Opinion ID: 4536242
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: McCoy Sixth Amendment Violation

Text: Finally, Thomas contends Trial Counsel violated the Sixth Amendment by telling the jury, in his opening argument, that Thomas had killed the victims and was “going to the penitentiary.” Under McCoy v. Louisiana, Thomas explains, a criminal defendant has the right to veto his attorney’s decision to make such concessions at 8 Moreover, even if his argument were permissible, Thomas would also have to establish a probability that the trial court would have granted a motion to expand the jury pool. We doubt he could meet this burden. Trial Counsel did, in fact, move for an expanded jury pool, but was unable to provide demographic data supporting the argument until trial was underway. Yet the trial court recognized the force of the argument before denying the motion. See Thomas, 257 S.W.3d at 99 (“[T]he trial court did not err by denying [Thomas’s] motion to expand the jury pool.”). -15- trial. 138 S. Ct. at 1505. While Thomas’s federal habeas application alleged ineffective assistance and structural error based on Trial Counsel’s concessions, McCoy was not decided until after the district court denied relief on this claim. Thomas now asks us to revisit his concession-based claim in light of McCoy and order a hearing so he can prove Trial Counsel made concessions against his expressed wishes. The parties debate whether and to what extent Thomas raised this claim in state court, and in turn dispute whether we can order a hearing. Thomas raised a concession-based ineffective-assistance claim in his Rule 37 petition, and the Rule 37 court denied relief. Thomas did not appeal this decision. As such, if Thomas’s present claim is essentially the same claim as the one he raised in state court (even in light of the McCoy decision), we cannot order a hearing or grant relief. By failing to appeal the Rule 37 court’s decision, the claim is procedurally defaulted and cannot be excused under Trevino. Martinez, 566 U.S. at 16 (refusing to apply the Trevino rule to appeals from initial-review collateral proceedings). Moreover, the Rule 37 court’s adjudication of the concession-based ineffective-assistance claim on the merits — i.e., that Trial Counsel’s concessions did not violate Strickland — was reasonable and is therefore unreviewable. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) (forbidding federal habeas relief on claims reasonably adjudicated on the merits by a state court); see also Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34, 39 (2011) (explaining that the reasonableness of a state court’s legal analysis under § 2254(d)(1) is typically determined by the then-existing Supreme Court precedent); cf. Holder v. United States, 721 F.3d 979, 988–90 (8th Cir. 2013) (finding no Strickland violation when trial counsel strategically conceded “all-but-indisputable” act requirements). To avoid this result, Thomas says he never brought the present claim before the Rule 37 court in the first place. In his federal habeas application, Thomas explains, -16- he argued that Trial Counsel’s concessions constituted “structural error,” triggering a presumption of prejudice and a violation of the Sixth Amendment. It was precisely this kind of presumptively-prejudicial structural error that the Supreme Court would later identify in McCoy. 138 S. Ct. at 1511. But no such presumptively-prejudicial structural error (“McCoy-type claim”) was alleged in the initial Rule 37 petition. Rather, the Rule 37 petition simply accused Trial Counsel of violating Strickland when informing the jury that Thomas was guilty and was going to prison. The two claims, Thomas maintains, are different. And by failing to raise the McCoy-type claim in the Rule 37 petition, the McCoy-type claim was procedurally defaulted ab initio. Under Trevino, Thomas reminds us, postconviction counsel’s “ineffectiveness, if proved, establishes ‘cause for any procedural default [Thomas] may have committed in not presenting [this] claim[] to the [Arkansas] courts in the first instance.” Sasser, 735 F.3d at 853 (emphasis added) (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 444). A hearing is therefore necessary, Thomas argues, so he can establish cause for procedural default. But even if we assume many key premises of Thomas’s argument,9 he is not entitled to a hearing. Ultimately, for us to excuse procedural default, Thomas must show “actual prejudice.” See Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750. In other words, he must show a reasonable probability that, but for Rule 37 Counsel’s failure to raise the 9 We may assume, without deciding or commenting on the merits of, the following propositions: (1) Thomas’s present claim is legally and factually distinct from the one raised in state court; (2) Rule 37 Counsel fell below the constitutional standard of competence by failing to present this claim in state court; (3) a McCoytype claim does not require a showing of Strickland prejudice; (4) the restrictions on habeas hearings articulated in § 2254(e)(2) do not apply to Thomas’s present claim; and (5) Trial Counsel actually violated the principles articulated in McCoy by conceding guilt against Thomas’s expressed wishes. -17- McCoy-type claim in the Rule 37 petition, he would have been granted relief by the Rule 37 court. See Fischetti v. Johnson, 384 F.3d 140, 155 (3d Cir. 2004) (applying Strickland’s prejudice standard in a default-by-ineffective-assistance “actual prejudice” inquiry); Reed v. United States, 106 F.3d 231, 236 (8th Cir. 1997) (calling Strickland’s prejudice standard an “actual prejudice” standard); see also Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U.S. 333, 345 & n.13 (1992) (analogizing Coleman’s “actual prejudice” standard to Strickland’s prejudice standard). Thomas cannot meet this burden. At the time of the Rule 37 hearing, McCoy had not yet been decided.10 The leading case then was Florida v. Nixon, which held that trial counsel’s concessions do not constitute presumptively-prejudicial structural error when the defendant is indifferent about trial strategy. 543 U.S. 175, 179, 191 (2004) (“Counsel therefore may reasonably decide to focus on the trial’s penalty phase, at which time counsel’s mission is to persuade the trier that his client’s life should be spared.”); see also Malcom v. Houston, 518 F.3d 624, 627 (8th Cir. 2008) (explaining that we “rarely presume prejudice in ineffective assistance of counsel cases”). And, in Thomas’s case, Trial Counsel had notes from the eve of trial indicating that Thomas had no problem admitting he was guilty of “something but not capital murder.” It is highly unlikely that the Rule 37 court would have found Trial Counsel’s concessions one of the “rare” instances of presumptively-prejudicial structural error, especially in light the Supreme Court’s Nixon decision. See Malcom, 518 F.3d at 627. Rather, under Nixon, the Rule 37 court would not have presumed prejudice; it 10 Thomas does not argue that McCoy applies retroactively; he simply argues the principles underlying the McCoy decision were in place at the time of his trial and should be applied to his case. -18- would have applied the Stickland standard, which would require Thomas to establish both that Trial Counsel, by conceding guilt, fell below the constitutional standard of competence and that prejudice resulted. Nixon, 543 U.S. at 192 (requiring application of Strickland); see also State v. Fudge, 206 S.W.3d 850, 858 n.2 (Ark. 2005) (“There is no presumption of deficiency or prejudice under Strickland even to a concession of guilt on the capital-murder charge itself[.]”). And it is equally unlikely that the Rule 37 court would have found Trial Counsel’s concessions violated Strickland. After all, as the Rule 37 court held in Thomas’s similar (but purportedly distinct) concession-based ineffective-assistance claim, Trial Counsel’s decision to concede guilt was a tactical decision made in the face of overwhelming evidence, and was neither “grounds for finding counsel to be ineffective” nor prejudicial. We therefore do not find it likely that the Rule 37 court would have granted relief on the McCoytype claim. To summarize: Thomas’s McCoy-type claim is procedurally defaulted. We cannot excuse the default, because the default can only be excused if Thomas can establish a reasonable probability that relief would have been granted had Rule 37 Counsel raised the claim. Under the then-existing Nixon framework, it is not reasonably probable that relief would have been granted. So even if Thomas could prove Trial Counsel violated McCoy, he still would not be entitled to relief. As such, a federal hearing is not appropriate. Schriro, 550 U.S. at 474.