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Text: In August 2007, respondent Galin Frye was charged with driving with a revoked license. Frye had been convicted for that offense on three other occasions, so the State of Missouri charged him with a class D felony, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of four years. See Mo. Rev. Stat. §§302.321.2, 558.011.1(4) (2011).

On November 15, the prosecutor sent a letter to Frye’s counsel offering a choice of two plea bargains. App. 50. The prosecutor first offered to recommend a 3-year sentence if there was a guilty plea to the felony charge, without a recommendation regarding probation but with a recommendation that Frye serve 10 days in jail as socalled “shock” time. The second offer was to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor and, if Frye pleaded guilty to it, to recommend a 90-day sentence. The misdemeanor charge of driving with a revoked license carries a maximum term of imprisonment of one year. 311 S. W. 3d 350, 360 (Mo. App. 2010). The letter stated both offers would expire on December 28. Frye’s attorney did not advise Frye that the offers had been made. The offers expired. Id., at 356.

Frye’s preliminary hearing was scheduled for January 4, 2008. On December 30, 2007, less than a week before the hearing, Frye was again arrested for driving with a revoked license. App. 47–48, 311 S. W. 3d, at 352–353. At the January 4 hearing, Frye waived his right to a preliminary hearing on the charge arising from the August 2007 arrest. He pleaded not guilty at a subsequent arraignment but then changed his plea to guilty. There was no underlying plea agreement. App. 5, 13, 16. The state trial court accepted Frye’s guilty plea. Id., at 21. The prosecutor recommended a 3-year sentence, made no recommendation regarding probation, and requested 10 days shock time in jail. Id., at 22. The trial judge sentenced Frye to three years in prison. Id., at 21, 23.

Frye filed for postconviction relief in state court. Id., at 8, 25–29. He alleged his counsel’s failure to inform him of the prosecution’s plea offer denied him the effective assistance of counsel. At an evidentiary hearing, Frye testified he would have entered a guilty plea to the misdemeanor had he known about the offer. Id., at 34.

A state court denied the postconviction motion, id., at 52–57, but the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed, 311 S. W. 3d 350. It determined that Frye met both of the requirements for showing a Sixth Amendment violation under Strickland. First, the court determined Frye’s counsel’s performance was deficient because the “record is void of any evidence of any effort by trial counsel to communicate the Offer to Frye during the Offer window.” 311 S. W. 3d, at 355, 356 (emphasis deleted). The court next concluded Frye had shown his counsel’s deficient performance caused him prejudice because “Frye pled guilty to a felony instead of a misdemeanor and was subject to a maximum sentence of four years instead of one year.” Id., at 360.

To implement a remedy for the violation, the court deemed Frye’s guilty plea withdrawn and remanded to allow Frye either to insist on a trial or to plead guilty to any offense the prosecutor deemed it appropriate to charge. This Court granted certiorari. 562 U. S. ___ (2011).