An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everyone Blind: Fields V. Brown and the Case for Keeping the Bible out of Capital Sentencing Deliberations

INTRODUCTION 369 I. TENSION BETWEEN THE SIXTH AMENDMENT AND RULE 606(B) 372 A. The Sixth Amendment Right to an Impartial Jury Trial 372 B. The Rule Against Juror Impeachment of a Verdict 373 C. Codifying the Law's Development Rule 606(b) 377 D. Confusion Following Rule 606(b): The Current State of the Rule Against Juror Impeachment of a Verdict. 379 II. WHY THE NINTH CIRCUIT WRONGLY DECIDED FIELDS V. BROWN 380 A A voiding Misconduct: The Fields Court 's Greatest Error 381 B. Flaws the Court's Reasoning 383 C. A Note on Biblical Notes 390 III. POLICY CONSIDERATIONS DEMONSTRATING THAT CONSULTING BIBLICAL MATERIALS CONSTITUTES MISCONDUCT 391 A. Eighth Amendment Requirement of Juror Responsibility 392 B. Eighth Amendment Requirement of Individualized Sentencing 393 C. Establishment Clause Violation in the Heart of the Jury Room 395 D. The Integrity of the Legal System 396 IV. BIBLE-INFLUENCED CAPITAL SENTENCING UNDER THE MODERN AEDPA STANDARD: A CALL FOR SUPREME COURT ACTION 397 CONCLUSION 399 INTRODUCTION While on parole from prison after serving a sentence manslaughter, Stevie Lamar Fields embarked on a three-week man crime wave1 that involved premeditated murder and the kidnapping, rape, and robbery of multiple victims California.2 On the afternoon that the penalty phase of Fields' s trial began, the jury deliberated a mere two hours and failed to reach a verdict.3 The jury's foreperson, Rodney White, returned home that evening and consulted his Bible guidance.4 Drawing from the Bible, White crafted a list of notes for and against the death penalty.5 When deliberations resumed the next morning, he shared the written notes from his evening of research with at least some of the other jurors.6 By three o'clock, the jury had reached a verdict authorizing the imposition of the death penalty.7 California appellate courts affirmed Fields's conviction and death sentence, but on collateral review, the Central District of California granted Fields's habeas corpus petition, which was based on a claim that the jury had improperly considered extrinsic evidence during its penalty phase deliberations.8 Ultimately, the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed the district court's judgment and affirmed Fields's conviction and death sentence.9 Fields's case is far from the first to involve jurors who seek guidance from the Bible during capital sentencing deliberations. In People v. Harlan, jurors imposed the death penalty after consulting a Bible, Bible index, and handwritten notes.10 Although the Colorado Supreme Court Harlan confronted facts strikingly similar to those Fields v. Brown, it upheld the trial court's decision to vacate the defendant's death sentence because there was a reasonable possibility that use of the Bible the jury room would have influenced a typical juror to reject a life sentence . In a similar Fourth Circuit case, Robinson v. Polk, when the jurors convened to determine Marcus Robinson's fate, one read aloud from the Bible, citing an an eye an effort to persuade the others to impose the death penalty. …