Opinion ID: 2772452
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury-Contact Claim

Text: Ward contends that reasonable jurists could debate whether his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury was violated when a person believed to be associated with the prosecution ate lunch with the jury. We disagree.
It is undisputed that a man named Dr. Paul Zelhart ate lunch with and talked to the jury during a lunch break during the trial. On the second day of the penalty phase of the trial, Ward’s defense attorney informed the judge that he believed an individual consulting for the prosecution was sitting with the jurors at lunch time. The prosecutor explained that Zelhart was a personal friend of the prosecutor and that he was not a consultant for the state. Zelhart’s wife was the mayor of Commerce, and he was, according to the prosecutor, “just someone who lives in Commerce and has been a professor at the University for many, many years. But he’s not part of [the State’s] team.” The prosecutor also mentioned that Zelhart “is a personal friend of Dick Walker,” the victim’s father, though Zelhart later clarified that this assertion was in error. Based on this information, Ward orally moved for a mistrial and a new trial. Both motions were denied “because [the trial court did not] think there’s any evidence of any impropriety at this time.” Zelhart’s contact with the jury was a central issue in Ward’s application for state habeas relief, and the state and Ward disagreed sharply about Zelhart’s role in the trial. Ward supported his habeas application with several exhibits and affidavits which tended to show that Zelhart assisted the prosecution with the trial. Ward’s application attached a time sheet from an investigator with the district attorney’s office as Exhibit E. The time sheet indicates that the investigator “[w]ent over case information and Dr. Zelhart’s E-Mail” on June 25 Case: 14-70015 Document: 00512912236 Page: 26 Date Filed: 01/22/2015 No. 14-70015 28, 2005 and met with “Paul Zelhart PH[D] at Texas A&M-Commerce” the following day. Ward’s application also contained an attached affidavit from Lawanda Phelps, the mother of a man who was arrested for an unrelated capital murder about one year after Ward was convicted. She averred that, after her son was arrested, she “received a phone call from a man identifying himself as Paul Zelhart,” who said “that he was working with the district attorney’s office to obtain social history information concerning [her] son.” Her son’s attorney advised her to “not talk with Mr. Zelhart again.” Texas submitted an affidavit from Zelhart that contradicts Ward’s theory—that Zelhart was part of the prosecution team during Ward’s criminal trial. Therein, Zelhart unequivocally avers he “had no role as a consultant to the District Attorney’s Office during the trial of Adam Ward.” He describes the incident in which he had lunch with the jurors as follows: I was at Ruby’s café. It was crowded. There were no unoccupied small tables or booths. There was a long “communal” table. I sat there and ordered my lunch. I was alone. Five or six members of the jury entered the café. They asked if they could sit at the table. I recognized them as jurors. I said they could, but in jest I added, “As long as you don’t talk about the trial.” They laughed and said they would not. They talked among themselves. At some point one of the jurors said he had seen me in court and wondered about my interest in the trial. I said, “I thought we were not going to talk about the trial.” He said, “fair enough”. There was no other exchange between the jurors and me. When I finished my lunch and left the jurors were still seated. Zelhart explains that a “year or so after the Ward trial, [he] was getting ready to retire from the university and entertained the idea of being a trial consultant.” Only after Ward’s trial, Zelhart explains, did he receive training to work as a trial consultant. Regarding the district attorney’s investigator’s time sheet, Zelhart explains that the prosecutor “sent his investigator to see me and I suggested he speak with the personnel at the Tri-County Cooperative 26 Case: 14-70015 Document: 00512912236 Page: 27 Date Filed: 01/22/2015 No. 14-70015 [the special-education-services provider for Ward’s school district] about Adam Ward.” Zelhart also offers: “I am not a supporter of the death penalty.” He also claims to have contacted the district attorney about Ward—based on Zelhart’s personal friendship with the prosecutor and Zelhart’s familiarity with Ward’s history because his children attended the same school—to suggest that “because of Adam Ward’s history [the district attorney] might not want to seek the death penalty.” The state habeas court rejected Ward’s jury-contact claim. In the portion of the trial court’s findings of fact that were adopted by the CCA, 6 the court found that Dr. Zelhart was not an agent of the state and did not engage in impermissible contact with the jurors.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a . . . trial, by an impartial jury . . . [and] to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S. Const. amend VI. “[T]he Supreme Court has clearly established a constitutional rule forbidding a jury from being exposed to an external influence.” Oliver v. Quarterman, 541 F.3d 329, 336 (5th Cir. 2008). Ordinarily, private contact or communication with a juror during a trial about the matter pending before the jury is “deemed presumptively prejudicial,” and the burden is on the government to prove the contact was harmless. See Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227, 229 (1954). But in the habeas context, we defer to a state court’s factual finding that there was no improper jury contact unless the petitioner “presents ‘clear and convincing’ evidence to the contrary.” Oliver, 541 F.3d at 342 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1)). Put another 6 The CCA declined to adopt some of the trial court’s findings of fact. Ex parte Ward, 2010 WL 3910075, at  (declining to adopt “findings paragraphs 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 34, 55, 58, 66, 69, 95, and 96”). Those findings that the CCA declined to adopt are not pertinent to Ward’s improper-jury-contact claim. 27 Case: 14-70015 Document: 00512912236 Page: 28 Date Filed: 01/22/2015 No. 14-70015 way, habeas petitioners are not entitled to relief based on an improper thirdparty contact with the jury “unless the error ‘had [a] substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.’” Id. at 341 (alteration in original) (quoting Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637 (1993)).
Ward has failed to demonstrate that the state court’s finding that Zelhart did not influence the jury “lacks ‘even fair support in the record.’” See id. (quoting Rushen v. Spain, 464 U.S. 114, 120 (1983) (per curiam)). Zelhart’s relationship with the district attorney’s office—particularly the prosecutor’s investigator’s time sheet showing a meeting with Zelhart—and his presence during the proceedings certainly raise suspicions. But we are constrained from second-guessing the state court’s factual finding on this question absent clear and convincing contrary evidence. As summarized above, Zelhart averred that he did not discuss the then-ongoing trial with any of the jurors. Of the three juror affidavits submitted by Ward, only one addresses the incident at Ruby’s café, and it is not contrary to Zelhart’s description of a brief, chance encounter of little moment. Thus, we cannot say the state court’s finding that Zelhart did not influence the jury lacks fair support in the record. See id. Ward’s argument—that Zelhart’s brief contact with the jury somehow triggered a mandatory constitutional requirement that the trial court hold an evidentiary hearing—is unavailing. Fifth Circuit case law requires district judges, “when confronted with credible allegations of jury tampering, to notify counsel for both sides and hold a hearing with all parties participating.” United States v. Sylvester, 143 F.3d 923, 932 (5th Cir. 1998). This does not require the district court “to conduct a full-blown evidentiary hearing every time an allegation of jury tampering is raised.” Id. at 932 n.5. In this case, the trial court addressed Ward’s allegation of improper jury contact on the record in the presence of counsel for both sides, entertained argument from both sides, 28 Case: 14-70015 Document: 00512912236 Page: 29 Date Filed: 01/22/2015 No. 14-70015 and denied Ward’s motions for a mistrial and for a new trial. Ward does not direct this Court to federal case law—let alone clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court—requiring anything more, and we are aware of none. Therefore, reasonable jurists could not debate whether Ward’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury was violated when Zelhart ate lunch with the jury, and we deny his application for a COA on this issue.