By: Derek Hawkins//May 30, 2018//
United States Supreme Court
Case Name: McCoy v. Louisiana
Case No.: 16-8255
Focus: 6th Amendment Violation
In Florida v. Nixon, 543 U. S. 175 (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. 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. 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, “[no] blanket rule demand[s] the defendant’s explicit consent” to implementation of that strategy, id., at 192.
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 defendant the best chance to avoid the death penalty. Guaranteeing a defendant the right “to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence,” the Sixth Amendment so demands. With individual liberty—and, in capital cases, life—at stake, it is the defendant’s prerogative, not counsel’s, to decide on the objective of his defense: to admit guilt in the hope of gaining mercy at the sentencing stage, or to maintain his innocence, leaving it to the State to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Reversed and Remanded
Dissenting: ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS and GORSUCH, JJ., joined.
Concurring: