Opinion ID: 77026
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Extraneous Evidence in the Jury Room

Text: 19 McNair's next claimed basis for habeas relief is that jurors improperly considered extraneous evidence during their deliberations in the guilt phase of his trial. Evidence shows that Les Davis, a Christian minister who served as the foreman of McNair's jury, brought a Bible into the jury room during deliberations, read aloud from it, and led the other jurors in prayer. McNair now claims that the Bible, which had not been admitted into the record, constituted extraneous evidence and that the jurors' consideration of it violated his Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, applying state law, held that McNair was not entitled to relief. McNair, 706 So.2d at 835-38. The district court also denied relief on this claim. McNair, 307 F.Supp.2d at 1301-05. McNair challenges this holding in his cross-appeal.
20 The district court began its discussion of McNair's extraneous evidence claim by addressing the claim's procedural posture; we shall do the same. As noted above, McNair's claim in his federal habeas petition is that the jurors' consideration of extraneous evidence deprived him of his right to a fair trial as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, McNair argued to the state court that the jury improperly considered and relied on extraneous evidence in violation of Alabama law. McNair, 307 F.Supp.2d at 1301 (internal quotation omitted) (emphasis in original). It is also clear that the Court of Criminal Appeals addressed McNair's extraneous evidence claim solely under state law principles. McNair, 706 So.2d at 837-38 (relying on standards set out in Ex parte Troha, 462 So.2d 953 (Ala.1984), Ex parte Lasley, 505 So.2d 1263 (Ala.1987), and Roan v. State, 225 Ala. 428, 143 So. 454 (1932)). Because McNair did not raise the federal constitutional issue in state court, the district court held that the issue was procedurally defaulted. McNair, 307 F.Supp.2d at 1301. However, because the State failed to argue the procedural bar, the district court held that the bar was waived and proceeded to consider the merits. Id. at 1302. For the reasons discussed below, the district court properly held that McNair had procedurally defaulted his Sixth Amendment claim, but erred in holding that the state waived the default. 21 Habeas petitioners generally cannot raise claims in federal court if those claims were not first exhausted in state court. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1); Kelley v. Sec'y for Dept. of Corr., 377 F.3d at 1343. In order to be exhausted, a federal claim must be fairly presented to the state courts. Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275, 92 S.Ct. 509, 512, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971). It is not sufficient merely that the federal habeas petitioner has been through the state courts. . . nor is it sufficient that all the facts necessary to support the claim were before the state courts or that a somewhat similar state-law claim was made. Kelley, 377 F.3d at 1343-44 (citing Picard, 404 U.S. at 275-76, 92 S.Ct. at 512 and Anderson v. Harless, 459 U.S. 4, 6, 103 S.Ct. 276, 277, 74 L.Ed.2d 3 (1982)). Rather, in order to ensure that state courts have the first opportunity to hear all claims, federal courts have required a state prisoner to present the state courts with the same claim he urges upon the federal courts. Picard, 404 U.S. at 275, 92 S.Ct. at 512 (citations omitted). While we do not require a verbatim restatement of the claims brought in state court, we do require that a petitioner presented his claims to the state court such that a reasonable reader would understand each claim's particular legal basis and specific factual foundation. Kelley, 377 F.3d at 1344-45 (citing Picard, 404 U.S. at 277, 92 S.Ct. at 513). 22 While these broad principles are relatively clear, the district court correctly noted that many courts have struggled to pinpoint the minimum requirements that a habeas petitioner must meet in order to exhaust his remedies. For instance, the Supreme Court recently wrote that a petitioner wishing to raise a federal issue in state court can do so by citing in conjunction with the claim the federal source of law on which he relies or a case deciding such a claim on federal grounds, or by simply labeling the claim `federal.' Baldwin v. Reese, 541 U.S. 27, 32, 124 S.Ct. 1347, 1351, 158 L.Ed.2d 64 (2004). If read in a vacuum, this dicta might be thought to create a low floor indeed for petitioners seeking to establish exhaustion. However, we agree with the district court that this language must be applied with common sense and in light of the purpose underlying the exhaustion requirement[:] `to afford the state courts a meaningful opportunity to consider allegations of legal error without interference from the federal judiciary.' McNair, 315 F.Supp.2d at 1184 (quoting Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 257, 106 S.Ct. 617, 620, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986)). This is consistent with settled law established by the Supreme Court. See Picard, 404 U.S. at 275, 92 S.Ct. at 512 (We emphasize that the federal claim must be fairly presented to the state courts.). We therefore hold that `[t]he exhaustion doctrine requires a habeas applicant to do more than scatter some makeshift needles in the haystack of the state court record.' Kelley, 377 F.3d at 1345 (quoting Martens v. Shannon, 836 F.2d 715, 717 (1st Cir.1988)). 23 With these principles in mind, we now consider the extraneous evidence arguments that McNair presented in state court. In his initial brief to the Court of Criminal Appeals, McNair relied almost exclusively on state law. The section of his brief addressing his extraneous evidence claim was captioned: MR. McNair's JURY IMPROPERLY CONSIDERED AND RELIED ON EXTRANEOUS EVIDENCE DURING ITS GUILT PHASE DELIBERATIONS IN VIOLATION OF ALABAMA LAW. All of the substantive argument contained in that section of McNair's brief addressed Alabama law, with the bulk of it consisting of McNair's attempt to analogize his case to Ex parte Troha, 462 So.2d at 953. The relevant part of the brief contained only two references to federal law. The first was a citation to Jones v. Kemp, 706 F.Supp. 1534 (N.D.Ga.1989), which was one of seven cases included in a string citation supporting McNair's claim that jurors may not consider extraneous evidence during their deliberations and courts have consistently and repeatedly reversed convictions where such consideration has occurred. The other reference to federal law came in the closing paragraph of McNair's argument, when he wrote that the jurors' consideration of the Bible violated his rights protected by the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth[,] and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Alabama Constitution[,] and Alabama law. Importantly, McNair never mentioned, much less argued, the federal standard that extraneous evidence is presumptively prejudicial. 8 See Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466, 473, 85 S.Ct. 546, 550, 13 L.Ed.2d 424 (1965); Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227, 229, 74 S.Ct. 450, 451, 98 L.Ed. 654 (1954); United States v. Martinez, 14 F.3d 543, 550 (11th Cir.1994) (Prejudice is presumed the moment the defendant establishes that extrinsic contact with the jury in fact occurred. (internal quotation omitted)). 24 McNair's reliance on state law continued when he went before the Alabama Supreme Court. His nine page petition for certiorari on the extraneous evidence issue did not cite a single federal case; its only mention of federal law was a repetition of the concluding paragraph of his argument before the Court of Criminal Appeals. His brief in support of the petition included a verbatim restatement of the Jones v. Kemp citation and closing paragraph from his brief to the Court of Criminal Appeals and nothing more. Again, the presumption of prejudice that arises under federal law was never mentioned. 25 McNair's references to federal law in his state habeas proceedings are exactly the type of needles in the haystack that we have previously held are insufficient to satisfy the exhaustion requirement. See Kelley, 377 F.3d at 1344-50. McNair never cited any United States Supreme Court or federal appellate court case dealing with extraneous evidence, nor did he mention the presumption of prejudice that arises under federal law when jurors consider such evidence. Instead, he relied on state law opinions to argue a state law claim under a state law standard, citing a lone federal district court opinion (which itself did not mention the federal presumption of prejudice) only as part of a string citation illustrating various courts' holdings with respect to extraneous evidence in the jury room. A careful review of the record makes it clear that McNair did not fairly present his federal constitutional claim to the state court. He therefore failed to exhaust his state court remedies and is procedurally barred from raising his non-exhausted federal claim in his federal habeas petition. 9 26 While the district court correctly held that McNair's Sixth Amendment claim is procedurally barred due to lack of exhaustion, it went on to consider the merits of the claim after finding that the State waived the procedural bar. McNair, 307 F.Supp.2d at 1301-02. The district court based its waiver finding on the State's failure to identify the Sixth Amendment issue as procedurally defaulted in its briefs to the district court. Id. However, the State's failure to raise exhaustion does not constitute a waiver under AEDPA, which mandates that [a] State shall not be deemed to have waived the exhaustion requirement or be estopped from reliance upon the requirement unless the State, through counsel, expressly waives the requirement. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(3); see Dill v. Holt, 371 F.3d 1301, 1302 n. 1 (11th Cir.2004) (stating that AEDPA requires a court to address exhaustion when it is not expressly waived by the State). We have conducted a careful review of the State's briefs to this court as well as the district court and have found no express waiver of the exhaustion requirement. 10 27 Thus, the posture of this case is as follows: McNair has failed to properly exhaust his extraneous evidence claim; the State has not expressly waived that failure; and the claim could no longer be brought in state court if we dismissed McNair's petition for lack of exhaustion. 11 The claim is therefore procedurally barred. Kelley, 377 F.3d at 1351. 28 This raises an interesting question. Section 2254(b)(3), by its own language, applies only to the exhaustion requirement. It does not mention procedural default, which, while related to exhaustion, is distinct. However, we are persuaded that § 2254(b)(3) applies with full force in cases such as this, where the procedural bar arises only as a direct result of the petitioner's failure to exhaust his state law remedies. 12 29 It is well established that when a petitioner has failed to exhaust his claim by failing to fairly present it to the state courts and the state court remedy is no longer available, the failure also constitutes a procedural bar. See, e.g., Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 735 n. 1, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 2557 n. 1, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991) (citations omitted) ([I]f the petitioner failed to exhaust state remedies and the court to which the petitioner would be required to present his claims in order to meet the exhaustion requirement would now find the claims procedurally barred . . . there is a procedural default for purposes of federal habeas.). In such a situation, the Supreme Court has held that the petitioner has failed to properly exhaust his state court remedies and therefore has procedurally defaulted his claims. O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 848, 119 S.Ct. 1728, 1734, 144 L.Ed.2d 1 (1999) (emphasizing that the relevant inquiry is not only whether a prisoner has exhausted his state remedies, but also whether he has properly exhausted those remedies, i.e., whether he has fairly presented his claims to the state courts (emphasis in original)). 30 Because § 2254(b)(3) provides that the State can waive McNair's failure to properly exhaust his claim only by expressly doing so, it logically follows that the resulting procedural bar, which arises from and is dependent upon the failure to properly exhaust, can only be waived expressly. See Franklin v. Johnson, 290 F.3d 1223, 1238 (9th Cir.2002) (O'Scannlain, J., concurring) (There could be no procedural bar in this case without [petitioner's] failure . . . to exhaust his claim. Thus, because the State's argument is based upon [petitioner's] failure to exhaust his claim, which, as a byproduct, renders it procedurally barred for our purposes, I would hold that the State did not waive this argument by failing to raise it below. (emphasis in original)). Thus, because the State did not expressly waive McNair's procedural default in this case, we hold that § 2254(b)(3) applies and that McNair is procedurally barred from raising his extraneous evidence claim. 31 In so holding, we join the Tenth Circuit, which has repeatedly applied § 2254(b)(3) and its express waiver requirement to procedural bars arising from a petitioner's failure to properly exhaust his state court remedies. See Ellis v. Hargett, 302 F.3d 1182, 1189 (10th Cir.2002); Gonzales v. McKune, 279 F.3d 922, 924-25 (10th Cir.2002) (en banc) (relying on section 2254(b)(3) and its express waiver requirement in holding that a petitioner's unexhausted claim was procedurally barred even though the State asserted the bar for the first time at en banc oral argument); Hale v. Gibson, 227 F.3d 1298, 1327-28 and n. 12 (10th Cir.2000). We also note that a number of other circuits have discussed the issue without resolving it. See Kerns v. Ault, 408 F.3d 447, 449 n. 3 (8th Cir.2005) (implying that § 2254(b)(3) would apply to a procedural default arising out of a petitioner's failure to properly exhaust state court remedies, but finding an explicit waiver by the State); Perruquet v. Briley, 390 F.3d 505, 515-16 (7th Cir.2004) (collecting relevant cases but not resolving the issue because the State had not actually waived the procedural bar arising out of the petitioner's failure to exhaust). Only the Ninth Circuit, in its opinion in Franklin, 290 F.3d at 1231, has adopted the contrary view. 13 32 In holding that § 2254(b)(3) applies to this particular procedural bar, we emphasize that this holding applies only to a procedural bar that arises out of a failure to exhaust state remedies. Such a procedural bar is to be distinguished from one that arises, not because of a failure to exhaust, but rather because the state court will not hear the claim due to a state procedural bar. For example, most states require contemporaneous objections and often decline to entertain a claim because of a failure to object. Such a claim may well be fully exhausted, but nevertheless procedurally barred in federal court because of the State's invocation of its bar for failure to object. In such a case, the procedural bar in federal court has nothing to do with exhaustion, and therefore § 2254(b)(3) would not apply. 14 33 In short, the district court correctly concluded that McNair's extraneous evidence claim is procedurally barred due to lack of exhaustion, but it erred in concluding that the State has waived the procedural bar. Accordingly, the district court should have dismissed this claim as procedurally barred.
34 Even if McNair's scattered references to federal law in his state court proceedings did satisfy the exhaustion requirement, or even if the State had waived the procedural bar, and we reiterate that neither is true in this case, McNair still would not be entitled to relief on this claim. In the peculiar circumstances of this alternative holding, we will assume arguendo, but expressly not decide, that the claim is best reviewed de novo. 15 However, relevant findings of fact by the state court are still presumed correct absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). 35 Under federal law, any evidence that does not come from the witness stand in a public courtroom where there is full judicial protection of the defendant's right of confrontation, of cross-examination, and of counsel is presumptively prejudicial. Turner, 379 U.S. at 473, 85 S.Ct. at 550; see also Remmer, 347 U.S. at 229, 74 S.Ct. at 451; Martinez, 14 F.3d at 550. In order to give rise to this presumption, a defendant need only demonstrate that jurors had contact with extrinsic evidence. Martinez, 14 F.3d at 550. Once the defendant makes this showing, the State bears the burden of rebutting the presumption by showing that the jurors' consideration of the extrinsic evidence was harmless to the defendant. Remmer, 347 U.S. at 229, 74 S.Ct. at 451; Martinez, 14 F.3d at 550. When evaluating whether the State has met its burden, courts are to consider the totality of the circumstances surrounding the introduction of the extraneous evidence to the jury. See Remmer v. United States, 350 U.S. 377, 379, 76 S.Ct. 425, 426, 100 L.Ed. 435 (1956). Our case law indicates that the factors to be considered include the heavy burden on the State, the nature of the extrinsic evidence, how the evidence reached the jury, and the strength of the State's case. Martinez, 14 F.3d at 550. 36 Because it is undisputed that jurors in the guilt phase of McNair's trial considered extrinsic evidence during their deliberations, our analysis focuses on whether the State can rebut the resulting presumption of prejudice. We believe that three factors are crucial to the analysis in this case: (1) the factual findings of the state court, (2) the manner in which the evidence reached the jury, and (3) the strength of the State's case against McNair. Each will be discussed in turn. 37 McNair raised his challenge to the jury's consideration of extraneous material during the state collateral proceedings. Both the trial court and the Court of Criminal Appeals carefully considered the claim on the merits pursuant to state law, and both courts made crucial findings of fact which are relevant to our analysis of the issue under federal law. Although McNair argued that the foreman urged the jurors to find McNair guilty based on passages from the Bible, the trial court rejected that argument, finding as a fact that two passages were read and that [n]either of these scriptures contain material which would encourage jurors to find a defendant guilty or to recommend the death penalty. 16 McNair v. State, 706 So.2d at 837 (quoting the Rule 32 court's order). 38 The Court of Criminal Appeals also made several crucial findings of fact. Confirming the Rule 32 court's finding, it found that McNair's assertions in his briefs . . . that [Davis, the minister who served as foreman] urged the jurors to find him guilty based on passages from the Bible and that the jury relied on the Bible in finding him guilty are not supported by the record. McNair, 706 So.2d at 838. The Court of Criminal Appeals also made crucial findings with respect to the nature and character of the readings, their intent, and their effect on the jury. These findings include the following: 39 [T]he extraneous material, i.e., reading from the Bible and praying in the jury room during deliberations, was not of such a character or nature as to indicate bias or corruption or misconduct that might have affected the verdict. 40 ... 41 From the testimony at the hearing, we conclude that the prayers and scripture readings in the jury room were intended to encourage, and had the effect of encouraging, the jurors to take their obligation seriously and to decide the question of guilt or innocence based only on the evidence presented from the witness stand in open court. 42 ... 43 A fair reading of [Davis's] testimony, in its entirety, leads inescapably to the conclusion that his readings from the Bible and prayers in the jury room ... did not encourage its members to consider anything other than the evidence presented in the court in arriving at a verdict. There is nothing here to suggest that the jury did anything other than base its verdict on the evidence presented in open court in the trial of the case. 44 Id. at 838. These findings of fact are of course entitled to a presumption of correctness, unless McNair demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that they are erroneous. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). McNair has made no such showing. We thus readily conclude that the foregoing state court findings of fact establish the relevant facts in this case. Moreover, our own review of the record persuades us that the state court findings are amply supported. 17 45 Because we know the innocuous nature of the passages that Davis read, and because we know that the passages and prayers merely had the effect of encouraging the jurors to take their obligations seriously and to decide the question of guilt or innocence based only on the evidence, we readily conclude that the State has easily carried its burden of rebutting the presumption of prejudice. 46 In addition to the innocuous nature of the extrinsic evidence and the fact that it did not distract the jury from basing its verdict on the evidence presented, two other factors indicated in the case law also strongly favor the State. As the district court noted, the extraneous evidence in this case was brought in by a juror, and did not carry the imprimatur of the court. 18 McNair, 307 F.Supp.2d at 1304. Additionally, the state offered overwhelming and largely uncontested evidence of McNair's guilt. 19 Both of these factors favor the state, and, when combined with the state's findings of fact, readily establish that the jury's consideration of extraneous evidence was harmless in this case. 47 Because the state could successfully rebut the presumption of prejudice arising from the jury's consideration of extraneous evidence, McNair would not have been entitled to relief on this claim even if he had properly raised it in state court. The district court properly rejected this claim.