Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1026_2c83.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

Cite as:  586 U. S. ____ (2019) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

plained  why  this  would  be  “unfair”  and  ill  advised.    See 
ibid.; see also Rodriquez, 395 U. S., at 330.  Compounding
the  trouble,  defendants  would  be  asked  to  make  these 
showings  in  the  face  of  the  heightened  standards  and 
related  hurdles  that  attend  many  postconviction  proceed-
ings.  See, e.g., 28 U. S. C. §§2254, 2255; see also Brief for 
Idaho  Association  of  Criminal  Defense  Lawyers  et al.  as 
Amici Curiae 22–25. 

The Government’s proposal is also unworkable.  For one, 
it would be difficult and time consuming for a postconvic-
tion court to determine—perhaps years later—what appel-
late  claims  a  defendant  was  contemplating  at  the  time  of 
conviction.13    Moreover,  because  most  postconviction  peti-
tioners will be pro se, courts would regularly have to parse 
both (1) what claims a pro se defendant seeks to raise and 
(2) whether each plausibly invoked claim is subject to the 
defendant’s  appeal  waiver  (which  can  be  complex,  see 
supra,  at  4–6),  all  without  the  assistance  of  counseled 
briefing.  We are not persuaded that this would be a more
efficient  or  trustworthy  process  than  the  one  we  reaffirm
today.

The  more  administrable  and  workable  rule,  rather,  is 
the  one  compelled  by  our  precedent:  When  counsel’s  defi-
cient  performance  forfeits  an  appeal  that  a  defendant 
otherwise  would  have  taken,  the  defendant  gets  a  new 
opportunity to appeal.  That is the rule already in use in 8
of the 10 Federal Circuits to have considered the question, 
see  supra,  at  3,  and  n. 3,  and  neither  Idaho  nor  its  amici 
have  pointed  us  to  any  evidence  that  it  has  proved  un-
manageable there.14  That rule does no more than restore 

—————— 

13 To the extent relief would turn on what precisely a defendant said 
to counsel regarding specific claims, moreover, Garza rightly points out 
the  serious  risk  of  “causing  indigent  defendants  to  forfeit  their  rights 
simply because they did not know what words to use.”  Reply Brief 17. 

14 It is, of course, inevitable that some defendants under this rule will 
seek  to  raise  issues  that  are  within  the  scope  of  their  appeal  waivers.