Clark v. Chappell

Background

Richard Dean Clark was convicted of murdering and raping fifteen-year-old Rosie Grover in July 1985. The jury found three special circumstances true and later returned a death verdict. During post-conviction proceedings, Clark discovered that juror Frederick Barnes had consulted his minister during trial about the propriety of imposing the death penalty. Barnes stated that he explained his role and the facts of the case, that the minister said the death sentence was appropriate because the Bible says “an eye for an eye,” and that the minister’s advice was useful.

Barnes’s declaration was later challenged by a declaration from investigator Randall Wong. Wong stated that Barnes said he had not discussed the trial evidence with the minister, that he had asked only how the minister felt about the death penalty, and that the evidence—not the minister’s statement—was the main reason for his vote. Clark offered investigator Jeffrey Kim’s declaration, which described Barnes as saying that he had reviewed the facts with the minister and considered the minister’s assurance valuable.

Earlier in this case, the court granted the respondent summary judgment on the juror-misconduct claim without holding an evidentiary hearing. The court later denied a renewed request for a hearing and denied the claim on the merits. The Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded for application of the framework from Godoy v. Spearman, leaving the hearing and evidence questions for the district court.

Legal framework

Because Clark began this federal case before the 1996 federal habeas amendments took effect, the court applied the pre-amendment standards and reviewed the legal and mixed legal-factual questions independently. The court applied the two-step framework for improper outside contact with a juror described in Mattox, Remmer, and Godoy.

First, the court asks whether the contact was sufficiently improper and created a credible risk that it affected the verdict. If so, prejudice is presumed. Second, the respondent must present contrary evidence showing that the contact was harmless—that is, that there was no reasonable possibility that the communication influenced the verdict. The court may hold a hearing if the record leaves uncertainty about what happened, how it affected the juror, or whether it was harmful.

Evidentiary disputes

The court did not finally resolve Clark’s hearsay objection to the Wong declaration because, even assuming that declaration was admissible, it would not change the result. The court also discussed the rule limiting juror testimony about deliberations and mental processes. It concluded that the record’s admissible or unchallenged portions were sufficient for the ruling and that the challenged evidence would not materially change the outcome.

Guilt-phase verdict

The court found that Barnes’s consultation with his minister was sufficiently improper to proceed under the Godoy framework. But the court rejected Clark’s argument that the contact created presumptive prejudice to the guilt-phase verdict and the special-circumstance findings. The court distinguished the guilt phase, which concerns factual findings about guilt and the charged circumstances, from the penalty phase, which requires a separate moral judgment about whether death is appropriate.

The court reasoned that Barnes sought the minister’s opinion about the propriety of imposing the death penalty, not about whether the evidence proved Clark’s guilt or the special circumstances. On the present record, the court found no credible risk that the minister’s advice affected Barnes’s guilt-phase function as a juror.

Penalty-phase verdict

The respondent conceded that Barnes’s consultation was presumptively prejudicial to the penalty-phase verdict but argued that the record rebutted that presumption. The court disagreed. It concluded that the single consultation could be harmful, that the lack of evidence Barnes shared the minister’s advice with other jurors did not eliminate the risk of prejudice, and that Barnes’s prior statements supporting the death penalty could not rebut the presumption created by his later consultation.

The court also gave little weight to the portions of the Wong declaration that undermined Barnes’s sworn declaration because Barnes did not provide a later sworn statement explaining or retracting his earlier account. Even if the Wong declaration were admitted and credited, the court concluded that advice could have influenced Barnes’s vote without being the only or decisive reason for it.

Ruling and next steps

The court found that the current record established presumptive prejudice to the jury’s penalty-phase verdict and that the respondent had not shown the error was harmless. It concluded that Clark was entitled to habeas relief regarding his death sentence.

The court did not immediately enter final judgment or decide that an evidentiary hearing was required. Instead, it ordered the parties to file briefs by June 24, 2022, addressing whether a hearing or further factual development was necessary and effective and identifying the evidence they would seek to present. The court stated that any hearing would not be limited solely to whether the respondent could show harmlessness at the penalty phase; it would also consider any admissible new evidence Clark could produce concerning possible guilt-phase prejudice.