U. S. 220 (2010) 

231 

Alito, J., dissenting 

34–38.  If  any  such  questions  had  been  asked  and  answers 
favorable  to  petitioner’s  position  had  been  provided,  one 
would expect that information to appear in the proffer. 

After  examining  the  proffer  made  by  petitioner’s  attor­
neys,  the  District  Court  concluded  that  this  submission  did 
not  justify  formal  discovery.  With  respect  to  what  the  per 
curiam  describes  as  the  “unreported  ex  parte  contacts  be­
tween  the  jury  and  the  judge,”  ante,  at  221—which  appar­
ently  consisted  of  a  brief  exchange  of  words  that  occurred 
when the judge entered the room in a restaurant where the 
jurors were dining—the District Court concluded that “noth­
ing that Petitioner has presented provides even the slightest 
indication  that  anything  more  than  a  simple  greeting  oc­
curred,” App. C to Pet. for Cert. 43. 

With respect to the gifts that were given to the judge and 
a  bailiff  after  the  trial  ended,  the  District  Court  stressed 
that they were “inappropriate” and represented “an unusual 
display of poor taste in the context of a proceeding so grave 
as  a  capital  trial,”  ibid.,  but  the  court  noted  that  petitioner 
had  not  proffered  any  evidence  that  any  of  the  jurors  or 
court  personnel  who  were  interviewed  had  said  anything 
that substantiated the assertion that “an inappropriate rela­
tionship existed between the judge, the bailiff, and the jury,” 
id., at 44. 

A fair reading of the Court of Appeals’ opinion is that that 
court  likewise  held  that  petitioner  was  not  entitled  to  the 
discovery  he  sought  because  that  discovery  was  unlikely  to 
yield  evidence  substantiating  his  claim.  See  554  F.  3d,  at 

chocolate penis to the trial judge”); id., at 37 (a juror “remembered discus­
sion about giving a chocolate penis to the judge”).  Nevertheless, petition­
er’s  proffer  includes  no  information  as  to  why  the  gifts  were  given—not 
even a statement to the effect that the jurors interviewed were asked this 
question  and  said  that  they  did  not  know.  Cf.  id.,  at  35  (noting  that  a 
particular  juror  “did  not  know  whose  idea  it  was  to  send  the  chocolate 
penis to the judge,” but not including any representation as to her under­
standing of why the gifts may have been given (emphasis added)).