Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court decision that dealt with the effective assistance of counsel during a criminal trial.
Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), was a case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that an implied cause of action existed for an individual whose Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizures had been violated by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The victim of such a deprivation could sue for the violation of the Fourth Amendment itself despite the lack of any federal statute authorizing such a suit. The existence of a remedy for the violation was implied by the importance of the right violated.
In United States law, ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) is a claim raised by a convicted criminal defendant asserting that the defendant's legal counsel performed so ineffectively that it deprived the defendant of the constitutional right guaranteed by the Assistance of Counsel Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Ineffectiveness claims may only be brought where the defendant had the right to counsel, ordinarily during the critical stages of a prosecution.
Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458 (1938), was a United States Supreme Court case, in which the petitioner, Johnson, had been convicted in federal court of feloniously possessing, uttering, and passing counterfeit money in a trial where he had not been represented by an attorney but instead by himself. Johnson filed for habeas corpus relief, claiming that his Sixth Amendment right to counsel had been violated, but he was denied by both a federal district court and the court of appeals.
Stephen Hale Anderson is an inactive Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nineteen per curiam opinions during its 2009 term, which began on October 5, 2009, and concluded October 3, 2010.
Premo v. Moore, 562 U.S. 115 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the right of individuals to federal habeas corpus relief on state-law claims. In a unanimous ruling, the court held that habeas relief may not be granted with respect to any claim that a state-court has found on the merits unless the state-court decision denying relief involves an "unreasonable application" of "clearly established federal law, as determined by" the Court.
Reyes Mata v. Lynch, 576 U.S. 143 (2015), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the federal courts of appeals have jurisdiction to review the orders of the Board of Immigration Appeals to reject motions to reopen.
Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685 (2002), was a Supreme Court of the United States case that upheld a death sentence despite the defendant's argument that he should not be sentenced to death because he was suffering from drug-induced psychosis when he committed the crimes. Cone also argued that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to present sufficient mitigating evidence during the sentencing phase of his trial and that his attorney inappropriately waived his final argument during the sentencing phase. In an 8–1 opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the United States Supreme Court denied Cone's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The Court held that the actions taken by Cone's attorney during the sentencing phase were "tactical decisions" and that the state courts that denied Cone's appeals did not unreasonably apply clearly established law. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that Cone was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to "subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing."
Buck v. Davis, 580 U.S. ___ (2017), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court reversed the death sentence of the defendant Duane Buck after the defendant's attorney introduced evidence that suggested the defendant would be more likely to commit violent acts in the future because he was black.
Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S. 449 (2009), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a defendant was entitled to a hearing to determine whether prosecutors in his 1982 death penalty trial violated his right to due process by withholding exculpatory evidence. The defendant, Gary Cone, filed a petition for postconviction relief from a 1982 death sentence in which he argued that prosecutors violated his rights to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment by withholding police reports and witness statements that potentially could have shown that his drug addiction affected his behavior. In an opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court held that Cone was entitled to a hearing to determine whether the prosecution's failure to disclose exculpatory evidence violated Cone's right to due process; the Court noted that "the quantity and the quality of the suppressed evidence lends support to Cone’s position at trial that he habitually used excessive amounts of drugs, that his addiction affected his behavior during his crime spree". In 2016, Gary Cone died from natural causes while still sitting on Tennessee's death row.
Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court clarified the Sixth Amendment standard for reversing convictions due to ineffective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining. The Court ruled that when a lawyer's ineffective assistance leads to the rejection of a plea agreement, a defendant is entitled to relief if the outcome of the plea process would have been different with competent advice. In such cases, the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment requires the trial judge to exercise discretion to determine an appropriate remedy.
Garza v. Idaho, 586 U.S. ___, 139 S. Ct. 738 (2019), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the presumption of prejudice for Sixth Amendment purposes applies regardless of whether a defendant has waived the right to appeal.
Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (1986), was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that clarified the relationship of the right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment to other constitutional rights in criminal procedure. In this case, evidence against the defendant was probably seized illegally, violating the Fourth Amendment, but he lost the chance to argue that point due to his lawyer's ineffectiveness. The prosecution argued that the defendant's attempt to make a Sixth Amendment argument via a habeas corpus petition was really a way to sneak his procedurally defaulted Fourth Amendment claim in through the back door. The Court unanimously disagreed, and held that the Fourth Amendment issue and the Sixth Amendment issue represented different constitutional values, and had different requirements for prevailing in court, and therefore were to be treated separately by rules of procedure. Therefore, the habeas corpus petition could go forward. In its opinion, the Court also gave guidance on how to apply its decisions in Stone v. Powell and Strickland v. Washington.
Shinn v. Ramirez, 596 U.S. 366 (2022), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court related to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The court held that new evidence that was not in the state court's records, based on ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel, could not be used in an appeal to a federal court.
Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case about ineffective assistance of counsel claims which allowed a narrow exception to Coleman v. Thompson. Coleman said that inadequate post-conviction counsel is not cause to excuse procedural default for a state habeas claim that was filed late under the state's procedural rules. The Supreme Court may excuse a procedural default if state procedures do not allow at least one "full and fair" opportunity to litigate the constitutional claim. The narrow holding of Martinez excused procedural default caused by attorney error in "initial review collateral proceedings" where state law requires that ineffective assistance claims are raised in post-conviction proceedings and makes no provision for post-conviction counsel.
Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, is a 2011 United States Supreme Court case concerning evidentiary development in federal habeas corpus proceedings. Oral arguments in the case took place on November 9, 2010, and the Supreme Court issued its decision on April 4, 2011. The Supreme Court held 5–4 that only evidence originally presented before the state court in which the claim was originally adjudicated on the merits could be presented when raising a claim under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), and that evidence from a federal habeas court could not be presented in such proceedings. It also held that the convicted murderer Scott Pinholster, the respondent in the case, was not entitled to the habeas relief he had been granted by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Jae Lee v. United States, 582 U.S. ___ (2017), was a Supreme Court case in which the Court held that when a criminal defendant raises Sixth Amendment ineffective assistance of counsel claims, they only need to prove by reasonable probability that they were wrongly prejudiced by their counsel to accept a plea deal rather than go to trial. The Court specified that the issue did not arise from a possibility that the outcome of Lee's conviction would've been different had he gone to trial. The case was largely decided based on the landmark case Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).
Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465 (2007), was a United States Supreme Court case decided on May 14, 2007. In a 5–4 decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court held that the District Court had not abused its discretion when it refused to grant an evidentiary hearing to convicted murderer Jeffrey Timothy Landrigan who had instructed his defense counsel not to put on any mitigation case during the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. In doing so, the Supreme Court also reversed the prior ruling to the contrary by the en banc United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which had held that Landrigan was entitled to habeas relief on the grounds that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel. The latter court had also held that the District Court's denial of such a hearing to Landrigan amounted to an "unreasonable determination of the facts", which is one of the two circumstances under which the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 permits the granting of federal habeas relief to state prisoners.
Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000), was a United States Supreme Court case decided on April 18, 2000. It concerned a federal habeas corpus petition brought by convicted murderer Terry Williams, who alleged that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Supreme Court's prior decision in Strickland v. Washington. The Supreme Court's decision in this case was split across two majority opinions, one authored by John Paul Stevens and joined by five other justices, and the other authored by Sandra Day O'Connor and joined by four other justices.
