Court Opinion

ID: 9411957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-28 17:01:17.842631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:21.173638
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-13756   Document: 49-1    Date Filed: 07/28/2023   Page: 1 of 22

                                                           [PUBLISH]
                                 In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                         ____________________

                               No. 21-13756
                         ____________________

        BRANDON WASHINGTON,
                                                  Petitioner-Appellant,
        versus
        ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE
        OF ALABAMA,
        COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT
        OF CORRECTIONS,
        WARDEN, HOLMAN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY,

                                               Respondents-Appellees.

                         ____________________
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        2                           Opinion of the Court                 21-13756

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Northern District of Alabama
                      D.C. Docket No. 2:18-cv-01091-ACA-GMB
                              ____________________

        Before WILSON, JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges, and CONWAY,∗ District
        Judge.
        WILSON, Circuit Judge:
                Brandon Washington, an Alabama prisoner, appeals the dis-
        trict court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, ﬁled
        pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district judge granted a Certiﬁ-
        cate of Appealability (COA) on whether trial counsel provided in-
        eﬀective assistance for failing to convey to Washington a favorable
        plea oﬀer of thirty years’ imprisonment during his capital murder
        trial.
                We ﬁnd that Washington has shown by clear and convincing
        evidence that the state habeas court’s determinations that Wash-
        ington would not have accepted the plea oﬀer and that the state
        trial court would not have accepted an agreement between Wash-
        ington and the District Attorney were unreasonable. We also ﬁnd
        that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeal’s (ACCA’s) determina-
        tion that Washington received the plea oﬀer was unreasonable. Be-
        cause we ﬁnd that the state habeas court’s factual determinations
        were unreasonable, Washington has cleared the hurdle created by

        ∗ Honorable Anne C. Conway, United States District Judge for the Middle Dis-

        trict of Florida, sitting by designation.
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        21-13756               Opinion of the Court                         3

        the Antiterrorism and Eﬀective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 28
        U.S.C. § 2254 (AEDPA).
                Because Washington cleared the AEDPA hurdle, we could
        review his claim de novo, but we ﬁnd it is best for the district court
        to conduct an evidentiary hearing on Washington’s claim. Thus,
        we VACATE the district court’s denial of Washington’s habeas pe-
        tition and REMAND for an evidentiary hearing.
                                         I.
               First, we will review Washington’s criminal trial and direct
        appeals. Second, we will address Washington’s state habeas peti-
        tion. Last, we will review Washington’s federal habeas petition.
                                         A.
               Alabama indicted Washington for one count of capital mur-
        der for the robbery and killing of Justin Campbell, a worker at a
        local RadioShack. Alabama sought the death penalty. At the time,
        Washington was 18 years old and a freshman at Miles College.
              In January 2006, Washington proceeded to trial. After the
        lead detective testiﬁed, Deputy District Attorney (D.A.) Mike An-
        derton extended a mid-trial oﬀer of life with parole to Washington
        via Washington’s counsel, Emory Anthony. The trial court asked
        D.A. Anderton about that oﬀer and the outcome. The following
        exchanged occurred:
               MR. ANDERTON: Your Honor, prior to the begin-
               ning of the proceedings this morning, I saw Mr. An-
               thony and I have spoken with the family of Justin
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        4                     Opinion of the Court                 21-13756

              Campbell. We extended an oﬀer to Mr. Anthony on
              behalf of his client to allow Brandon Washington to
              plead guilty to the murder and receive a sentence of
              life in this case. It was -- it is my understanding that
              Mr. Anthony spoke to the Defendant and spoke to, I
              believe the Defendant’s grandmother, along with his
              co-counsel, Brandon Taylor, the four of them in a
              room, and Mr. Anthony has told me that Mr. Wash-
              ington does not wish to accept that oﬀer.

              MR. ANTHONY: And for the record, that is correct.

              THE COURT: And Mr. Anthony, do you believe
              you’ve had suﬃcient time to discuss the oﬀer with
              your client, and he understands it?

              MR. ANTHONY: Well, he understands, and that is
              why I brought his grandmother back in there. And
              you know, for the record, he is saying he didn’t do it.
              He is saying he is not guilty.

              THE COURT: He pleads not guilty?

              MR. ANTHONY: Right.

              THE COURT: Okay.

              The trial proceeded, and the jury found Washington guilty
        of capital murder. The jury recommended the death penalty,
        which the trial court accepted.
              Washington appealed. The ACCA overturned his death sen-
        tence and remanded the case to the trial court for resentencing,
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        21-13756                Opinion of the Court                           5

        ﬁnding it was plain error to sentence Washington without the ben-
        eﬁt of a presentence investigation report. Washington v. State, 106
        So. 3d 423, 432–35 (Ala. Crim. App. 2007). Again, the trial court
        imposed the death penalty. Washington again appealed. This time,
        the Alabama Supreme Court overturned his death sentence be-
        cause the trial court plainly erred by admitting improper victim-
        impact testimony. Ex parte Washington, 106 So. 3d 441, 447 (Ala.
        2011).
               In 2012, at the third sentencing, Alabama did not seek the
        death penalty, and Washington received a life sentence without the
        possibility of parole. The ACCA aﬃrmed.
                                          B.
               In 2013, Washington ﬁled his state habeas petition, alleging
        ineﬀective assistance of counsel claims under Strickland v. Washing-
        ton, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Alabama moved to dismiss, arguing that
        Washington’s trial counsel could not have been ineﬀective because
        D.A. Anderton was so impressed by their performance at trial that
        he oﬀered a second mid-trial plea deal of thirty years. But Wash-
        ington claimed that he did not receive the oﬀer. Although the trial
        record included the exchange between the state trial court, D.A.
        Anderton, and Anthony about the life oﬀer, there is nothing in the
        record about the thirty-year plea deal. As a result, Washington
        amended his petition to include trial counsel’s failure to communi-
        cate the plea deal in violation of Missouri v. Frye, 566 U.S. 134 (2012).
              Washington sought an evidentiary hearing on this issue. In
        support, Washington submitted an aﬃdavit from his grandmother,
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        6                       Opinion of the Court                    21-13756

        Amanda Washington, who adopted Washington when he was thir-
        teen years old and was paying for his criminal defense counsel. In
        the aﬃdavit, Amanda stated:
               3. During the trial, Mr. Anthony asked me to accom-
               pany him to a conference room oﬀ the courtroom to
               discuss with him and Brandon [Washington] a plea
               deal oﬀered by the district attorney. Mr. Anthony said
               that the district attorney had oﬀered Brandon a plea
               of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Bran-
               don did not want to accept the plea oﬀer of life and I
               did not attempt to persuade him to take the oﬀer.

               4. I recently learned from Brandon’s current lawyer
               that during the trial the district attorney extended
               Brandon a plea oﬀer through Mr. Anthony for 30
               years in prison. That is the ﬁrst time I had ever heard
               of a plea oﬀer for 30 years. I never heard Mr. Anthony
               mention any plea oﬀer other than life in prison. Based
               on my relationship with Brandon, I am conﬁdent that
               if any other oﬀer had been communicated to him, he
               would have told me about it.

               Washington moved to take Amanda’s deposition to preserve
        her statement because she was in poor health. The state habeas
        court 1 granted Washington’s motion unless the parties stipulated
        “for the Court to consider the content of [Amanda’s] Aﬃdavit as
        true.” The parties agreed to the stipulation that Amanda’s aﬃdavit

        1 The same judge presided over Washington’s criminal trial, all three sen-
        tencings, and state habeas proceedings.
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        21-13756              Opinion of the Court                          7

        is true. In light of Amanda’s aﬃdavit and the lack of discussion on
        the record about this other, mid-trial plea deal, the state habeas
        court ordered Anthony and D.A. Anderton to submit aﬃdavits ad-
        dressing whether Alabama extended the thirty-year plea deal dur-
        ing trial.
               D.A. Anderton submitted an aﬃdavit that said Anthony was
        eﬀective at representing Washington, which led to D.A. Anderton
        oﬀering a plea agreement “that involved a number of years.” D.A.
        Anderton could not “recall the number of years oﬀered, but recol-
        lect[ed] that the oﬀer was for a term of less than a life.”
               Anthony submitted an aﬃdavit that said D.A. Anderton
        “made an oﬀer of 30 years” and that Anthony “talked with Brandon
        Washington and his Grandmother, [but] Brandon refused to accept
        the plea oﬀer.”
              The state habeas court denied Washington’s petition and re-
        quest for an evidentiary hearing. The court acknowledged that
        Amanda’s aﬃdavit and Washington’s petition conﬂicted with An-
        thony’s and Anderton’s aﬃdavits. Despite this, the state habeas
        court noted that:
              [T]he record is clear that the Defendant, in the midst
              of being on trial in a capital murder case, wherein he
              faced a serious threat of conviction and the death pen-
              alty, refused an oﬀer of Life with the possibility of pa-
              role. In fact the record is clear, and it is this Court’s
              recollection, that the Defendant, standing in the open
              court with his attorney, the prosecutor, the victim’s
              family and the press, through his attorney, maintained
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        8                     Opinion of the Court                 21-13756

              his innocence to the charge. In fact, his position in
              rejecting the oﬀer of settlement, was that “he is say-
              ing he didn’t do it, he is saying he is not guilty.”

               The state habeas court also noted that there was no signiﬁ-
        cant diﬀerence between life with parole and a thirty-year sentence.
        But the court continued:
              Regardless of whether this oﬀer of 30 years was
              placed on the record, it is both Mr. Anderton’s and Mr.
              Anthony’s recollection, that any oﬀer of settlement
              for less than Life was communicated and rejected by
              the Defendant. Evidence of the Defendant’s position
              at that time, is made clear from the record in this case
              cited above. Therefore, this court does not ﬁnd that
              [Washington] has met his burden under Frye of show-
              ing a “reasonable probability” that the Defendant
              would have accepted a thirty year oﬀer, or that this
              Court would have accepted the plea agreement, after
              the Defendant had proclaimed his innocence in the
              open and very public courtroom. [Washington] has
              not proven counsel’s performance ineﬀective, or that,
              but for [counsel’s] performance, the result would have
              been diﬀerent under Strickland.

               Washington appealed to the ACCA. For Washington’s Frye
        claim, the ACCA found that:
              Thus, the circuit court resolved the disputed issue,
              i.e., whether a 30-year plea oﬀer was communicated
              to Washington, in the State’s favor. The circuit court
              also found, based on the aﬃdavits as well as its own
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        21-13756              Opinion of the Court                        9

              recollection of the proceedings, that there was not a
              reasonable probability that Washington would have
              accepted a 30-year plea oﬀer nor that [trial judge]
              would have approved it. Washington points to the
              fact that the parties stipulated to the truth of his
              grandmother’s aﬃdavit. However, Ms. Washington’s
              aﬃdavit stated that she “never heard Mr. Anthony
              mention any plea oﬀer other than for life in prison”
              and that based on her relationship with Washington,
              she was “conﬁdent” that he would have told her
              about any other plea oﬀers. Thus, her testimony does
              not rule out the possibility that Washington may have
              chosen not to tell her about the oﬀer.

                                  *     *      *

              The aﬃdavits of Mr. Anthony and Mr. Anderton,
              though contrary to Washington’s assertion in his pe-
              tition, constitute suﬃcient evidence on which the cir-
              cuit court could have based its ﬁndings, i.e., that de-
              fense counsel did in fact communicate a 30-year plea
              deal to Washington that he rejected. Further, the trial
              court did not ﬁnd Washington’s assertion that he
              would have accepted [] the plea deal to be credible.
              Thus, Washington failed to prove his claim that coun-
              sel rendered deﬁcient performance under Frye. A pe-
              titioner must meet both prongs of Strickland, i.e., de-
              ﬁcient performance and prejudice, in order to prove a
              claim that counsel was ineﬀective. Accordingly,
              Washington failed to meet his burden of proof and
              the trial court was correct to deny this claim.
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                  21-13756

        Ultimately, the ACCA aﬃrmed the state habeas court’s denial of
        Washington’s state habeas petition.
                                      C.
               Washington ﬁled his federal habeas petition in the Northern
        District of Alabama again alleging ineﬀective assistance of counsel
        based on his counsel’s failure to relay a thirty-year plea oﬀer to him.
        A magistrate judge recommended denying Washington’s petition
        on the merits, explaining that Washington failed to establish deﬁ-
        cient performance. Speciﬁcally, the magistrate judge found that
        “the ACCA had a reasonable justiﬁcation for concluding, as it did,
        that the aﬃdavits could be harmonized to ﬁnd that Anthony re-
        layed the 30-year oﬀer to” Washington. Washington timely ob-
        jected, raising a number of challenges.
               The district judge agreed with Washington on just one
        point—the magistrate judge should have addressed the Strickland
        prejudice prong—but ultimately found that the state court’s deter-
        mination on that prong was reasonable. Washington v. Marshall, No.
        2:18-CV-1091-ACA-GMB, 2021 WL 4409096, at *1 (N.D. Ala. Sept.
        27, 2021). In focusing on the prejudice prong, the district court ex-
        plained that the two factual determinations—that Washington
        would not have accepted the thirty-year oﬀer and that the state
        court would not have accepted the plea agreement—were reason-
        able. Id. at *4.
              But the district court granted Washington a COA on
        whether trial counsel provided ineﬀective assistance by failing to
        convey to Washington a favorable plea oﬀer of thirty years’
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        21-13756               Opinion of the Court                       11

        imprisonment during his capital murder trial. Id. at *5. Washing-
        ton timely appealed.
                                        II.
                Because the ACCA denied Washington’s ineﬀective assis-
        tance of counsel claims, our review is subject to AEDPA. See Lynch
        v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 776 F.3d 1209, 1217 (11th Cir. 2015).
               Under AEDPA, a federal court can grant relief to a state pris-
        oner only if he shows that the state court’s determination of his
        claim resulted in a decision that was (1) “contrary to, or involved
        an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as
        determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” or (2)
        “based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of
        the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C.
        § 2254(d)(1)–(2).
               Because Washington argues that the ACCA’s factual find-
        ings were unreasonable, we review only under § 2254(d)(2). A
        state habeas court’s findings of fact are presumed to be correct and
        the petitioner bears “the burden of rebutting the presumption of
        correctness by clear and convincing evidence.” Id. § 2254(e)(1).
        When determining whether a state court’s decision was based on
        an unreasonable determination of facts, we must focus on the par-
        ticular factual reasons for “why state courts rejected a state pris-
        oner’s federal claims, and to give appropriate deference to that de-
        cision.” Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1191–92 (2018) (internal
        citation omitted).
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                 21-13756

               “Even if the state court made a clearly erroneous factual de-
        termination, that doesn’t necessarily mean the state court’s ‘deci-
        sion’ was ‘based on’ an ‘unreasonable determination of the facts in
        light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.’” Pye
        v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 50 F.4th 1025, 1035 (11th Cir. 2022)
        (en banc). “Depending on the importance of the factual error to
        the state court’s ultimate decision, that decision might still be rea-
        sonable even if some of the state court’s individual factual ﬁndings
        were erroneous—so long as the decision, taken as a whole, doesn’t
        constitute an unreasonable determination of the facts and isn’t
        based on any such determination.” Id. (internal quotation marks
        omitted). “If reasonable minds reviewing the record might disa-
        gree about the [factual] ﬁnding in question, on habeas review that
        does not suﬃce to supersede the trial court’s determination.”
        Brumﬁeld v. Cain, 576 U.S. 305, 314 (2015) (cleaned up).
                                         III.
              Washington argues that the state habeas court made three
        unreasonable determinations of fact about his ineﬀective assistance
        of counsel claim.
               To succeed on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim,
        Washington must demonstrate: (1) that his lawyer rendered defi-
        cient performance, such that he “made errors so serious that coun-
        sel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed . . . by the Sixth
        Amendment,” and (2) that these errors prejudiced the defense,
        such that the “deficient conduct more likely than not altered the
        outcome in the case.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 693.
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        21-13756               Opinion of the Court                         13

               Washington claims that his counsel was ineﬀective for not
        informing him about D.A. Anderton’s mid-trial plea oﬀer.
        “[D]efense counsel has the duty to communicate formal oﬀers
        from the prosecution to accept a plea on terms and conditions that
        may be favorable to the accused.” Frye, 566 U.S. at 145. When an
        attorney fails to convey a plea agreement, the petitioner may be
        able to prove deﬁcient performance, thus satisfying the ﬁrst prong
        of Strickland. See id.
               To satisfy the prejudice prong of Strickland where counsel
        has failed to communicate a plea offer, the petitioner must show:
        (1) “a reasonable probability” that the petitioner would have ac-
        cepted the plea; (2) the prosecution would not have withdrawn or
        canceled the plea; (3) the trial court would have accepted the plea;
        and (4) as a result of accepting the plea, the ultimate conviction
        would have been for a lesser charge or sentence than what the pe-
        titioner received. Id. at 147; see also Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156,
        168 (2012).
               Addressing the prejudice prong, Washington argues that the
        state habeas court unreasonably concluded that because he re-
        jected the State’s first plea offer for life imprisonment and main-
        tained his innocence at trial, (1) he would not have accepted the
        thirty-year plea offer, and (2) the state trial court would not have
        accepted a thirty-year plea deal. And under the performance
        prong, Washington argues that the ACCA unreasonably concluded
        that Anthony communicated the thirty-year plea offer to him. We
        address each prong in the order Washington argued them.
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        14                    Opinion of the Court                21-13756

                                     A.     Prejudice
               The ACCA did not address the prejudice prong, so to con-
        duct our review we must look to the last reasoned state court deci-
        sion. See Wilson, 138 S. Ct. at 1192. The state habeas court’s deci-
        sion on this prong relied on two factual determinations. It ex-
        plained that Washington failed to show a reasonable probability
        that Washington “would have accepted a thirty year offer,” or that
        the state trial court “would have accepted the plea agreement, after
        [Washington] had proclaimed his innocence in the open and very
        public courtroom.”
                 In concluding that Washington proclaimed his innocence in
        an open and public courtroom, the state habeas court referenced a
        single excerpt in the record. There, without prompting by the
        court, D.A. Anderton told the court that he had extended an offer
        of life imprisonment to Anthony, who relayed that Washington did
        not want to accept that offer. Anthony then explained that was
        correct and stated that he had sufficient time to discuss the offer
        with Washington. Anthony further explained that Washington un-
        derstood the plea but said that “he didn’t do it. He is saying he is
        not guilty.” Washington did not say anything directly to the court.
               We are tasked with determining whether it was reasonable
        to conclude that Washington’s maintaining his innocence, through
        his attorney, automatically belied his claim that he would have
        taken the thirty-year plea offer. The Constitution affords all de-
        fendants—both at the state and federal levels—several rights dur-
        ing criminal prosecution, including requiring the prosecution to
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        21-13756               Opinion of the Court                         15

        prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See U.S. Const. amends. V,
        XIV; see also Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 485–86 (1978) (“[T]he
        Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment must be held
        to safeguard ‘against dilution of the principle that guilt is to be es-
        tablished by probative evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt.’”);
        In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 362 (1970) (collecting cases that show
        the Court “has long assumed that proof of a criminal charge be-
        yond a reasonable doubt is constitutionally required”). It is inap-
        propriate for courts to rely solely on a defendant’s assertion of this
        right when considering whether he would have accepted a plea of-
        fer.
                The Sixth Circuit, confronted with a similar situation, found
        that the petitioner’s “declarations of innocence do not prove . . .
        that he would not have accepted a guilty plea.” Griffin v. United
        States, 330 F.3d 733, 738 (6th Cir. 2003). In Griffin, the petitioner
        filed a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, arguing that he
        would have taken a plea agreement had one been communicated
        to him. Id. at 735. The government argued that even if the plea
        deal had been communicated, the record did not support that the
        petitioner would have taken the plea offer because of the peti-
        tioner’s many protestations of his innocence. Id. at 738. The Sixth
        Circuit disagreed. Id. The Sixth Circuit reasoned that
               Defendants must claim innocence right up to the
               point of accepting a guilty plea, or they would lose
               their ability to make any deal with the government.
               It does not make sense to say that a defendant must
               admit guilt prior to accepting a deal on a guilty plea.
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        16                     Opinion of the Court                 21-13756

              It therefore does not make sense to say that a defend-
              ant’s protestations of innocence belie his later claim
              that he would have accepted a guilty plea. Further-
              more, a defendant must be entitled to maintain his in-
              nocence throughout trial under the Fifth Amend-
              ment.

        Id. Considering the record, the Sixth Circuit determined that an
        evidentiary hearing was necessary to determine whether the peti-
        tioner would have accepted the plea oﬀer had he known about it.
        Id. at 739.
                We found the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning persuasive in Lalani
        v. United States, 315 F. App’x 858, 861 (11th Cir. 2009) (per curiam).
        There, the petitioners ﬁled a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C.
        § 2255, arguing that their trial counsel was ineﬀective for failing to
        secure a plea agreement, and that they would have taken a plea
        agreement despite their claims of innocence. Id. at 859. To deter-
        mine whether the petitioners made a viable Strickland claim, we re-
        lied on Griﬃn, which found it did “not make sense to say that a
        defendant’s protestations of innocence belie his later claim that he
        would have accepted a guilty plea.” Id. at 861 (quoting Griﬃn, 330
        F.3d at 738). As a result, we held that the petitioners’ claims of in-
        nocence did not prevent them from showing prejudice in support
        of ineﬀective assistance of counsel claims for failing to communi-
        cate a plea oﬀer. Id. Ultimately, we remanded to the district court
        to conduct an evidentiary hearing. Id. at 861–82.
              Like we found in Lalani, we ﬁnd the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning
        persuasive and formally adopt it here. A defendant has a right to
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        21-13756               Opinion of the Court                       17

        maintain his innocence without entirely jeopardizing his ability to
        later claim that he would have accepted a subsequent, uncommu-
        nicated plea oﬀer.
               We hold that when a petitioner states that he would have
        taken a plea oﬀer while maintaining his innocence, the state court
        cannot use that as the only factual determination to support a ﬁnd-
        ing that the petitioner failed to meet the prejudice prong of Strick-
        land. To be sure, those protestations of innocence are relevant to
        determining whether the petitioner would have accepted a plea of-
        fer and should be considered along with other facts, such as why
        the petitioner chose to reject other oﬀers and the discussions that
        petitioner had with his counsel about those oﬀers. As a result, this
        circumstance will often require an evidentiary hearing to consider
        those relevant facts.
               In ﬁnding that Washington would not have accepted the
        thirty-year plea oﬀer, the state habeas court also relied on its own
        assumption that Washington would not have accepted the thirty-
        year oﬀer because he had previously rejected a plea oﬀer of a sen-
        tence of life with the possibility of parole. Based on the state ha-
        beas court’s calculations—and without brieﬁng or input from the
        parties—the court determined that there was no signiﬁcant diﬀer-
        ence between a thirty-year sentence and a sentence of life with pa-
        role. This ﬁnding was unreasonable. There was no evidence in the
        record to support an inference that Washington, who was an eight-
        een-year-old college freshman at the time of his conviction, would
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        18                     Opinion of the Court                 21-13756

        have rejected a thirty-year plea oﬀer simply because he had previ-
        ously rejected an oﬀer of life in prison.
                With respect to the state habeas court’s ﬁnding that the state
        trial court would not have accepted the thirty-year plea deal be-
        cause Washington maintained his claim of innocence, this determi-
        nation, too, was unreasonable. To be sure, under Alabama law, it
        is within a state trial judge’s discretion whether to accept or reject
        a plea agreement between the prosecution and a defendant. See
        Ala. R. Crim. P. 14.3(b) (“[T]he court may accept or reject the agree-
        ment or may defer its decision as to acceptance or rejection until
        receipt of a presentence report.”). Here, though, the dispositive
        question is not whether this state habeas judge—who presided over
        Washington’s trial, three separate sentencings following two rever-
        sals by State appellate courts, and his post-conviction proceedings
        one decade later—would not have accepted the District Attorney’s
        thirty-year plea oﬀer. The question is whether a reasonable jurist
        would not have accepted a thirty-year deal extended by D.A. An-
        derton and agreed to by Washington. It was unreasonable for the
        state habeas judge to rely on Washington’s purported proclamation
        of innocence to determine, after the fact, that she would not have
        accepted the thirty-year deal at the time of trial.
               The state habeas court relied only on Washington’s earlier
        rejection of the life-with-parole plea oﬀer and Washington’s claim
        of innocence to support its ﬁndings that he would have also re-
        jected a thirty-year plea oﬀer and that the state trial court would
        not have accepted the plea. Because Washington was entitled to
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        21-13756               Opinion of the Court                        19

        maintain his innocence, this reasoning supporting the state habeas
        court’s determinations that neither Washington nor the state trial
        court would have accepted the plea oﬀer was unreasonable. The
        state habeas court’s ﬁnding that Washington’s rejection of the life-
        with-parole oﬀer indicated he would have also rejected the thirty-
        year oﬀer because the two sentences were not signiﬁcantly diﬀer-
        ent was also unreasonable because it was not supported by any ev-
        idence in the record.
                               B.     Deficient Performance
                The ACCA explained that despite the state habeas court hav-
        ing to take Amanda’s affidavit as true, the affidavits of Anthony and
        D.A. Anderton show that Washington was told about the thirty-
        year plea offer. Thus, the ACCA found that Washington had not
        shown deficient performance. Washington argues that this was an
        unreasonable determination of facts, and we agree.
                To start, there is very little information in the record about
        this thirty-year plea offer. We have D.A. Anderton’s affidavit es-
        tablishing that the plea offer was communicated to Anthony, and
        Anthony’s confirmation of that plea offer. Anthony then attests
        that he told Washington, who rejected the offer. Washington in
        his state habeas petition says he did not receive the plea offer. If
        these facts were all that we had to go on, our decision would be
        simple—the state court resolved conflicting accounts—and the
        question of deference would be straight forward. See Consalvo v.
        Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 664 F.3d 842, 845 (11th Cir. 2011) (per cu-
        riam) (“Determining the credibility of witnesses is the province and
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        20                     Opinion of the Court                 21-13756

        function of the state courts, not a federal court engaging in habeas
        review.”). But it is not all we have to go on. There is also the affi-
        davit from Washington’s grandmother, Amanda, which the parties
        agreed that the state habeas court should have taken as true.
                Because the parties agreed that the state habeas court should
        take Amanda’s affidavit as true, the court was not required to de-
        termine whether it believed Amanda over Anthony. Rather, the
        court had to accept Amanda’s affidavit as true, and that requires
        that the court resolve any inconsistences between her affidavit and
        Anthony’s in her favor. But the court did not do that. Instead, the
        court focused only on Anthony’s and Anderton’s affidavits to make
        its factual finding that Washington received and rejected the thirty-
        year plea offer.
                In reviewing the state habeas court’s holding, the ACCA fo-
        cused on the fact that Amanda’s affidavit did not “rule out the pos-
        sibility that Washington may not have chosen to tell her about the
        offer.” However, the ACCA’s reasoning misses the mark and, in
        fact, showcases that the affidavits truly contradict each other.
               As we noted above, Amanda’s affidavit said that she “never
        heard Mr. Anthony mention any plea offer other than life.” Doc.
        1-23 at 42. Now, this statement alone is not enough to show that
        the ACCA made an unreasonable determination about whether
        Washington told Amanda about the plea offer. But consider how
        this compares to Anthony’s affidavit, where he claimed that he
        “talked with Brandon Washington and his Grandmother” about
        the thirty-year plea offer. Anthony’s affidavit clearly indicates
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        21-13756                Opinion of the Court                         21

        that—if at all—he told Washington and Amanda together about the
        thirty-year plea offer. So whether Washington told Amanda about
        the plea offer separately is irrelevant. Anthony averred that he told
        Washington and Amanda, and Amanda—whose affidavit the state
        court was bound to consider as truthful—said she never heard an-
        ything about a thirty-year plea offer. Thus, the record does not
        support the ACCA’s factual finding that Amanda may not have
        heard about the plea deal simply because Washington may not
        have chosen to tell her.
               The ACCA used that finding alone to support its determina-
        tion that Anthony told Washington about the thirty-year plea offer.
        Because that factual determination is not supported by the record
        and is clearly erroneous, the ACCA’s determination that Washing-
        ton received the plea offer was unreasonable.
                                          IV.
                Because Washington has established that the state courts
        made unreasonable determinations of the facts, 28 U.S.C.
        § 2254(d)(2), he has overcome AEDPA deference. Thus, we must
        review de novo whether Washington has shown that his counsel
        was ineffective under Strickland. But we are reluctant to do so in
        the first instance for two reasons. First, as discussed above, Wash-
        ington’s protestations of innocence cannot be considered in a vac-
        uum but should be evaluated with his reasons for why he did not
        take the prior plea, why he would have taken the thirty-year plea,
        and any relevant information from Anthony. Second, even though
        Amanda’s affidavit is to be taken as true, there is very little evidence
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        22                     Opinion of the Court                21-13756

        from Anthony and Washington about this second plea offer. To
        properly consider Washington’s claim that he never received the
        thirty-year plea offer and he would have accepted it had Anthony
        communicated it with him, there needs to be factual development
        from Washington and Anthony about their attorney-client rela-
        tionship, their communication, and the thirty-year plea offer.
               Washington has repeatedly requested an evidentiary hear-
        ing, and in light of him clearing the AEDPA hurdle, he should be
        given an opportunity to present his evidence. See Madison v.
        Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 761 F.3d 1240, 1248–49 (11th Cir. 2014).
                                        V.
              We vacate the district court’s order denying Washington’s
        habeas petition and its order denying an evidentiary hearing. We
        remand this case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing and
        to consider Washington’s Strickland claim de novo.
              VACATED and REMANDED.