Q: In this task, you will be shown a prompt from a judicial decision and multiple holding statements derived from citations following text in a legal decision. Holdings represent the governing legal rule when the law is applied to a particular set of facts. There are five answer choices for each citing text. The correct answer is the holding statement that corresponds to the citing text. You should write an incorrect option. Even though there exist multiple wrong answers, we only need a single wrong answer. There is a <HOLDING> token in the position of the citing text prompt where the holding statement was extracted.
for the offenses on different days and under different cause numbers. Kennedy contends that, because the offenses were originally brought in the same indictment, they should have counted as one sentence for criminal-history purposes, but he fails to provide any legal authority either supporting his assertion or even addressing the district court's implicit determination that the offenses being originally charged in one indictment did not alter the result under the guideline provision governing whether prior sentences are counted separately or as a single sentence. Accordingly, Kennedy cannot demonstrate counsel's failure to object to the criminal-history calculation on prior felony offenses constituted deficient performance. E.g., McCoy v. Lynaugh, 874 F.2d 954, 968 (5th Cir.1989) (<HOLDING>). As for Kennedy's claim that counsel was
Holding statements: (A) holding that appellate counsel could not be found to have rendered ineffective assistance for failing to raise issues that are without merit (B) holding that counsel was not deficient in failing to present a meritless argument (C) holding that an attorney is not ineffective for failing to make a meritless objection (D) holding counsel was not deficient for declining to make a meritless argument (E) holding that counsel was not deficient for failing to make an objection that lacked merit
A:
holding that appellate counsel could not be found to have rendered ineffective assistance for failing to raise issues that are without merit