Opinion ID: 204612
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the trial court unreasonably applied established supreme court precedent.

Text: The Sixth Amendment provides, in relevant part, 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. The right to trial by an impartial jury guarantees ... a fair trial by a panel of impartial, indifferent jurors. Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 722, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961) (internal quotation marks omitted). This right prohibits any private communication, contact, or tampering directly or indirectly, with a juror during trial about the matter pending before the jury. Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227, 229, 74 S.Ct. 450, 98 L.Ed. 654 (1954). As the Fourth Circuit has interpreted the relevant Supreme Court precedent, all influences, outside the record, on a juror's decisions are not necessarily prohibited. The Supreme Court has clearly established that while external influences on a jury's deliberations are prohibited, internal ones are permissible. Robinson v. Polk, 438 F.3d 350, 362 (4th Cir.2006). Under established Supreme Court case law, an influence is external if it (1) is extraneous prejudicial information; i.e., information that was not admitted into evidence but nevertheless bears on a fact at issue in the case or (2) is an outside influence upon the partiality of the jury, such as private communication, contact, or tampering ... with a juror. Id. at 363 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Examples of internal influences include alcohol or drugs taken by a juror, Turner, 379 U.S. at 466, 85 S.Ct. 546, or Bible readings which a juror relies upon for the purpose of examining his or her own conscience from within, Robinson, 438 F.3d at 363-64. It is clear under the Supreme Court's precedents that when the jury relies on a source outside of its own knowledge or beliefs, not presented at trial or by the trial judge as part of his or her instructions, to determine what relevant law to apply, the jury has been subject to an external influence in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Rogers v. United States, 422 U.S. 35, 95 S.Ct. 2091, 45 L.Ed.2d 1 (1975) (finding violation of the Sixth Amendment where the court, without consulting the defendant, provided further instruction to the jury which the jury then relied on in convicting the defendant). See also Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 117-18, 107 S.Ct. 2739, 97 L.Ed.2d 90 (1987) (noting the distinction between external influences, such as a juror reading a newspaper or hearing prejudicial statements from others, and internal influences); Parker, 385 U.S. at 364-66, 87 S.Ct. 468 (finding that a bailiff's statement to jurors that the defendant was a wicked fellow and guilty constituted an outside influence that violated the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to fair trial and confrontation because the evidence developed against a defendant shall 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); Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466, 473, 85 S.Ct. 546, 13 L.Ed.2d 424 (1965) (finding a violation of defendant's Sixth Amendment rights where two deputies who testified against him were assigned to guard, and fraternized with, the jury); Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227, 229, 74 S.Ct. 450, 98 L.Ed. 654 (1954) (stating that private communication, contact, or tampering with the jury is presumptively prejudicial); Mattox v. United States, 146 U.S. 140, 149, 13 S.Ct. 50, 36 L.Ed. 917 (1892) (stating that in capital cases ... the jury should pass upon the case free from external causes tending to disturb the exercise of deliberate and unbiased judgment). Unlike ingesting alcohol or drugs or reading a Bible to settle one's conscience, looking up legal terms to apply in the decision-making process is not merely an internal matter that merely affects how one feels or facilitates an examination of what one already thinks or believes. Rather, in this case, the jury in considering the dictionary's definitions was consulting an external sourcethe dictionary specifically because they found their internal knowledge to be insufficient. See Robinson, 438 F.3d at 364 (external influences impart pressure or knowledge on a juror apart from the juror himself, the reading of Bible passages invites the listener to examine his or her own conscience from within.). Had the jury had the knowledge within itself, it would not have found it necessary to consult the dictionary in the first place. Likewise, unlike reading the Bible or ingesting alcohol or drugs, consulting the dictionary to determine the applicable legal principle was not merely incidental to the issues before the jury, but was directly relevant as the jury looked up words it was instructed to apply. See id. at 363 (finding that juror's reading of the Bible did not require reversal of the conviction because the Bible had no bearing on any fact relevant to sentencing, and was therefore not tantamount to `evidence' that was used against him at sentencing.). Any doubt concerning the correctness of this conclusion is all but vitiated in a situation such as this where the defendant has conceded all but one legal element and the jury acquired information about this one legal element at issue. The cases the state provides, in response, are clearly distinguishable. In none of the cases did the jurors rely on an influence to resolve a legal question or factual dispute relevant to the case before it. Wolfe v. Johnson, 565 F.3d 140 (4th Cir.2009) (finding no error where juror brought pictures of his son into jury room and another juror spoke with his wife); Robinson, 438 F.3d at 364 (finding no clearly established law prohibiting a juror from relying on Bible not to garner any external fact or legal principle merely to reflect on his own conscience); Lynch v. Polk, 204 Fed.Appx. 167 (4th Cir.2006) (same). The state's reliance on the aforementioned cases suffers from the flawed assumption that merely because the influence of some materials may not violate the Sixth Amendment, the consideration of any and all external material does not violate the Sixth Amendment. Beyond citing these cases, the state provides no explanation as to why it believes that a dictionary used to define the element at the center of trial constitutes a permissible internal influence as opposed to an impermissible external influence. Rather, the state simply asserts that no case has specifically found that a jury's use of a dictionary to define the specific legal terms at issue in this case violates the Sixth Amendment. Accordingly, it concludes that the issue in this case is not clearly established. This line of argument misconstrues the relevant legal principle. [T]he relevant Supreme Court precedent need not be directly on point, but must provide a `governing legal principle' and articulate specific considerations for lower courts to follow when applying the [relevant] precedent. Quinn v. Haynes, 234 F.3d 837, 844 (4th Cir.2000) (citing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 413, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000)); see Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 953, 127 S.Ct. 2842, 168 L.Ed.2d 662, (2007) (That the standard is stated in general terms does not mean the application was reasonable. [The statute] does not `require state and federal courts to wait for some nearly identical factual pattern before a legal rule must be applied.'); Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 76, 123 S.Ct. 1166, 155 L.Ed.2d 144, (2003) (Section 2254(d)(1) permits a federal court to grant habeas relief based on the application of a governing legal principle to a set of facts different from those of the case in which the principle was announced.). [1] Finally, this conclusion is buttressed by the decisions of other courts which similarly have found that the reliance of a jury on a dictionary in defining the applicable legal principles violates the Sixth Amendment. See United States v. Duncan, 598 F.2d 839 (4th Cir.1979); McNeill v. Polk, 476 F.3d 206 (4th Cir.2007) (two of three judges on panel finding that juror relied on improper external influence by consulting dictionary for definition of mitigate) (King, J., concurring in judgment) (Gregory, J., dissenting in judgment); Marino v. Vasquez, 812 F.2d 499, 505 (9th Cir.1987) ([U]nauthorized reference to dictionary definitions constitutes reversible error which the State must prove harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.); United States v. Kupau, 781 F.2d 740, 744 (9th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 823, 107 S.Ct. 93, 93 L.Ed.2d 45 (1986) (same). [2] Accordingly, while the majority assumes, without deciding that the jury's conduct violated the Sixth amendment, no such assumptions are necessary. Under both the Supreme Court's and this Circuit's jurisprudence, such conduct is unconstitutional.