Marcus Wellons v. Hilton Hall, No. 07-13086 (11th Cir. 2010)
Annotate this CaseThis opinion or order relates to an opinion or order originally issued on January 5, 2009.
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[PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 07-13086 ________________________ FILED U.S. COURT OF APPEALS ELEVENTH CIRCUIT APRIL 19, 2010 D. C. Docket No. 01-01296-CV-WBH JOHN LEY CLERK MARCUS WELLONS, Petitioner-Appellant, versus HILTON HALL, Warden, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia _________________________ ON REMAND FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (April 19, 2010) Before TJOFLAT, BLACK and WILSON, Circuit Judges. WILSON, Circuit Judge: In this case, one or more jurors gave the judge and the bailiff tasteless and disturbing gifts. No court that has reviewed this case has been comfortable with these gifts.1 Yet, troubling facts do not automatically give rise to a legal claim. Articulating a rule that fairly addresses this scenario poses an uncommon challenge. The Supreme Court s opinion in this case, Wellons v. Hall, 558 U.S. ___, 130 S. Ct. 727 (2010) (per curiam), demonstrates that point. In view of the extraordinary circumstances of this case, and for the purposes of this case alone, we reverse the district judge s denial of discovery and an evidentiary hearing and remand this case for further proceedings that are consistent with the Supreme Court s opinion, as well as its opinion in Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S. ___, 129 S. Ct. 1769 (2009). The district court should grant discovery and conduct an evidentiary hearing as it sees fit, in keeping with its analysis of Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 107 S. Ct. 2739 (1987) and the related cases. REVERSED AND REMANDED. 1 The district court, for example, noted that the gifts demonstrated an unusual display of poor taste in the context of a proceeding so grave as a capital trial. Final Order 43. There is no basis to the Supreme Court s intimations that this Court or the district court failed to appreciate the seriousness of these proceedings.
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