Court Opinion

ID: 9856795
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:57:59.25534+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:40:39.094821
License: Public Domain

*21ERVIN, Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the result in part.
Although I concur in the Court’s conclusion that defendant is entitled to a new trial in the cases in which he was convicted of second degree murder based on his trial counsel’s unconsented-to concession of guilt to involuntary manslaughter and in the remainder of the Court’s opinion, I am unable to fully join in the logic by which the Court reaches its decision with respect to the “concession of guilt” issue. As a result, I concur in part and concur in the result in part.
As the record clearly shows, defendant’s trial counsel conceded his client’s guilt of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, driving while impaired, driving while license revoked, misdemeanor larceny, and misdemeanor possession of stolen property in his final argument to the jury.5 In making these concessions, defendant’s trial counsel argued that he did “not contest” the misdemeanor assault charges, so “you can go and make your decisions accordingly.” After arguing that the jury should not convict defendant of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, defendant’s trial counsel discussed the second degree murder charge and argued that “it’s not murder,” “[i]t’s Involuntary Manslaughter.”6 As a result, defendant’s trial counsel clearly conceded defendant’s guilt of involuntary manslaughter and both counts of assault with a deadly weapon in his concluding argument to the jury.
After all of the arguments of counsel had been completed, the prosecutor noted that “there were several charges that were either conceded or not contested by the defendant in the closing” and asked the trial court to inquire as to whether defendant had consented to those concessions. At that point, the following proceedings occurred:
THE COURT: [Defense Counsel], I believe you did concede DWI, Driving While License Revoked, Reckless Driving, and Misdemeanor Possession of Stolen Goods; is that correct?
*22[DEF COUNSEL]: That is correct, Your Honor.
THE COURT: So that’s on the record.
[PROSECUTOR]: Well, I think, Your Honor, what should be on the record is the defendant that he agreed for his attorney to do that.
THE COURT: Yes. Have the defendant stand up, please. Stand up here, Mr. Maready. Have you agreed that your attorney concede the — your guilt to Driving While Impaired, Driving While License Revoked, Reckless Driving, and Misdemeanor Possession of Stolen Goods?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: All right, thank you very much.
[PROSECUTOR]: Your Honor, I think there may actually be more one. I think—
THE DEFENDANT: Misdemeanor Larceny.
[PROSECUTOR]: Misdemeanor Larceny. And there might even be the Involuntary Manslaughter, I believe, at one point. Maybe I misunderstood that part of the argument, but I thought when he was arguing—
THE COURT: There was also Misdemeanor Larceny, that’s correct.
[DEF COUNSEL]:' Your Honor, I’ve argued that’s what he should be convicted of.
[PROSECUTOR]: Okay. Never mind then. I won’t go there.
Since the issue of the extent, if any, to which defendant consented to the concessions of guilt made by his trial counsel during closing arguments was not fully explored during defendant’s original trial, we remanded this case to the Durham County Superior Court for a further exploration of the consent issue.
As requested, the remand court took evidence and made findings of fact concerning the extent, if any, to which defendant and his trial counsel discussed the manner in which defendant’s trial counsel would argue defendant’s case to the jury and the extent to which *23defendant consented to the concessions which were made during his trial counsel’s closing argument. On the basis of the evidence received at this remand hearing, the trial court made the following findings of fact:
5. [Defendant’s trial counsel] met with the Defendant on numerous occasions for trial preparation.
6. There were numerous discussions and plea negotiations between the State and defense.
7. All plea negotiations failed and the matter was tried in April of 2006.
8. [Defendant’s trial counsel’s] primary trial strategy and goal was to focus on reducing the .second degree murder offense to some lesser offense.
9. The Defendant did not have any objections or questions about the trial strategy when it was discussed with [his trial counsel].
10. Faced with the overwhelming evidence of guilt to the lesser offenses, [Defendant’s trial counsel] sought to avoid offending the sensibilities of the jurors by denying that the lesser offenses occurred.
11. Prior to closing arguments, [Defendant’s trial counsel] informed the Defendant that he was going to concentrate his closing argument on the more serious offenses and admit the lesser offenses. This conversation occurred in the courtroom at the defense table after all the evidence had been heard and immediately prior to the arguments.
12. [Defendant’s trial counsel] informed the Defendant that he believed that the closing argument strategy was in the best interest of the Defendant.
13. The Defendant raised no questions and did not express any objections to [Defendant’s trial counsel] regarding [Defendant’s trial counsel’s] closing argument strategy prior to the argument being made.
14. After the closing argument the Defendant had no questions and did not raise any objections to [Defendant’s trial counsel] or the court about the concessions that were made in the closing argument.
*2415. After the closing arguments and outside the presence of the jury, counsel for the State requested that the trial judge conduct an inquiry with the Defendant regarding the concessions.
16. The trial judge asked the Defendant if he agreed to the concessions and he stated “Yes, sir.”
17. The Defendant expressed no objections to [Defendant’s trial counsel] about the concessions while the trial judge made inquiry of the Defendant.
18. At no time during, or after, the trial court’s inquiry of the Defendant did the Defendant express to [his trial counsel] that he did not understand what the trial court was asking him.
19. After the jury, returned verdicts of guilty to second degree murder; misdemeanor larceny; misdemeanor possession of stolen goods; assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury; two counts of assault with a deadly weapon; driving while impaired; driving while license revoked; careless and reckless driving; and felony eluding arrest, the court conducted a sentencing hearing.
20. At the sentencing hearing that was held on April 24, 2006 the Defendant executed a Transcript of Plea form in which he admitted aggravating and grossly aggravating factors which related to the Driving While Impaired conviction; that he was satisfied with his attorney and his legal services; and that he did not have any questions about anything that had just been said or about anything else involving his case.
21. At no time during the sentencing proceeding did the Defendant express any questions or objections to the concessions made by his counsel in the closing arguments.
In essence, the remand court found that, while defendant did not explicitly consent to all of the concessions that his trial counsel made during closing arguments, he was aware of and in general agreement with the strategy that his trial counsel followed throughout the trial,. including the strategy that his trial counsel employed during closing arguments. Based on this factual information, we are now required to determine whether the concessions made by defendant’s trial counsel during his final argument to the jury constituted ineffective assistance of counsel.
*25The Supreme Court has clearly indicated that the standards for determining whether a criminal defendant received constitutionally deficient representation are the same under both the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Sections 19 and 23 of the North Carolina Constitution. State v. Braswell, 312 N.C. 553, 562, 324 S.E.2d 241, 248 (1985) (stating that, while the defendant has “perhaps suggested] that the North Carolina test for ineffective assistance of counsel is separate from and less stringent than the standards for ineffective assistance of counsel under the federal constitution, as interpreted by Strickland v. Washington," 466 U.S. 668, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984), “[w]e disagree”). For that reason, despite the fact that this Court and the Supreme Court generally address ineffective assistance of counsel claims in Sixth Amendment terms, I believe that Braswell clearly indicates that such discussions implicate both federal and state constitutional protections.
At the time that the Supreme Court initially addressed the constitutional implications of a decision by a criminal defendant’s trial counsel to concede guilt of one or more of the offenses with which that defendant had been charged or of a lesser included offense, the United States Supreme Court had not had the occasion to directly address that issue. As a result, when it decided State v. Harbison, 315 N.C. 175, 337 S.E.2d 504 (1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1123, 90 L. Ed. 2d 672-73 (1986), the Supreme Court was writing on a relatively clean slate. In that case, the trial court found that defendant’s trial counsel argued to the jury in a non-capital first degree murder case that:
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I know some of you and have had dealings with some of you. I know that you want to leave here with a clear [conscience] and I want to leave here also with a clear [conscience]. I have my opinion as to what happened on that April night, and I don’t feel that [the defendant] should be found innocent. I think he should do some time to think about what he has done. I think you should find him guilty of manslaughter and not first degree.
Harbison, 315 N.C. at 177-78, 337 S.E.2d at 506. In analyzing the defendant’s ineffectiveness claim, the Supreme Court stated that the relevant test was the two-part inquiry enunciated in Braswell and Strickland. However, the Supreme Court pointed out that “there exist ‘circumstances that are so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified,’ ” *26such as cases in which “ ‘counsel was either totally absent or prevented from assisting the accused during a critical stage of the proceeding.’ ” Harbison, 315 N.C. at 179, 337 S.E.2d at 507 (quoting United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 659, ftn. 25, 80 L. Ed. 2d 657, 667, 668, ftn. 25 (1984).7 For that reason, the Supreme Court concluded that, “when counsel to the surprise of his client admits his client’s guilt, the harm is so likely and so apparent that the issue of prejudice need not be addressed.” Harbison, 315 N.C. at 180, 337 S.E.2d at 507. In addition, the Supreme Court noted that “[a] plea decision must be made exclusively by the defendant” and that, “[b]ecause of the gravity of the consequences, a decision to plead guilty must be made knowingly and voluntarily by the defendant after full appraisal of the consequences.” Harbison, 315 N.C. at 180, 337 S.E.2d at 507. Thus, the Supreme Court held that, “[w]hen counsel admits his client’s guilt without first obtaining the client’s consent,” “[t]he practical effect is the same as if counsel had entered a plea of guilty without the client’s consent.” Harbison, 315 N.C. at 180, 337 S.E.2d at 507. As a result, for these reasons, the Supreme Court held “that ineffective assistance of counsel, per se in violation of the Sixth Amendment, has been established in every criminal case in which the defendant’s counsel admits the defendant’s guilt to the jury without the defendant’s consent.” Harbison, 315 N.C. at 180, 337 S.E.2d at 507-08.
Almost two decades later, the United States Supreme Court addressed the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment implications of a decision by a criminal defendant’s trial counsel to admit his client’s guilt of a criminal offense without the client’s express consent in Florida v. Nixon, 543 U.S. 175, 160 L. Ed. 2d 565 (2004). In Nixon, the defendant’s trial counsel was faced with the daunting task of representing a defendant in a capital case in which the prosecution had a very strong case on the issue of guilt, leading the defendant’s trial counsel to conclude that his only hope of saving his client’s life was to concede his client’s guilt of first degree murder and to focus his efforts on the capital sentencing proceeding. Although the defendant’s trial counsel attempted to discuss this proposed strategy with his client on several occasions, the defendant would neither object nor consent to the recommended approach. As a result, the defendant’s *27trial counsel followed his preferred strategy at trial in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to save the defendant’s life. After the Florida Supreme Court granted the defendant a new trial on the grounds that the defendant’s trial counsel had provided him with constitutionally deficient representation in reliance on logic similar to that employed in Harbison,8 Nixon v. State, 857 So. 2d 172 (Fla. 2003), cert. granted, 540 U.S. 1217, 158 L. Ed. 2d 152, rev’d and remanded, 543 U.S. 175, 160 L. Ed. 2d 565 (2004), the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari “to resolve an important question of constitutional law, i.e., whether counsel’s failure to obtain the defendant’s express consent to a strategy of conceding guilt in a capital trial automatically renders counsel’s performance deficient, and whether counsel’s effectiveness should be evaluated under Cronic or Strickland." Nixon, 543 U.S. at 186, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 578.9 '
*28At the beginning of its analysis, the United States Supreme Court pointed out that “ [a]n attorney undoubtedly has a duty to consult with the client regarding ‘important decisions,’ including questions of overarching defense strategy;” Nixon, 543 U.S. at 187, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 578 (quoting Strickland,, 466 U.S. at 688, 80 L. Ed. 2d at 674; that counsel’s obligation to consult “does not require counsel to obtain the defendant’s consent to ‘every tactical decision;’ ” Nixon, 543 U.S. at 187, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 578 (quoting Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400, 417-18, 98 L. Ed. 2d 798, 816 (1988); and that “certain decisions regarding the exercise or waiver of basic trial rights are of such moment that they cannot be madé for the defendant by a surrogate,” including the right to plead guilty, waive a jury trial, testily on his or her own behalf, or note an appeal. Nixon, 543 U.S. at 187, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 578. After rejecting the equation between a concession of guilt and a guilty plea enunciated in Harbison, Nixon, 543 U.S. 189, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 579, and concluding that the defendant’s trial counsel’s “concession of [the defendant’s] guilt does not rank as a ‘fail[ure] to function in any meaningful sense as the Government’s adversary,” Nixon, 543 U.S. at 190, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 580, the United States Supreme Court concluded that, “in a capital case, counsel must consider in conjunction both the guilt and penalty-phases in determining how best to proceed;” that “[w]hen counsel informs the defendant of the strategy counsel believes to be in the defendant’s best interest and the defendant is unresponsive, counsel’s strategic choice is not impeded by any blanket rule demanding the defendant’s explicit consent;” and that, “[i]nstead, if counsel’s strategy, given the evidence bearing on the defendant’s guilt, satisfies the Strickland standard, that is the end of the matter,” since “no tenable claim of ineffective assistance of counsel would remain.” Nixon, 543 U.S. at 192, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 581. As a result, Nixon suggests that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments require a criminal defendant’s trial counsel to consult with him or her regarding matters of “overarching defense strategy,” to implement such strategic decisions upon which they are in agreement, to abide by the client’s wishes in instances in which they are unable to agree,10 and to adopt whatever approach he *29or she reasonably deems appropriate in the event that the defendant refuses to engage in such strategic discussions.
At this point, contrary to the Court, I do not believe that either this Court or the Supreme Court has directly and clearly addressed the extent, if any, to which Nixon has altered the approach that the North Carolina courts have traditionally taken to the concession of guilt issue.11 To be sure, as the Court notes, this issue has been alluded to on several occasions in opinions of the Supreme Court and this Court. For example, in State v. Al-Bayyinah, 359 N.C. 741, 757, 616 S.E.2d 500, 512 (2005), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1076, 165 L. Ed. 23 528 (2006), the Supreme Court stated that “the United States Supreme Court has found that whether or not a defendant expressly consented to counsel’s argument was not dispositive in finding ineffective assistance,” citing Nixon, while “this Court has held that the rule in” Harbison “precluding defense counsel from admitting a defendant’s guilt to the jury without the defendant’s consent does not apply to sentencing hearings.” See State v. Walls, 342 N.C. 1, 57, 463 S.E.2d 738, 768 (1995), cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1197, 134 L. Ed. 2d 794 (1996). Similarly, we noted in State v. Randle, 167 N.C. App. 547, 550, ftn. 1, 605 S.E.2d 692, 694, ftn. 1 (2004), in the course of addressing a Harbison claim, that “the United States Supreme Court has recently discussed whether a concession of guilt by defense counsel consti*30tutes ineffective assistance of counsel per se,” citing Nixon. Finally, this Court has discussed the interrelationship of Harbison and Nixon in at least one unpublished opinion. State v. LeGrand, 2006 N.C. App. LEXIS 2465 (2006) (noting that Nixon was decided after Harbison and concluding “that the trial court’s failure to document defendant’s express consent to defense counsel’s admission that he had a prior felony conviction does not require us to find that defense counsel was per se ineffective” and “that defense counsel’s strategy, to admit to the jury that defendant was guilty of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, while asserting self-defense, was not unreasonable”). However, to the best of my knowledge, neither this Court nor the Supreme Court has directly addressed and resolved the issue of the continued viability of the “express consent” rule enunciated in Harbison in the aftermath of Nixon.
After a careful review of the foundational decisions relating to ineffective assistance of counsel issues in this jurisdiction, I am inclined to believe that the test enunciated iri Nixon has, to the extent that it is inconsistent with the test enunciated in Harbison, superseded it.12 I reach this conclusion primarily because I believe, as the Supreme Court stated in Braswell, that there is no difference between the tests to be applied in identifying the presence of ineffective assistance of counsel under the federal and state constitutions in the North Carolina courts. A careful examination of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Harbison makes it abundantly clear that the Court believed that it was deciding that case under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.13 The clear implication of the Supreme *31Court’s decision to adopt a unitary federal-state ineffectiveness standard in Braswell is that, when the United States Supreme Court addresses an ineffectiveness issue under the Sixth Amendment, its decision is controlling under both the federal and state constitutions.14 As a result, since the United States Supreme Court has now addressed the “concession of guilt” issue for Sixth Amendment purposes, I am inclined to believe that the approach to that issue enunciated in Nixon is, to the extent that it differs from the approach enunciated in Harbison, controlling.15 However, since Nixon emphasizes the need for counsel to consult with his or her client about significant questions of “overarching defense strategy” and since conceding guilt to one or more offenses during final argument is, without question, an exceedingly important strategic question, I do not believe that we need to definitively resolve the issue of whether Nixon works a significant change in the analysis required by Harbison in order to decide this case.16
Aside from the fact that the only “concession of guilt” issues that are properly before us relate to defendant’s convictions for second degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon, the record developed at trial demonstrates that defendant expressed consent to his trial counsel’s decision to concede guilt to driving while impaired, *32driving while license revoked, reckless driving, and misdemeanor possession of stolen goods17 in the immediate aftermath of the closing arguments.18 In addition, defendant’s injection of a reference to misdemeanor larceny, taken in context, amounts to acceptance of his trial counsel’s concession of guilt to that offense as well. Although defendant testified at the hearing on remand that he did not understand what the trial court meant by “concession” and that he specifically objected to his trial counsel’s concessions immediately after the conclusion of his closing argument, the remand court did not adopt this testimony in its findings of fact. Given that the remand court had an opportunity to evaluate the defendant’s demeanor and given that other components of defendant’s testimony were of questionable credibility,19 the remand court had ample basis for declining to accept defendant’s testimony to this effect. We have expressly held such after-the-fact expressions of consent to be sufficient compliance with Harbison, State v. Johnson, 161 N.C. App. 68, 76-78, 587 S.E.2d 445, 451 (2003), disc. review denied and appeal dismissed, 358 N.C. 239 (2004), and I see no reason why they should be deemed ineffective under Nixon. As a result, aside from the fact that this issue is not properly before us, I conclude that the record adequately reflects that defendant consented to his trial counsel’s decision to concede his guilt of driving while impaired, driving while license revoked, reckless driving, and misdemeanor larceny.
The same cannot be said, however, of the decision by defendant’s trial counsel to concede his client’s guilt of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Although the involuntary manslaughter concession was mentioned during the post-argument colloquy between the trial court, counsel, and defendant, defendant never indicated his consent to his trial counsel’s *33decision to concede defendant’s guilt of that offense at that time. Instead, the most that can be said is that the prosecutor mentioned that concession in defendant’s presence without any response from defendant. Although the record developed at the remand hearing reflects that defendant and his trial counsel had discussed issues of trial strategy prior to trial and that both defendant and his trial counsel were aware of the strength of the State’s evidence, defendant’s trial counsel admitted during the remand hearing that the defense had not conceded defendant’s guilt of anything during the evidentiary portion of the trial. Furthermore, despite the fact that defendant’s trial counsel did speak with defendant about the nature of the argument which he planned to make before he began speaking to the jury in very general terms,20 it is clear from the record that they had not discussed the possibility that defendant’s trial counsel would concede defendant’s guilt of any specific offense in his closing argument at any time before that point. In addition, the record does not contain any indication that defendant refused to consult with his trial counsel about fundamental questions of trial strategy or tactics prior to or during the trial. Had defendant simply refused to engage in such discussions, Nixon might permit me to vote to uphold defendant’s convictions for second degree murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon in the event that such an outcome was otherwise appropriate under a traditional Strickland analysis. In this instance, however, the record reflects that defendant’s trial counsel did not broach the subject of how to handle the final argument to the jury until immediately prior to the time when the parties made their summations, when defendant did not have sufficient time to discuss this subject with his trial counsel,21 and that defendant did not ratify his trial counsel’s concessions in his subsequent colloquy with the trial court. As a result, despite the fact that defendant did not, according to the findings of fact made at the remand hearing, respond to his *34counsel’s statement that he was going to concede guilt of certain offenses during his closing argument, I do not believe that a “non-response” under this set of circumstances is what the United States Supreme Court had in mind when it found the representation at issue in Nixon to be constitutionally adequate. Thus, I conclude that, in light of my understanding of Nixon, defendant’s trial counsel did not adequately consult with him prior to conceding his guilt of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon; that the record does not adequately reflect that defendant would have been uncooperative had such consultation been attempted; that defendant did not provide any “after the fact” consent to the making of these concessions;22 and that the absence of consent to the making of these concessions deprived defendant of the effective assistance of counsel guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution as interpreted in Nixon.
Furthermore, given that the Court, with my concurrence, has already decided that defendant is entitled to a new trial in the cases in which he has been convicted of two counts of assault with a deadly weapon because of an instructional error, I need not address the extent to which the unconsented-to concession of guilt justifies an award of a new trial in those cases under Nixon. In addition, given that defendant’s trial counsel put his principal emphasis on persuading the jury to refrain from convicting defendant of second degree murder and given that the principal difference between second degree murder and the lesser included offenses that were submitted for the jury’s consideration revolved around the existence of the required mens rea, an element that is difficult to reduce to a quantifiable set of facts, I also conclude that defendant would be entitled to a new trial in the homicide case even if the traditional Strickland prejudice standard applies under Nixon.23 As a result, given my ulti*35mate conclusion that we do not need to address the issue of whether Nixon applies in lieu of Harbison in cases involving concession of guilt issues on this set of facts, I concur in the Court’s conclusion that defendant is entitled to a new trial in the cases in which he was convicted of second degree murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon without adopting all of its logic. Thus, I concur in the Court’s decision in part and concur in the result in part.

. As the Court notes, an extensive discussion of the facts of this case can be found in the earlier opinions of this Corut and the Supreme Court in State v. Maready, 188 N.C. App. 169, 654 S.E.2d 769 (2008), and State v. Maready, 362 N.C. 614, 669 S.E.2d 564 (2008).

. In addition, defendant’s trial counsel suggested at one point in his summation that defendant was also guilty of misdemeanor death by vehicle, another lesser included offense of second degree murder.

. As examples, the Harbison Court cited situations such as when the defendant’s trial counsel is not allowed to make a closing argument, Geders v. United States, 425 U.S. 80, 47 L. Ed. 2d 592 (1975), or when the defendant’s counsel labors under an actual conflict of interest. Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335, 64 L. Ed. 2d 333 (1980). Harbison, 315 N.C. at 179, 337 S.E.2d at 507.

. In fact, the Florida Supreme Court cited Harbison in deciding to remand the defendant’s case for an evidentiary hearing on the consent issue in Nixon v. State, 758 So. 2d 618, 625 (2000), overruled by Philmore v. State, 937 So. 2d 578.

. The Court treats Nixon as irrelevant to the present case on the grounds, at least in part, that the principles enunciated in that decision are only applicable in capital cases. Although there is no question but that Nixon itself was a capital case, that the capital nature of the case itself was referenced in the question posed by the United States Supreme Court in granting certiorari, and that the factual context against which the United States Supreme Court addressed the issues under consideration there affected the Court’s analysis, I do not believe that the principles discussed in Nixon have no application outside the capital context. In fact, as the majority notes, Nixon discusses the fact that “such a concession in a run-of-the-mine trial might present a closer question” than it does in the capital context. Nixon, 543 U.S. 190, 160 L. Ed. 2d at 580. In addition, the United States Supreme Court has clearly held that the same principles govern ineffectiveness claims in capital and non-capital cases. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 686-87, 80 L. Ed. 2d at 693. Finally, Nixon has been cited repeatedly in non-capital cases, see Valenzuela v. United States, 217 Fed. App. 486, 490 (2007) (citing Nixon in § 2255 proceeding arising from federal drug conspiracy case); United States v. Thomas, 417 F.3d 1053, 1057-58, cert. denied, 546 U.S. 1121, 163 L. Ed. 2d 909 (2006) (9th Cir. 2005) (citing Nixon in § 2255 proceeding arising from federal bank robbery convictions); D’Agostino v. Budge, 163 Fed. Appx. 456, 457 (9th Cir. 2005), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 148, 164 L. Ed. 2d 815 (2006) (citing Nixon in § 2254 proceeding arising from state larceny and arson charges); Pennsylvania v. Cousin, 585 Pa. 287, 305-06, 888 A.2d 710, 721-22 (2005) (stating that, while Nixon was a capital case, “it does not follow that the Court’s holding in that case was meant to apply only in death penalty cases, particularly as the specific justification for the attorney’s chosen strategy was not central to the [Nixon] Court’s conclusion that counsel’s course of action should be tested by reference to the actual prejudice standard of Strickland”), although other courts have reached a conclusion consistent with that reached by the Court here. See People v. Bergerud, 223 P.3d 686, 699-700, ftn. 11 (2010) (finding Nixon inapplicable in a somewhat different factual situation because “the death penalty has been abandoned by the prosecution and the defendant explicitly objected to counsel’s actions on his behalf’). As a result, I am not persuaded that Nixon is only relevant in the capital context.

. “The full impact of Nixon upon the legal guarantee of effective assistance of counsel is still unclear,” S Scudder, “Comment: With Friends Like You, Who Needs a Jury? A Response to the Legitimization of Conceding a Client’s Guilt,” 29 Campbell Law Review 137, 164 (2006). However, at least two principal approaches appear to have developed in the decisions that have been rendered in reliance on Nixon. On the one hand, a number of decisions have applied the traditional Strickland standard to concession of guilt issues without giving any apparent weight to the extent to which the defendant’s trial counsel consulted with the defendant. See United States v. Jones, *29482 F.3d 60, 76-78 (5th Cir. 2006); Cousin, 585 Pa. at 308, 888 A.2d at 724. Conversely, other courts have emphasized Nixon’s reference to the “duty to consult” language found in Strickland and have adopted an approach similar to that set forth in the text. See Valenzuela, 217 Fed. Appx. at 490 (stating that the duty to consult “may include obtaining a client’s consent to certain strategies” while noting that “Valenzuela has not introduced any evidence that Gold did not seek Valenzuela’s consent or did not consult with Valenzuela about defense strategy”); Cooke v. State, 977 A.2d 803, 840-53 (Del. 2009) (holding, in an opinion couched as a finding that Nixon was inapplicable, that trial counsel were ineffective for pursuing a guilty but mentally ill verdict in opposition to defendant’s insistence upon the pursuit of a not guilty verdict). The United States Supreme Court has yet to address the manner in which Nixon should be applied in cases, such as this one, in which a defendant’s trial counsel failed to consult with the defendant about the use of a concession of guilt as a trial strategy. However, given the emphasis upon the duty to consult found in Nixon and the Court’s emphasis upon the defendant’s failure to respond to his trial counsel’s efforts to obtain consent in its analysis in Nixon, I believe that the better reading of Nixon is one that requires a defendant’s trial counsel to consult with the defendant about the use of a concession of guilt strategy and to make reasonable efforts to obtain the defendant’s consent.

. I feel compelled to mention and discuss Nixon because both the remand court and the State in its supplemental brief appear to rely on Nixon in urging us to find that no Sixth Amendment violation occurred in this case and because, once Nixon has been introduced into the discussion in this case, I find myself unable to agree with the Court’s treatment of that decision.

. The Court concludes that, since the Supreme Court and this Court have continued to apply the analysis required by Harbison even after the United States Supreme Court decided Nixon, we would be violating the fundamental principles that we are bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court, Cannon v. Miller, 313 N.C. 324, 327 S.E.2d 888 (1985), and our own prior decisions, In re Civil Penalty, 324 N.C. 373, 384, 379 S.E.2d 30, 37 (1989), in the event that we were to conclude that Nixon in any way impinged upon Harbison. However, since neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has directly addressed the impact of Nixon on Harbison and since the Supreme Court in Braswell clearly indicated that the same ineffectiveness standards applied under both the federal and state constitutions, I do not believe that we are required to ignore Nixon for purposes of deciding this case in the event that we were to conclude that it is otherwise relevant.

. The Court correctly notes that a state may, if it chooses, establish greater protections under its own constitution than are available under the United States Constitution and suggests that Harbison reflects such an exercise of state authority. The fundamental problem with this argument is that nothing in Harbison or its progeny suggests that the Supreme Court was exercising its authority to act in that manner when it decided Harbison. Instead, as I have already noted, Harbison was decided under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and makes no reference to any provision of the North Carolina Constitution.

. Such a unitary standard does not, needless to say, apply in all instánces involving similar provisions of the federal and state constitutions. State v. Carter, 322 N.C. 709, 713, 370 S.E.2d 553, 555 (1988).

. The case for treating Nixon as at least somewhat inconsistent with Harbison is particularly persuasive to me given that Nixon rejects two of the fundamental propositions on which Harbison rests, i.e., that an unconsented-to concession of guilt is tantamount to a plea of guilty and that such a concession of guilt constitutes a failure on the part of defense counsel to perform the required adversarial testing of the prosecutor’s case.

. At this point, in the absence of further guidance from the United States Supreme Court or our Supreme Court, I believe that Nixon would allow an attorney to make a tactically justified concession of guilt in the event that his or her client refused to either agree or disagree to his or her request for authorization to make such a concession without fear of being found to be constitutionally ineffective. Beyond that, however, it is not clear to me that Nixon requires a dramatic change in existing North Carolina constitutional jurisprudence, given its emphasis upon the importance of attorney-client consultation about crucial strategic issues and the fact that defense counsel are bound by their client’s instructions with respect to fundamentally important strategic issues. Since the present case does not appear to involve a situation in which the client refused to consult with his or her attorney concerning the strategic wisdom of conceding guilt of certain offenses during closing argument and since we have awarded defendant a new trial in the misdemeanor assault cases on other grounds, I do not believe that we need to directly address the extent to which Nixon requires a new approach to the “concession” issue in North Carolina in order to resolve this case.

. In view of the fact that the trial court arrested judgment in the misdemeanor possession of stolen property case, defendant has not pursued a challenge to the decision of his trial counsel to concede his guilt of that offense on appeal.

. The remand court found that defendant agreed with the concessions that his trial counsel made during his closing argument during the post-argument colloquy, which suggests that the remand court believed that defendant had approved of all of his counsel’s concessions. However, to the extent that this finding represents a determination to that effect by the remand court, it lacks adequate evidentiary support, since the transcript of that colloquy clearly indicates that defendant only expressed approval of some, but not all, of the concessions of guilt made during his trial counsel’s final argument. As a result, this particular factual finding lacks adequate evidentiary support.

. For example, defendant denied having consumed any alcohol on the date of the incident from which the present charges resulted.

. The record developed at the hearing on remand does not suggest that defendant’s trial counsel told defendant of the exact concessions that he planned to make in advance of summation or that he asked defendant’s authorization to make these concessions in the conversation which he had with defendant immediately prior to the beginning of his closing argument. Instead, the record simply reflects that defendant’s trial counsel merely told defendant in very general terms what he was going to do.

. The fact that defendant’s trial counsel adopted a “primary strategy and goal [of] focus[ing] on reducing the second degree murder offense to lesser offense” and that defendant “did not have any objections or questions about the trial strategy when it was discussed with” his trial counsel is not tantamount to an agreement that it would be appropriate for defendant’s trial counsel to concede defendant’s guilt of a series of specific offenses during his closing argument to the jury.

. Although the trial court found at the remand hearing that defendant did not tell his trial counsel or the trial court that he had any objections to the manner in which his case had been argued to the jury and that defendant expressed satisfaction with his lawyer at the time that “he admitted aggravating and grossly aggravating factors” relating to his driving while impaired convictions, I am not comfortable concluding that the absence of such objections is tantamount to consent given the difficulty of “unringing the bell” at the time that the “non-objections” to which the remand court points occurred.

. Since Nixon does not address a situation in which a defendant’s trial counsel concedes guilt without making an adequate attempt to consult with his client, the Supreme Court has not addressed the prejudice standard which should be applied in such instances. At least one state court has concluded that the Cronic automatic prejudice standard should be applied in such instances. Cooke, 977 A.2d 855.