Court Opinion

ID: 9497976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:05:04.09851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:32.356717
License: Public Domain

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Conner has alleged facts that, if true, establish that the state court’s decision of his Sixth Amendment claim was both contrary to and an unreasonable application of the Supreme Court’s clearly established law on juror bias. He is thus entitled to an evidentiary hearing. I respectfully dissent.
I.
In rejecting Conner’s Sixth Amendment claim, the state court relied exclusively on McDonough Power Equipment, Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548, 104 S.Ct. 845, 78 L.Ed.2d 663 (1984), without addressing the Supreme Court’s Sixth Amendment cases on actual juror bias, such as Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 102 S.Ct. 940, 71 L.Ed.2d 78 (1982). See J.A. 451-58. Thus, by assuming that McDonough provides the sole avenue of relief for cases like Conner’s, the state court required Conner to prove that juror Knight deliberately lied at voir dire in order to establish his Sixth Amendment claim under Smith. J.A. 452. This was error. No less than five members of the Supreme Court wrote or joined separate opinions in McDonough to emphasize that McDonough did not so limit the applicability of Smith and related cases. See McDonough, 464 U.S. at 556-57, 104 S.Ct. 845 (Blaekmun, J., concurring) (“I write separately to state that I understand the Court’s holding not to foreclose the normal avenue of relief available to a party who is asserting that he did not have the benefit of an impartial jury. Thus, regardless of whether a juror is honest or dishonest, it remains within a trial court’s option ... to order a post-trial hearing at which the movant has the opportunity to demonstrate actual bias .... ”); id. at 558, 104 S.Ct. 845 (Brennan, J., concurring in the judgment). In fact, McDonough was a civil case that did not even present the issue of juror bias under the Sixth Amendment. See id. at 549, 555, 104 S.Ct. 845. In light of this, numerous courts, including the Fourth Circuit, have likewise held that McDonough does not provide the sole avenue of relief for a criminal defendant alleging actual juror bias. See, e.g., Jones v. Cooper, 311 F.3d 306, 310 (4th Cir.2002) (“The McDonough test is not the exclusive test for determining whether a new trial is warranted: a showing that a juror was actually biased, regardless of whether the juror was truthful or deceitful, can also entitle a defendant to a new trial.”); Fitzgerald v. Greene, 150 F.3d 357, 362-63 (4th Cir.1998) (same); Zerica v. Green, 49 F.3d 1181, 1186 n. 7 (6th Cir.1995); Amirault v. Fair, 968 F.2d 1404, 1405-06 (1st Cir.1992); Cannon v. Lockhart, 850 F.2d 437, 440 (8th Cir.1988). And the Supreme Court has unanimously confirmed this interpretation by citing only Smith, and not McDonough, as the law governing a claim of actual juror bias that, like Conner’s, involved an honest but misleading response by the juror at voir dire. See Michael Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 420, 442, 120 S.Ct. 1479, 146 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000).
Therefore, the state court relied on a rule of law that contradicts the holdings of Smith and other juror-bias cases, which do *210not require a defendant to prove that the biased juror deliberately lied at voir dire. The state court’s decision was thus “contrary to” clearly established law. See Terry Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389, (2000) (“A state-court decision will certainly be contrary to our clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases.”).
II.
Because the state court’s treatment of Conner’s juror-bias claim resulted in a decision that was contrary to clearly established law, itsdecision is not entitled to deference. See Rose v. Lee, 252 F.3d 676, 689-90 (4th Cir.2001). But even if the state court had applied Smith and related cases, as required, Conner would nonetheless be entitled to relief, because the state court’s denial of his claim necessarily involved an unreasonable application of those cases. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
It is clearly established that the presence of a single biased juror in a capital trial violates the Sixth Amendment, Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719, 728, 112 S.Ct. 2222, 119 L.Ed.2d 492 (1992), and that the remedy for credible allegations of juror bias is a hearing at which to prove actual bias. See Smith, 455 U.S. at 215, 102 S.Ct. 940 (1982) (“This Court has long held that the remedy for allegations of juror partiality is a hearing in which the defendant has the opportunity to prove actual bias.”); Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227, 230, 74 S.Ct. 450, 98 L.Ed. 654 (1954) (reversing the district court’s denial without hearing of the defendant’s motion for a new trial based on alleged juror bias, and remanding for an evidentiary hearing). This clearly established principle has been applied on innumerable occasions, including on habeas review. See, e.g., Michael Williams, 529 U.S. at 440-42, 120 S.Ct. 1479 (“[T]hese omissions [of information at voir dire] as a whole disclose the need for an evidentiary hearing.”); Fullwood v. Lee, 290 F.3d 663, 682 (4th Cir.2002) (granting an evidentiary hearing to determine whether a juror was improperly influenced by her husband to vote for the death penalty).
Here, the circumstances that Conner alleges plainly establish the risk of actual bias. He alleges that juror Knight engaged in confidential conversations about his case with investigators and a key trial witness, see J.A. 408, and that these conversations included victim-impact evidence highly relevant to the sentencing trial in which Knight sat as a juror. J.A. 422. These allegations raise the obvious possibility that Knight relied on such extraneous evidence (and other yet undisclosed communications) in her deliberation about whether to sentence Conner to death. Such would constitute a quintessential instance of actual juror bias.
Therefore, this is plainly not a case in which Conner’s allegations, even if true, would be insufficient even to raise a credible inference of bias. See Jones v. Cooper, 311 F.3d 306, 313 (4th Cir.2002). On the contrary, the risk of bias here was at least as great as that in Smith, and comparable to or greater than the risk in virtually every other Supreme Court case on actual bias. See Smith, 455 U.S. at 212, 102 S.Ct. 940 (juror applied for a job at the prosecutor’s office during trial); Remmer, 347 U.S. at 228, 74 S.Ct. 450 (juror was exposed to a comment “in jest” that he could profit from a favorable verdict to the defendant, and to a subsequent FBI investigation of the comment); Chandler v. Florida, 449 U.S. 560, 575, 101 S.Ct. 802, 66 L.Ed.2d 740 (1981) (jurors were exposed to unusual publicity and a sensational courtroom atmosphere); Michael *211Williams, 529 U.S. at 440, 120 S.Ct. 1479 (juror had been married, fifteen years previously, to an investigator and trial witness). Indeed, the risk of bias in Knight’s conversations was as great, or greater than, the risk of bias in cases where the Supreme Court has held that the circumstances compelled a finding of implied bias. See Parker v. Gladden, 385 U.S. 363, 365, 87 S.Ct. 468, 17 L.Ed.2d 420 (1966) (per curiam) (jurors were exposed to two offhand comments by a bailiff asserting the defendant’s guilt); Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466, 468, 85 S.Ct. 546, 13 L.Ed.2d 424 (1965) (two prosecution witnesses served among the bailiffs in charge of the sequestered jury, but without discussing the case); Leonard v. United States, 378 U.S. 544, 544-45, 84 S.Ct. 1696, 12 L.Ed.2d 1028 (1964) (per curiam) (a prior jury announced its guilty verdict in the presence of the jurors who would try the defendant on a closely related crime).
The state seeks to distinguish Smith and like cases by arguing that Conner’s counsel had notice of Knight’s involvement in the prior trial and opportunity to strike her at voir dire. See Appellee’s Br. at 19, 22 (“Conner’s trial counsel had full knowledge of the information Ms. Knight possessed as a potential juror. It was incumbent on trial counsel to probe deeper if desired or deemed necessary.”). But such is an unreasonable ground on which to distinguish Smith, because Knight’s misleading replies at voir dire deprived counsel of notice of the exact source of bias challenged here. See J.A. 245-46 (“THE COURT: And have you heard this case discussed by any person who indicated direct or firsthand knowledge of the facts about the case other than the witnesses that you heard? MS. KNIGHT: No, sir.”); J.A. 398, 403 (affidavits of defense counsel averring that Knight’s “answers during voir dire indicated [to them] that she had no such direct contact with witnesses”); cf. Michael Williams, 529 U.S. at 442, 120 S.Ct. 1479 (providing an evi-dentiary hearing where “[t]he trial record contains no evidence which would have put a reasonable attorney on notice that [the juror’s] non-response was a deliberate omission of material information”). By nevertheless insisting that Conner’s claim fails because Knight’s answers were honest but misleading, the state merely rehashes the state court’s erroneous conclusion that McDonough provides Conner’s exclusive avenue of relief. As shown above, it does not.
III.
Because the state court denied Conner a hearing on the issue of Knight’s bias, J.A. 458, he has not “failed to develop” the relevant facts in state court through lack of diligence. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2); Michael Williams, 529 U.S. at 430, 120 S.Ct. 1479. For the same reason, Conner fulfills at least one of the six factors of Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 313, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963) (requiring an evidentiary hearing when “the material facts were not adequately developed at the state-court hearing”). Therefore, Conner is entitled to an evidentiary hearing in the district court to determine what was actually communicated to Knight and whether it influenced her deliberations. If Conner can establish both that the alleged communications included prejudicial information not produced at trial, and that juror Knight (or her fellow jurors) relied on such evidence to Conner’s detriment, I would grant him a new sentencing hearing.
For these reasons, I dissent from the majority’s judgment.