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Page Number: 5.0

2 

GARZA v. IDAHO 

Opinion of the Court 

that  he  wished  to  appeal.1    In  the  days  that  followed,  he  
would  later  attest,  Garza  “continuously  reminded”  his 
attorney  of  this  directive  “via  phone  calls  and  letters,” 
Record 210, and Garza’s trial counsel acknowledged in his
own affidavit that Garza had “told me he wanted to appeal 
the  sentence(s)  of  the  court,”  id.,  at  151.2   Garza’s  trial 
counsel, however, did not file a notice of appeal.  Instead, 
counsel “informed Mr. Garza that an appeal was problem-
atic  because  he  waived  his  right  to  appeal.”  Ibid.  The 
period of time for Garza’s appeal to be preserved came and 
went  with  no  notice  having  been  filed  on  Garza’s  behalf.
Roughly  four  months  after  sentencing,  Garza  sought 
postconviction  relief  in  Idaho  state  court.    As  relevant 
here, Garza alleged that his trial counsel rendered ineffec-
tive  assistance  by  failing  to  file  notices  of  appeal  despite 
Garza’s requests.  The Idaho trial court denied relief, and 
both  the  Idaho  Court  of  Appeals  and  the  Idaho  Supreme
Court affirmed that decision.  See 162 Idaho 791, 793, 405 
P. 3d  576,  578  (2017).    The  Idaho  Supreme  Court  ruled 
that Garza, given the appeal waivers, needed to show both 
deficient performance and resulting prejudice; it concluded 
that he could not.  See id., at 798, 405 P. 3d, at 583. 

In  ruling  that  Garza  needed  to  show  prejudice,  the
Idaho  Supreme  Court  acknowledged  that  it  was  aligning
itself with the minority position among courts.  For exam-

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1 The  record  suggests  that  Garza  may  have  been  confused  as  to 
whether  he  had  waived  his  appellate  rights  in  the  first  place.    See 
Record  97  (answering  “No”  on  a  court  advisory  form  asking  whether 
Garza  had  “waived  [his]  right  to  appeal  [his]  judgment  of  conviction 
and sentence as part of [his] plea agreement”); see also id., at 118, 121, 
132  (showing  that  Garza’s  sentencing  judge  and  judgments  of  convic-
tion provided, despite the appeal waiver, generalized notice of a “right 
to appeal”).  Because our ruling does not turn on these facts, we do not 
address them further. 

2 Garza’s  affidavit  states  that  he  wished  to  argue,  at  least  in  part, 
that  he  “was  persuaded  to  plead  guilty  by  [the]  prosecuting  attorney 
and [his] counsel which was not voluntarily [sic].”  Id., at 210.