Opinion ID: 63254
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Bible as an External Influence on the Jury

Text: Stemming from these clearly established Supreme Court precedents, it is clear that the prohibition of external influences from Remmer, Turner, and Parker applies to this factual scenario. See ( Terry) Williams, 529 U.S. at 407, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (stating that a decision involves an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent if it unreasonably refuses to extend [a legal principle from Supreme Court precedent] to a new context where it should apply). Although there are no Fifth Circuit cases directly on point, language from the Eleventh, First, and Sixth Circuits bolsters this conclusion. In McNair v. Campbell, 416 F.3d 1291, 1307-08 (11th Cir.2005), the Eleventh Circuit analyzed a similar situation under the Remmer line of cases and determined that the jury's use of the Bible was presumptively prejudicial, but that the state had rebutted the presumption. [9] During the punishment phase of the trial, the foreman, a Christian minister, brought a Bible into the jury room during deliberations, read aloud from it, and led the other jurors in prayer. Id. at 1301. The court noted that [b]ecause 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. The court held that the state had rebutted the presumption of prejudice because there was no evidence that the innocuous Bible passages in question had the effect of influencing the jury's decision. Id. Even before this decision, a district court within the Eleventh Circuit undertook a similar approach to this question. In Jones v. Kemp, 706 F.Supp. 1534, 1558 (N.D.Ga.1989), a juror asked the court if he could take a Bible into the jury room, and the court said yes. The district court, on habeas review, stated that [a] situation in which a jury, unsupervised by the court and unobserved by counsel, could reach a conclusion by consulting sources other than the legal charge of the court and evidence actually received by the court is not permitted. Id. at 1560. The court distinguished the situation of jurors bringing their own Bibles into the jury room to consult for personal inspiration or spiritual guidance. Id. The sole issue here involves the at least implied court approval of a group jury reference to an extra-judicial authorityhere the Christian Biblefor guidance in deciding the explicit, statutorily mandated, carefully worded guidelines which must be followed by a jury deliberating during the sentencing phase of a death penalty case. Id. The court did not analyze whether the state could rebut the presumption of prejudice. The First Circuit also suggested that the presence of a Bible in the jury room amounts to an external influence on the jury's deliberations and that the Bible is no different from any other type of external influence that enters the jury's conscience. See United States v. Lara-Ramirez, 519 F.3d 76, 88 (1st Cir.2008). That case does not directly align with the facts here, as it involved the direct review of a district court's mistrial declaration without the defendant's consent after the judge learned that the jury had consulted the Bible. Id. at 79. Nevertheless, the court's language is telling: the court stated that the district court erred in treat[ing] the Bible in the jury room as qualitatively different from other types of extraneous materials or information that may taint a jury's deliberations. Id. at 88. The court held that [b]ecause no special rule exists when the Bible is involved, the district court had a duty to investigate the colorable claim of juror taint in this case and explore and exhaust the alternatives to mistrial, just as it would in other situations where extraneous materials have been brought into the jury's deliberations. Id. at 89 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, underlying the court's analysis was the conclusion that the jurors' use of a Bible in the jury room constituted an external influence. The Sixth Circuit implied, albeit in dicta, that the presence of a Bible in the jury room is an external influence that might prejudice the jury's deliberations. See Coe v. Bell, 161 F.3d 320, 351 (6th Cir.1998) (rejecting the petitioner's claim that the prosecutor's closing argument mentioning the Bible amounted to reversible error). The court distinguished the situation of a prosecutor invoking the Bible during his closing argument from the cases where the jury actually had a Bible in the jury room. Id. The court concluded that there is error in [the cases involving a Bible in the jury room] not because the book was the Bible, but because the book was not properly admitted evidence. Id. [10] The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, refused to determine one way or the other whether the jury's reliance on the Bible constituted an external influence. Fields v. Brown, 503 F.3d 755, 781-82 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc). In that case, a juror made notes for and against the death penalty based on his review of the Bible at home and then brought those notes into the jury room. Id. at 777-78. The court held, [W]e do not need to decide whether there was juror misconduct because even assuming there was, we are persuaded that [the juror's notes] had no substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. Id. at 781. The only circuit to hold that the Bible is not an external influence is the Fourth Circuit. [11] In Robinson v. Polk, 438 F.3d 350 (4th Cir.2006), a juror asked the bailiff for a Bible and then read several passages out loud in the jury roomincluding at least one referring to an eye for an eyeto convince the other jurors to vote for a death sentence. Id. at 357-58. The court ruled that reading the Bible is analogous to the situation where a juror quotes the Bible from memory, which assuredly would not be considered an improper influence. Id. at 364.  [P]recisely because the Bible occupies a unique place in the moral lives of those who believe in it, its teachings cannot blithely be lumped together with a private communication, contact, or tampering with a juror without clear guidance from the Supreme Court. [12] Id. at 366; see also Lenz v. Washington, 444 F.3d 295, 310-12 (4th Cir.2006) (following Robinson); Billings v. Polk, 441 F.3d 238, 248 (4th Cir.2006) (holding that a juror's reading of the Bible at home to assist his decision process did not raise a presumption of prejudice); Burch v. Corcoran, 273 F.3d 577, 591 (4th Cir.2001) (stating that the jury's consultation of a Bible was not improper jury communication because the Bible quotes, whether stated from memory or read from the book, were... statements of folk wisdom or of cultural precepts). Judge King wrote a vigorous dissent in Robinson, which, given the Supreme Court's clear guidance regarding external influences and the analysis from the rest of the circuits, we find more persuasive than the majority's opinion. See Robinson, 438 F.3d at 368 (King, J., dissenting in part). Further, although we part company with the Fourth Circuit and join the majority of other courts to pass upon this issue, we note that the Fourth Circuit's cases are distinguishable in that they all involved a juror reading general Biblical statements, as opposed to a command that directly tracked the specific facts of those cases. This analysis persuades us that when a juror brings a Bible into the deliberations and points out to her fellow jurors specific passages that describe the very facts at issue in the case, the juror has crossed an important line. The Supreme Court counsels us that a jury may not consult material that is outside the law and evidence in the case. The Bible passages in question here were not part of the law and evidence that the jury was to consider in its deliberations. Moreover, the jurors did not simply discuss their own understanding of religious law and morality or quote Bible passages from memory to aid the discussion. Instead, the jurors referenced a specific passage that stated that someone who engages in a particular actstriking a person with an object and killing him, as Oliver did to Collinsis a murderer and must be put to death. Most circuits have ruled that when a Bible itself enters the jury room, the jury has been exposed to an external influence. Here, we face facts that are even more egregious than in those previous cases, as the jurors consulted a specific passage that provided guidance on the appropriate punishment for this particular method of murder. As such, we hold that the jury's consultation of the Bible passages in question during the sentencing phase of the trial amounted to an external influence on the jury's deliberations. The question before us is not whether a juror must leave his or her moral values at the door or even whether a juror may consult the Bible for his or her own personal inspiration during the deliberation process. This case is also not about whether jurors must forget that, generally, the Bible includes the concept of an eye for an eye. See Burch, 273 F.3d at 591 (noting that the Bible quotes, whether stated from memory or read from the book, were ... statements of folk wisdom or of cultural precepts). Therefore, we need not address these issues. Instead, here, several jurors collectively consulted a Bible, in the jury room, and likely compared the facts of this case to the passage that teaches that capital punishment is appropriate for a person who strikes another over the head with an object and causes the person's death. The state urges us to consider solely whether the Bible passage at issue had any bearing on the factual questions the jury had to decide during the sentencing phase: whether Oliver presented a threat of future dangerousness and whether there was mitigating evidence to warrant a sentence of life imprisonment instead of death. This argument misses the mark. The Bible served as an external influence precisely because it may have influenced the jurors simply to answer the questions in a manner that would ensure a sentence of death instead of conducting a thorough inquiry into these factual areas. Further, the Bible passage in this instance was evidence of the circumstances of the offense that militates for ... the imposition of the death penalty. TEX.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 37.071(d)(1) (discussing the instructions the court must give to the jury in a death penalty case). A contrary holding would eviscerate the rule from Remmer that jurors must rely on only the evidence and law presented in an open court room. It may be true that the Bible informs jurors' general outlook of the world and their moral values in particular, and jurors may constitutionally rely upon those morals in their deliberations. See J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B., 511 U.S. 127, 149, 114 S.Ct. 1419, 128 L.Ed.2d 89 (1994) (O'Connor, J., concurring) (Jurors are not expected to come into the jury box and leave behind all that their human experience has taught them. (internal citation and quotation marks omitted)). But the particular passage at issue here does not generally inform a juror's moral understanding of the world. The jurors did not testify that they knew, as people of faith, that someone who hits another over the head with an instrument of iron or a hand weapon of wood so that the person dies is a murderer and should be put to death. Instead, several jurors testified that they read this passage in the Bible while they were in the jury room debating Oliver's fate. Thus, the jury's use of the Bible here amounts to a type of private communication, contact, or tampering that is outside the evidence and law, which is exactly what Remmer sought to circumscribe. 347 U.S. at 229, 74 S.Ct. 450.