Bebo v. Medeiros

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 17-2218
JOSEPH A. BEBO,
Petitioner, Appellant,
v.
SEAN MEDEIROS, Acting Superintendent,
Respondent, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Patti B. Saris, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Selya, and Lipez,
Circuit Judges.
Elizabeth Prevett, with whom Federal Defender Office was on
brief, for petitioner.
Thomas E. Bocian, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal
Bureau, with whom Maura Healey, Attorney General of Massachusetts,
was on brief, for respondent.
October 3, 2018
SELYA, Circuit Judge. With respect to federal habeas
review of state criminal convictions, Congress has ordained an
especially deferential standard of review, which compels us to
look only at federal constitutional law as clearly established by
the Supreme Court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). This deferential
standard sometimes results in situations in which a state court
ruling may be deemed to pass constitutional muster on habeas review
even though an identical federal court ruling might be deemed
reversible error on direct review under circuit precedent. Thus,
the question of what our circuit's case law would suggest is not
before us in this habeas case. Based on Supreme Court case law,
we conclude that the challenged state court ruling was neither
contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established
federal law. Consequently, we affirm the district court's
dismissal of the habeas petition.
I. BACKGROUND
We briefly rehearse the facts and travel of the case.
On November 14, 2005, petitioner-appellant Joseph A. Bebo took
part in a street fight in Brockton, Massachusetts. The fight,
which stemmed from a dispute over the price of marijuana, involved
two groups: one from Brockton and the other from nearby Stoughton.
The petitioner was a member of the Stoughton group, as was Raymond
Muse. During the melee, Carl Schirmer (a member of the Brockton
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group) was stabbed in the chest. Schirmer later died from his
wound and the police charged the petitioner with the murder.
During the petitioner's trial in the state superior
court, Muse testified that the petitioner had said that "he might
have stabbed somebody and it might have went through." On later
questioning, Muse agreed that the petitioner's statement was "to
the effect that [he] felt the knife go in." The petitioner did
not take the stand. The defense argued, though, that the police
had failed to conduct a thorough investigation, and he suggested
that Muse was the person responsible for Schirmer's murder. In
his summation, the prosecutor cautioned the jury not to get "fooled
with [the defense's] classic strategy" of playing "the blame game."
The jury accepted the prosecution's version of the incident and
found the petitioner guilty of murder in the second degree. See
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 1. As required by state law, see id.
§ 2(c), the trial justice sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The day after the jury returned its verdict, the
petitioner's attorney went into the jury deliberation room to
retrieve a television set. Upon entering the room, he discovered
a book on the window ledge. The book, written by Ann Coulter,
bore the title Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on
America (Guilty). Inside the book was a piece of paper containing
the handwritten names of the petitioner's attorney, the
prosecutor, and the trial justice.
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The "About the Author" page describes Coulter as "[a]
graduate of Cornell University and University of Michigan Law
School," who "clerked for the Honorable Pasco Bowman II of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, worked for the Senate
Judiciary Committee, and served as a litigator with the Center for
Individual Rights." Broadly, the book argues that liberals use
false claims of victimhood — both on behalf of themselves and
groups such as minorities, the poor, and single mothers — to try
to gain the upper hand over conservatives. For example, in a
chapter entitled "Victim of a Crime? Thank a Single Mother,"
Coulter asserts that "derelicts and liberals" both "see themselves
as the passive victims of circumstances, with no control over their
own lives." She quotes an English doctor writing under the pen
name "Theodore Dalrymple" describing how three murderers in a
prison used the same passive-voice phrase to attempt to separate
themselves from responsibility for their crimes: "the knife went
in." In Dalrymple's words, "[t]hat the long-hated victims were
sought out, and the knives carried to the scene of the crimes, was
as nothing compared with the willpower possessed by the inanimate
knives themselves, which determined the unfortunate outcome."
Coulter adds, "[i]t's the same thing with battered women who act
as if they could not possibly have foreseen the violent tendencies
in their boyfriends."
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The book also contains a passage disparaging defense
attorneys who, according to Coulter, "lie remorselessly on behalf
of child murderers, self-righteously informing us that this is
'part of the process.'" At another point, the book discusses the
trial of O.J. Simpson, who Coulter declares "got[] away with two
heinous murders."
Promptly after finding the book in the jury room, the
petitioner's counsel filed a motion in which he asked the court to
conduct a jury inquiry on the basis that the book constituted
"extraneous" material that could have improperly influenced the
jurors' deliberations. After a non-evidentiary hearing, the trial
justice denied the motion even though he found that the petitioner
had made a "showing . . . that the book did belong to a juror,
[and] was brought [to court] by a juror." He grounded his ruling
on a conclusion that the book was not "extraneous" material
requiring a jury inquiry, and stated that he "fail[ed] to see how
the Book related to [the petitioner's] case, the parties involved
in [the petitioner's] case, or the issues presented at trial."
The trial justice added that the book was a "general political and
social commentary from an author who may well be seen by some, or
even many, as a provocative right-wing conservative," which was
not even arguably relevant, save for "a few isolated passages
containing general commentary about defense attorneys that 'lie,'
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'violence against women,' . . . references to 'stabbings,' and the
O.J. Simpson case."
As an anchor to windward, the trial justice further found
that, even if the book could be regarded as "extraneous" material,
the petitioner had failed to show that it was considered during
the jury deliberations, as jurors are presumed to follow the
court's instructions. And the trial justice went on to find that,
in all events, there was no prejudice to the petitioner because
his case "concerned neither race nor violence against women."
The petitioner appealed both his conviction and the
denial of his jury inquiry motion to the Massachusetts Appeals
Court (MAC). That appeal proved unavailing, see Commonwealth v.
Bebo (Bebo I), 984 N.E.2d 890 (Mass. App. Ct. 2013) (table), full
text at 2013 WL 1149504, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court denied the petitioner's application for leave to obtain
further appellate review, see Commonwealth v. Bebo, 987 N.E.2d 594
(Mass. 2013) (table). Undaunted, the petitioner repaired to the
federal district court and filed a timely petition for habeas
relief, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254, naming as respondent Sean Medeiros,
the Acting Superintendent of the state penitentiary at which the
petitioner was then incarcerated. The petitioner subsequently
filed a motion for an evidentiary hearing, requesting that the
federal district court conduct an inquiry of the state-court jury
that convicted him. The district court, in a thoughtful rescript,
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denied both the petition and the motion. See Bebo v. Medeiros
(Bebo II), No. 14-11872, slip op. at 13 (D. Mass. Nov. 13, 2017).
At the same time, the court issued a certificate of appealability,
see 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c), limited to "whether the book in question
is 'extraneous material' entitling Petitioner to a hearing under
'clearly established Federal law,'" Bebo II, slip op. at 13-14.
This appeal followed.
II. ANALYSIS
In this instance, the district court did not hold an
evidentiary hearing and, thus, made no independent factual
findings. Consequently, our review of the district court's
dismissal of the habeas petition is de novo. See Pike v. Guarino,
492 F.3d 61, 68 (1st Cir. 2007).
Under the "peculiarly deferential standards" of the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA),
Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, "error by a state court,
without more, is not enough to warrant federal habeas relief."
Cronin v. Comm'r of Prob., 783 F.3d 47, 50 (1st Cir. 2015). As
relevant here, a state court decision may only be overturned on
habeas review if it is "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable
application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by
the Supreme Court of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
To be deemed "contrary to clearly established federal
law," a state court decision must "announce[] a rule of law that
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directly contradicts existing Supreme Court precedent or . . .
reach[] a different result than the Supreme Court on materially
indistinguishable facts." Cronin, 783 F.3d at 50 (citing Williams
v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000)). An unreasonable
application occurs when "the state court identifies the correct
governing legal rule . . . but unreasonably applies it to the facts
of the particular state prisoner's case." White v. Woodall, 572
U.S. 415, 425 (2014) (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 407-08).
Federal habeas relief only "provides a remedy for instances in
which a state court unreasonably applies [the Supreme] Court's
precedent; it does not require state courts to extend that
precedent or license federal courts to treat the failure to do so
as error." Id. at 426 (emphasis in original).
These standards ensure that federal habeas relief will
be granted only in cases in which all fairminded jurists would
agree that a final state court decision is at odds with the Supreme
Court's existing precedents. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S.
86, 102 (2011). One consequence of this rule is that a federal
court sitting in habeas jurisdiction "may not overrule a state
court for simply holding a view different from its own, when the
precedent from [the Supreme] Court is, at best, ambiguous."
Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 17 (2003) (per curiam). This is
not to say that the AEDPA "require[s] state and federal courts to
wait for some nearly identical factual pattern before a legal rule
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must be applied." Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 953 (2007)
(quoting Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 81 (2006) (Kennedy, J.,
concurring in judgment)). The Supreme Court has recognized that
"even a general standard may be applied in an unreasonable manner."
Id.
With this foundation in place, we turn to the
underpinnings of the claim at issue here. The Sixth Amendment
guarantees a defendant charged in a criminal case the right to
"trial[] by an impartial jury." U.S. Const. amend. VI. This
"right is made binding upon the states through the fourteenth
amendment" and, thus, applies with full force to state criminal
prosecutions.1 Neron v. Tierney, 841 F.2d 1197, 1206 (1st Cir.
1988). To ensure that this constitutional guarantee is not an
empty promise, a jury's "verdict must be based upon the evidence
developed at the trial." Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 722 (1961).
Similarly, the verdict must be "free from external causes tending
to disturb the exercise of deliberate and unbiassed [sic]
judgment." Mattox v. United States, 146 U.S. 140, 149 (1892).
When an "extraneous" influence may have infected a
jury's deliberations, a court may admit juror testimony to impeach
the verdict. Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 117 (1987)
1
This guarantee admits of some exceptions. For example,
misdemeanors punishable by a term of imprisonment of six months or
less do not generate a right to a trial by jury. See United States
v. Pina, 844 F.2d 1, 10 (1st Cir. 1988). None of these exceptions,
however, is apposite here.
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(quoting Mattox, 146 U.S. at 149). To be considered "extraneous,"
information must "derive[] from a source 'external' to the jury,"
such as "publicity and information related specifically to the
case the jurors are meant to decide." Warger v. Shauers, 135 S.
Ct. 521, 529 (2014) (citing Tanner, 483 U.S. at 117). By contrast,
evidence regarding internal influences, such as jurors' personal
beliefs and experiences, generally may not be used to impeach a
verdict. See id. at 529-30 (excluding evidence that juror lied
during voir dire about her daughter's involvement in a motor
vehicle accident); Tanner, 483 U.S. at 122 (barring testimony that
juror was under the influence of drugs and alcohol during trial);
but cf. Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, 137 S. Ct. 855, 869 (2017)
(finding exception to no impeachment rule "where a juror makes a
clear statement that indicates he or she relied on racial
stereotypes or animus to convict a criminal defendant").
The Supreme Court has found that external information
threatened the integrity of the jury's verdict in only three
reported cases: where a bailiff told jurors that the defendant
had killed three people and a newspaper article regarding the case
was subsequently read to the jury during deliberations, see Mattox,
146 U.S. at 150-51; where a bribe was offered to a juror and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted an inquiry during the
trial, see Remmer v. United States, 347 U.S. 227, 228-29 (1954);
and where a bailiff commented to a juror on the defendant's guilt
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within the hearing of other jurors, see Parker v. Gladden, 385
U.S. 363, 363-64 (1966) (per curiam). In two other cases, the
Court found that contact between the jury and external parties
could taint the jury's deliberations. See Smith v. Phillips, 455
U.S. 209, 215-16 (1982) (discussing juror's submission of
employment application to the district attorney's office); Turner
v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466, 468, 473-74 (1965) (discussing
situation in which deputy sheriffs who were key government
witnesses were left in charge of jury, including driving jurors to
and from courthouse). In yet another case, the Court reiterated
that "a newspaper read inside the jury room" would qualify as "an
external influence about which juror testimony is admissible."
Tanner, 483 U.S. at 118 (dictum); see infra note 3.
Upon receiving information regarding external
"communication, contact, or tampering, directly or indirectly,
with a juror during a trial about the matter pending before the
jury," a trial court must "determine the circumstances, the impact
thereof upon the juror, and whether or not it was prejudicial, in
a hearing with all interested parties permitted to participate."
Remmer, 347 U.S. at 229-30. The Supreme Court has cautioned,
though, that "due process does not require a new trial every time
a juror has been placed in a potentially compromising situation."
Smith, 455 U.S. at 217. As long as there is "a jury capable and
willing to decide the case solely on the evidence before it, and
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a trial judge ever watchful to prevent prejudicial occurrences and
to determine the effect of such occurrences when they happen," due
process is not offended. Id.
This brings us to the matter at hand. Sugar-coating
would serve no useful purpose, and it should be stated at the
outset that "[t]he introduction of an extraneous document into the
jury room during deliberations is always a cause for concern."
United States v. Bradshaw, 281 F.3d 278, 290 (1st Cir. 2002). This
is certainly true where a book entitled Guilty, written by an
author with a legal background, was found in the jury room with a
note containing the names of the attorneys and the judge involved
in the petitioner's trial. And to make the matter even more dicey,
the book contains commentary about defense attorneys lying and
murderers disclaiming responsibility for stabbings they committed,
using language similar to that attributed to the petitioner by a
witness at trial. Were we considering this case on direct appeal,
we might find that the book was "extraneous" material, triggering
the trial court's responsibility to make inquiry of the jury. See,
e.g., United States v. Pagán-Romero, 894 F.3d 441, 447 (1st Cir.
2018) (stating that jury, having been given dictionary in jury
room, "was exposed improperly to extrinsic material"); United
States v. Bristol-Mártir, 570 F.3d 29, 43 (1st Cir. 2009) (finding
that definitions of terms obtained from the internet by juror
required jury inquiry); United States v. Lara-Ramirez, 519 F.3d
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76, 89 (1st Cir. 2008) (finding that trial court had duty to
investigate presence of Bible in jury room "just as it would in
other situations where extraneous materials have been brought into
the jury's deliberations").
Direct review, however, is not the posture in which this
case arrives on our doorstep. In the narrowly circumscribed scope
of habeas review, we may only grant relief if the last reasoned
state court decision was contrary to or an unreasonable application
of federal law as determined by the Supreme Court. In the case at
hand, the last reasoned state court decision is the MAC's decision
in Bebo I. The MAC defined "extraneous" material as "information,
knowledge, or specific facts about one of the parties or the matter
in litigation that did not come from the evidence at trial." Bebo
I, 2013 WL 1149504, at *1. As the district court observed, this
definition is almost identical to that used by the Supreme Court:
"any private communication, contact, or tampering, directly or
indirectly, with a juror during a trial about the matter pending
before the jury." Remmer, 347 U.S. at 229.2 In point of fact,
the MAC's definition is arguably broader than that of the Supreme
Court as it is not limited to "private" actions.
2 Although the MAC's formulation does not include the phrase
"directly or indirectly," there is no reason to believe that its
definition of "extraneous" material was meant to exclude
information received by jurors indirectly. After all, one of the
Massachusetts cases on which the MAC relied quoted the "directly
or indirectly" language from Remmer. See Commonwealth v. Dixon,
479 N.E.2d 159, 162 (Mass. 1985).
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The crux of this case is whether fairminded jurists could
disagree regarding the scope of the phrase "about the matter
pending before the jury." Id. Specifically, we must consider
whether this phrase reasonably can be interpreted to exclude a
book entitled Guilty that disparages defense attorneys in terms
somewhat similar to those sounded by the prosecution in closing,
discusses criminals trying to evade responsibility for crimes
bearing arguable similarity to the crime charged using phraseology
reminiscent of that attributed to the petitioner, and attacks
liberals' views of the criminal justice system.
In our view, this question turns not on what the Supreme
Court has said, but on what it has not said. Remmer and its
progeny do not purpose to define the scope of "the matter pending
before the jury," nor do those opinions indicate how tight the
nexus must be between some particular piece of external material
and the facts of the case before the jury. See Joyner v. Barnes,
135 S. Ct. 2643, 2646-47 (2015) (Thomas & Alito, JJ., dissenting
from denial of certiorari) (recognizing that Supreme Court case
law has not yet provided specific guidance on the scope of "the
matter pending before the jury"). By the same token, there is no
reported Supreme Court case with facts analogous to the facts of
the case at hand.3
3 Even though Tanner suggested in dictum that a newspaper
found in the jury room would "of course" be "an external
influence," the only precedent cited was a case involving a
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In an apparent effort to fill this void, the petitioner
urges us to consult circuit court precedent, arguing that every
circuit confronting the question has found analogous material to
be "extraneous" and, therefore, requiring jury inquiry. See, e.g.,
United States v. Warner, 498 F.3d 666, 678 (7th Cir. 2007) (finding
American Judicature Society article regarding substitution of
jurors to be "extraneous" material); United States v. Bassler, 651
F.2d 600, 601-02 (8th Cir. 1981) (finding juror's notes on Roberts
Rules of Order to be "extraneous" material). We previously have
stated that "lower court precedents may provide 'a valuable
reference point' when there is some doubt about the meaning or
scope of the relevant Supreme Court rule." Coningford v. Rhode
Island, 640 F.3d 478, 485 (1st Cir. 2011) (quoting Rashad v. Walsh,
300 F.3d 27, 35 (1st Cir. 2002)); see Ouber v. Guarino, 293 F.3d
19, 26 (1st Cir. 2002) (noting that "it is helpful to examine
precedents from lower federal courts to determine how the general
standard applies to a particular set of facts"). We acknowledged,
though, that circuit precedent "may not be used to fill a gap where
. . . the Justices have expressly declined to lay down a rule."
Coningford, 640 F.3d at 485. The Supreme Court has since clarified
that it is never permissible to fill a gap in Supreme Court
jurisprudence with circuit court analysis. See Glebe v. Frost,
newspaper containing an article regarding the case the jury was
deciding. 483 U.S. at 118 (citing United States v. Thomas, 463
F.2d 1061 (7th Cir. 1972)).
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135 S. Ct. 429, 431 (2014); Marshall v. Rodgers, 569 U.S. 58, 64
(2013); Parker v. Matthews, 567 U.S. 37, 48 (2012). Instead,
circuit court case law is only relevant under habeas review "to
ascertain whether [a court of appeals] has already held that the
particular point in issue is clearly established by Supreme Court
precedent." Marshall, 569 U.S. at 64. Thus, we may not look to
circuit precedent "to refine or sharpen a general principle of
Supreme Court jurisprudence into a specific legal rule that [the
Supreme] Court has not announced." Id. Nor may we — as the
petitioner invites us to do — "canvass circuit decisions to
determine whether a particular rule of law is so widely accepted
among Federal Circuits that it would, if presented to [the Supreme]
Court, be accepted as correct." Id.
Confining our inquiry, as we must, to the law as
articulated by the Supreme Court, we conclude that the MAC's
decision that the book did not qualify as "extraneous" material
was not objectively unreasonable. Every case in which the Supreme
Court has found an "extraneous" influence has involved either
communications relating to the specific case sub judice, see
Gladden, 385 U.S. 363; Remmer, 347 U.S. 227; Mattox, 146 U.S. 140,
or contacts between the jurors and individuals or entities involved
in that particular trial, see Smith, 455 U.S. 209; Turner, 379
U.S. 466. In the absence of contrary Supreme Court guidance, a
fairminded jurist could find — as did the judges of the MAC — that
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a book that offers provocative commentary regarding defendants and
defense lawyers and describes crimes bearing some similarity to
the one at issue but that does not refer either to the particular
defendant or the particular case sub judice, was not "about the
matter pending before the jury." Remmer, 347 U.S. at 229. To
apply the "extraneous" material doctrine to the facts of this case
would be an extension of the rule that has been clearly established
by the Supreme Court. And "'if a habeas court must extend a
rationale before it can apply to the facts at hand,' then by
definition the rationale was not 'clearly established at the time
of the state-court decision.'" White, 572 U.S. at 426 (quoting
Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 666 (2004)). This remains
true even where, as here, the proposed extension is a logical one.
III. CONCLUSION
We need go no further.4 For the reasons elucidated
above, the judgment of the district court is
Affirmed.
4 In view of our holding, we need not reach the petitioner's
argument that it was unreasonable for the MAC to conclude that,
even if the book could be regarded as "extraneous" material, the
petitioner had failed to "make a colorable showing that [it] may
have had an impact on the jury's impartiality." Bebo I, 2013 WL
1149504, at *1 (quoting Commonwealth v. Dixon, 479 N.E.2d 159,
161-62 (Mass. 1985)). Nor need we reach the question of whether
the appropriate remedy in this case would be, as the petitioner
requests, to have a federal habeas court conduct an inquiry of the
state-court jury.
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