Court Opinion

ID: 9476650
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:01:36.845401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:26.072411
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the judgment of the court. However, I reach this result by a somewhat different route than does the majority.
*1161This case was before the district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In such a proceeding, as the majority points out, the federal court’s task is a limited one. Unless the record in the state court is inadequate, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), the federal court must examine the state court record to determine whether the petitioner was denied a right protected by the Constitution.
Here, the petitioner alleged that he was denied a federally-protected right to a fair trial because a juror made a racially-prejudiced remark during the jury deliberations. The district court did not hold a hearing but proceeded to resolve the issue on the basis of the state court record. That record shows that the state court did not reach the merits of the petitioner’s contention. Rather, it declined to pass on the issue because Wisconsin has an evidentiary rule — employed widely in American jurisdictions — that prevents impeachment of the jury verdict by reference to conversations taking place during the jury deliberations. The sole question before the district court, in my view, is whether Wisconsin’s disposition of this contention, through the use of its evidentiary rule, violated a federally-protected right. As this court holds, the application of the rule violates no such right.
In my view, there is no necessity for the court to rely on Rule 606(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence to reach this conclusion. While the Federal Rules of Evidence are generally applicable to proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, see Fed.R.Evid. 1101(e), there is simply no reason to invoke them in a situation where the district court receives no new information but simply makes its determination on the basis of the state record. In this case, the court’s methodology makes no difference in terms of result because Rule 606(b) is the same as the Wisconsin rule. However, in other cases, the court’s methodology could seriously distort the scope of 28 U.S.C. § 2254, a result not intended by the Congress in approving the Federal Rules of Evidence. Those rules do not give the district court the right to “blue-pencil” the state record and to consider only those portions which conform to the federal rules.