Mccoy v. Louisiana
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 14, 2018 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- May 14, 2018
- Term
- October Term 2017
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. In Florida v. Nixon, 543 U.S. 175, 125 S.Ct. 551, 160 L.Ed.2d 565 (2004), this Court considered whether the Constitution bars defense counsel from conceding a capital defendant's guilt at trial "when [the] defendant, informed by counsel, neither consents nor objects," id., at 178, 125 S.Ct. 551. In that case, defense counsel had several times explained to the defendant a proposed guilt-phase concession strategy, but the defendant was unresponsive. Id., at 186, 125 S.Ct. 551. We held that when counsel confers with the defendant and the defendant remains silent, neither approving nor protesting counsel's proposed concession strategy, id., at 181, 125 S.Ct. 551, "[no] blanket rule demand[s] the defendant's explicit consent" to implementation of that strategy, id., at 192, 125 S.Ct. 551. In the case now before us, in contrast to Nixon, the defendant vociferously insisted that he did not engage in the charged acts and adamantly objected to any admission of guilt. App. 286-287, 505-506. Yet the trial court permitted counsel, at the guilt phase of a capital trial, to tell the jury the defendant "committed three murders.... [H]e's guilty." Id., at 509, 510. We hold that a defendant has the right to insist that counsel refrain from admitting guilt, even when counsel's experienced-based view is that confessing guilt offers the…
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