Jason Hurst v. Carlton Joyner

757 F.3d 389, 2014 WL 2959121, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 12523
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedJuly 2, 2014
Docket13-6
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 757 F.3d 389 (Jason Hurst v. Carlton Joyner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jason Hurst v. Carlton Joyner, 757 F.3d 389, 2014 WL 2959121, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 12523 (4th Cir. 2014).

Opinions

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Chief Judge TRAXLER wrote the opinion, in which Judge NIEMEYER and Judge SHEDD joined. Judge SHEDD wrote a separate concurring opinion, in which Judge NIEMEYER joined.

TRAXLER, Chief Judge:

Petitioner Jason Wayne Hurst, a North Carolina death row inmate, appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, alleging that his Sixth Amendment rights to an impartial jury and to be confronted with the witnesses against him were violated by an extraneous communication between a juror and her father during the penalty phase of his capital murder trial. For the following reasons, we reverse the district court’s judgment and remand for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the extraneous communication had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury’s verdict.

I.

A.

The facts underlying this capital murder are well documented in the state court decision affirming Hurst’s conviction and sentence on direct appeal. See State v. Hurst, 360 N.C. 181, 624 S.E.2d 309 (2006).

On June 9, 2002, Daniel Branch told his wife that he was going to Asheboro, North Carolina, to trade guns with Hurst, with whom he was acquainted. Branch loaded several guns in his vehicle and left home in the late morning. When he failed to return, Branch’s wife contacted authorities. During the investigation, North Carolina authorities were advised that Hurst had been seen in West Virginia driving a vehicle that matched the information they had regarding Branch’s vehicle. Hurst was located and apprehended, and he confessed to killing Branch with a shotgun and stealing his car. Branch’s body was found in the field where Hurst murdered him.

Hurst was convicted by the jury of first-degree murder and, following the penalty phase, sentenced to death. The North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed, see id., and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari review, see Hurst v. North Carolina, 549 U.S. 875, 127 S.Ct. 186, 166 L.Ed.2d 131 (2006).

On June 25, 2007, Hurst filed a Motion for Appropriate Relief (“MAR”) in state [392]*392court seeking, among other things, post-conviction relief from his death sentence based upon an alleged violation of his Sixth Amendment right to have an impartial jury and to confront his accusers during the penalty phase of his trial. Hurst based his claim on an affidavit of Juror Christina Foster, which had been provided to Hurst’s postconviction investigator, Adam Pfeifer, on April 21, 2007. Pertinent to the issue before us, Juror Foster stated as follows:

7. During the trial, the jurors prayed together. We did this throughout the time from when we were selected. The prayer was led by either the foreman or another older male juror. We prayed for our families and for what we had to go through.
9. During the trial, I often had lunch with my father who worked near the courthouse. Prior to deliberations, I asked my father where I could look in the Bible for help and guidance in making my decision for between life and death. After the jury had found Mr. Hurst guilty but before we decided his sentence, I opened my Bible at home because I wanted to read something to help me with my decision. My father had given me the section in the Bible where I could find “an eye for an eye.” That night after reading that section in the Bible, it helped me sleep better. It didn’t make the decision any easier. The next day during deliberations, I voted for the death penalty.

J.A. 441. Hurst argued that when Juror Foster’s father gave her the “eye for an eye” citation, he implied that her decision should be death, entitling Hurst to a new capital sentencing hearing. In the alternative, Hurst requested an evidentiary hearing to resolve any factual disputes pertaining to the extraneous communication.

On August 2, 2007, the state filed a response to the MAR, as well as a motion to dismiss. The state argued: (1) that the “eye for an eye” passage given to Juror Foster by her father did not constitute extraneous, prejudicial information sufficient to impeach the jury’s verdict; (2) that the father’s mere act of providing the passage to his daughter at her request likewise did not rise to the level of an extraneous prejudicial contact or communication about the case; and (3) that Hurst had otherwise failed to present any evidence that Juror Foster’s father knew what case she was sitting on or that he deliberately attempted to influence her vote.

The state court scheduled a hearing for October 19, 2007, to rule upon the state’s motion to dismiss. On the morning of the hearing, Hurst filed a motion seeking leave to depose Juror Foster, Juror Foster’s father, and Juror Foster’s grandmother. In support of the motion, Hurst presented an affidavit from Investigator Pfeifer, dated October 18, 2007. In the affidavit, Investigator Pfeifer confirmed that he interviewed Juror Foster on April 21, 2007, at which time “she agreed to provide [him] with [the] affidavit which tracked [their] discussion.” J.A. 457. Investigator Pfeifer also stated that he had interviewed Juror Foster’s father on October 9, 2007, who “confirmed that he had a conversation with his daughter about an ‘eye for an eye’ section of the Bible during his daughter’s deliberations in the Hurst trial,” and added that he had obtained the Biblical citation from his mother in South Carolina. J.A. 458. Investigator Pfeiffer’s efforts to interview Juror Foster’s grandmother, however, had been unsuccessful, and Hurst had been unable to determine exactly which “eye for an eye” verse Juror Foster’s father had provided to his daughter.1 [393]*393Based upon Investigator Pfeiffer’s affidavit, Hurst argued that depositions or an evidentiary hearing were in order to “significantly assist in the search for truth about Juror Foster’s extrajudicial conversations with her father.” J.A. 454.

On February 4, 2008, the state court made the following relevant findings and conclusions:

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that the Bible does not constitute an improper external influence in a capital case, whether read aloud by one juror to the others during sentencing deliberations, whether read by a juror in the privacy of his home, or whether read to herself by a juror during deliberations [citing our holdings in Robinson v. Polk, 438 F.3d 350 (4th Cir.2006); Lynch v. Polk, 204 Fed.Appx. 167 (4th Cir.2006) (unpublished); Billings v. Polk, 441 F.3d 238 (4th Cir.2006); and Lenz v. Washington, 444 F.3d 295 (4th Cir.2006) ].
Moreover, defendant presented no evidence that juror Foster’s father knew what case juror Foster was sitting on, and no evidence that he deliberately attempted to influence her vote by directing her to a specific passage in the Bible. Instead, defendant presented a motion for depositions of juror Foster, her father, and her grandmother.

J.A. 481-82.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
757 F.3d 389, 2014 WL 2959121, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 12523, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jason-hurst-v-carlton-joyner-ca4-2014.